I hope it is ok to reopen this thread after a break of 3 years but I'm hoping for some advice in signalling my GWR Flight of Fancy?
Like many that have gone before, there has been a lack of proper forethought and the layout is what it is. Installing two traps after the layout was ballasted was bad enough and that was just a straight replacement.
It is an O gauge layout, based around the early 30's. I tried from the onset to make operating it interesting but with only 14 feet to play with there had to be compromises, hence the use of two double slips. As it is, the loop has just enough room for a loco to run round two coaches or to hold 6 wagons and a guards van. Slightly more if I use the main platform and reverse into the cattle dock/headshunt but then the length of the fiddle yard becomes the limiting factor.
Another confession, I do like signals and interlocking. I have just completed a 25 lever frame using the Howard Bolton/Scalefour designed frets and have the associated interlocking ready. But I don't want to start on the tappets until I know that the signalling is more or less ok. And then of course there is the locking table to do!
Can you have too many signals?
One of my aims is to include as many different types of wooden post signals as could be deemed appropriate. For example, a Bracket Signal instead of two starters (same size arms and same height dolls), a 3 way Route Indicator for the Home Signal (Bay, Main & Loop) and an Advanced Starter above a Shunt Signal. All are kits bought from either MSE or Scale Signal Supplies with Modelu accessories.
But I have issues!
1. Signalling the exit from the loop and the goods yard is giving me a problem, along with the same route in the opposite direction. I would like to install a Goods Line ringed arm signal (or should that be a siding signal) but with limited clearances around the points in the throat, I think the only place available would be just off the loop, between 17A and 17B rather than on the loop between 9A and 17A.
2. Should I signal the routes from either platform to the cattle dock/headshunt or can the starters be used?
3. I understand that the GWR treated double slips as compound points using 3 levers. There is example on the Kidderminster signal box diagram which has helped me understand the principle but I'm struggling to work out the FPLs. Ignoring the route to the cattle dock, four facing point locks seems a bit excessive. Is that correct and which points should they be associated with? It could mean running short of levers so the goods yard compound will have to be a 2 lever one.
4. Hopefully, after all of the above, there may still be a lever left for a Disc Signal or two, including perhaps a white light . It would be nice to operate the layout from just one panel which may mean I might have to use point indicators for the loco release and headshunt trap instead of levers.
I know it's a lot to ask but does this Flight of Fancy have wings or should I stick with a single starter á la Ashburton?
Many thanks.