Harlequin

Deleted. Never mind. I didn’t get the Domestic Duck jape.

Hi Adam, You're on the same wavelength as me, as far as the sort of traffic you want to see running. (I hope your 47xx is a good-'un - mine's dead and in pieces.) I've designed a few "roundy-round" layouts that do the kind of thing you're looking for. You might get some ideas here: I would certainly suggest keeping your trackwork simple and think about what you really need. You can usually add interest back into the plan once you know that the basics will work. Remember that when a train has been running and then stored you will usually want to run it the other way when it comes back onto the stage, as if it was doing the return journey. To do this you need three things: The train needs to crossover and run on the other line. The loco needs to turn around (usually). The loco (and guard's van) need to be on opposite ends of the train. Some of that can be done by hand but you really don't want to be handling your locos too much so ideally you need to provide track formations that allow those 3 things. Your current storage design doesn't do that yet. The 4ft deep baseboard is too deep to reach across when something goes wrong at the back (and it will) so you need to think about how you are going to access the backmost tracks - even for mundane jobs like track cleaning. The two purlins crossing your attic space are going to be a real challenge for you.

Superb and very witty! Thanks for sharing. To paraphrase Basil Fawlty, "Don't mention the Minories! I did, but I think I got away with it!"

Hi David, Here is my idea for Rockfield: 1200mm swing bridge connecting to fiddle yard. Acts as headshunt for either station or FY. The swing bridge would require a fairly precise and strong bit of engineering! The whole design stands or falls on being able to build that crucial device... It needs some counterbalancing and probably a mechanism to raise the bridge a few mils while it's moving. Track plan combines simple Welsh practicality with a dash of Hemyock oddity. The station is smaller than your original sketch - only one platform and three sidings. That's partly to make the plan less dense but also to be more appropriate for a small backwater station. Run round loop away from platform for character. Long enough to run round 1200mm trains. After running round passenger trains they have to be propelled back into the platform. Engine shed kicks back off the main line and lies in a cut with a wooded hillside rising behind it. Correct trapping (I hope!) The catch/trap point in the run round loop must be curved so it needs to be modified, mocked up, ignored or scratch built. There's one engine length between the bridge and the loop so locos can run round without using the bridge. The goods yard can probably be shunted without needing to use the bridge as a headshunt in most cases. Platform and sidings longer than strictly necessary to give a sense of space when stock stands on/alongside them. View blockers, usually trees, hide where things meet the backscene. A strategically-placed foreground tree helps to create a distinct countryside scene on the left. The minor station feeling is also reflected in the goods yard where the goods shed is a small lineside affair and the ground level is raised to provide a loading bank. The scenery is just a suggestion. I'm not sure about the arrangement of the elements in the goods yard. (No coal staithes - wagons are unloaded directly into carts or lorries.) If the rock strewn field and the water in front of it (F2-H3) were abandoned there would be room for a kickback siding from the goods yard but I feel that would be a step too far - too much station not enough landscape. The access hole at A1-B2 might not strictly be needed but if it was covered with scenery the baseboards would be too wide to reach across. It might make some tasks easier at the back and it would give another angle for taking photos... What have I forgotten? There's always something... Here are the bare bones of the design: I hope this gives you some useful ideas and if you don't mind I'd like to add this design to my trackplans album.

An interesting feature of gradients, and thus helices, is reported here: Knowledgeable members suggest this is related to modern worm drives, not DCC. Something else to factor in to a helix design...

Hi David, I looked at a few small Welsh borders BLTs and they all seem to be quite well organised - or to put it another way a bit dull! (For instance, Kerry.) So I have added a dash of Hemyock into the mix and I think I have an interesting plan coming together. Hopefully, it will be realistic in terms of the basic features and operation even though it is quite compressed. I can use a few tricks to make it look more spacious than it really is. I need a name for the station. Can you suggest something suitable?

You've got enough space to keep a reasonably generous minimum radius if you want and that would help not only with smooth running but would allow you to close-couple some of your stock. A sensible minimum radius might be 610mm - the radius of a Peco Small turnout. I think that your closely packed storage roads might be causing both the problem with tight radii and forcing the crossovers up into the scenic area. If you could space them a bit more (and you seem to have the space to do that) then the curves could be part of the storage capacity and you could move some of the fan turnouts further down. It might also be worth thinking about reducing the number of storage roads and/or shortening them because stacking trains in the same road can become annoying.

Hi @Grafarman David, Before I go further with a design can I ask you a few questions? I'd like to try to make something relevant for you. (No pressure on you to use the end result, it's just a bit of fun.) What era and region are you aiming for? What sort of feeling did you have in mind for the station? Idyllic country station, something busier and nearer to a town or city commuter terminus? Would you use hand built track and turnouts, or should I rely on standard Peco parts or a mixture of both? Thanks,

Absolutely agree. Keep it Simple.

You're all right - a 1200mm bridge does work better, if you can make it work scenically: It copes with 2-coach trains and separates the FY from the scenic layout better. Longer would start to make things difficult. I would love to develop this into a full plan but I don't want to tread on your toes, @Grafarman, so I'll leave it there for now.

Thanks again! I just picked a size to show the concept. 900mm was just my best estimate for the small trains I mentioned above but it can be longer - up to a point. I must admit that I like the conceit of a model swing bridge representing a real practical swing bridge but I hear what you're saying about longer bridges. Whatever works best for the OP!

Sure, drawings are what I do... Rough layout: Detail: The embankment in front implies to the viewer that there is also one behind but you don't model the one behind so that the trackbed can swing around. The sector plate is 900mm long with the pivot point at 300mm in this drawing. I hope it's clearer now. Two pictures are worth 2000 words...

My suggestions would be: Use Streamline throughout (you can still use the SetTrack radii end curves.) Go for the single return loop Simplify down to a single track circuit - this will give you more room for scenery and for the top station to extend above the circuit as per many of the designs above. Expand out the bottom station to have a passing loop and maybe a bay platform. Create a long single line across the top connecting the top station to the circuit and connect all of the sidings to that lead line so you can shunt the station without affecting the circuit. Make sure there's some way for a loco to run round its train in the top station. (Or make sure a pilot loco can release arriving locos.) Splay your sidings at the top station - a row of exactly parallel sidings says "train set" and the splay should allow some sidings to be longer. Industry inside the left hand side of the circuit, lift-off access hatch, including tunnel scenery inside the right.

The motor is quite difficult to get at - it's enclosed in the centre of two big weights that fill the boiler and firebox. I think there are instructions further back in this thread.

Yes, but why would a simple blanking plate burn out? Methinks the motor may have gone...

Thanks! There are lots of possible tweaks and optimisations to make it work better. I imagine that actually, you'd include some of the track behind the bridge on the sector plate so the bridge wouldn't look so big. That should work because the embankment (or whatever) in front of the sector plate wouldn't move and the embankment behind is obscured from view. So when the bridge is in the normal scenic position the embankment behind the pivot point would look entirely normal and solid. Some greenery would help disguise any small gaps. Restricting the maximum length of a train would also be a big help with this idea! A small tank engine, three wagons and a guard's van feels about right to me (or the same loco plus autocoach plus one van as tail traffic). But that's up to the OP.

Why does the double-track spacing vary so much? Why does only one track pass through the tunnel? And how will you arrange the scenery to make sense? What will the backdrop look like with the track so close to it? Are you happy that to shunt the station you'll have to stop running on the outer circuit? Have you noticed the horrible kink in the outer circuit? Are you OK with trains running on the wrong road for a significant distance before they can take the reversing loop? These are some of the questions that people were trying to address in their suggestions above.

Hi @Grafarman I have a cunning plan... (But I haven't got time to draw it right now.) Imagine that the scene curves gently from top right to bottom left of your garage plan, with the line leaving the station heading over the bridge right into the bottom left corner of your drawing. You might wonder where it's going... The bridge is modelled as a swing bridge but in fact it's a sector plate just long enough to hold a train. When you open it, hey presto!, it connects to the fiddle yard along the bottom wall. OK, so some suspension of disbelief is needed while you carry out that operation but when the bridge is closed the scene would look convincing and would span the entire garage with very gentle curves throughout. The bridge/sector plate could connect to the FY at a couple of different positions to give you more storage capacity in the FY with fewer turnouts. The station (or yard if you go with Sturminster's suggestion) could have sidings behind the main entry line using the space in the top left corner. If it's a BLT then I suggest looking to the more unusual trackplans, like Hemyock, where nothing is straight and the run round loop is away from the passenger platform, making operations a bit more interesting.

The Scotsman is saying "Industry sources confirmed [a] death" and they have some reporting of the sequence of events: https://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/stonehaven-one-dead-after-scotrail-train-derailment-aberdeenshire-2939946 It looks very bad.

I've just had a brainwave that might solve some problems and be simpler to build! I'll try to draw it up but I can try to describe it, if you prefer. What's your minimum acceptable scenic radius and minimum acceptable non-scenic radius?

That looks really good as it is, Bob! Like slightly damp paving. Edit: Apart from the scratch marks, which are probably too visible, unfortunately. How about dry brushing now (?) and while you're doing that, concentrate on a few random slabs to break up the texture just a tiny bit more. Remember random means sometimes the slabs you pick might be next to each other, not equally distributed. (It's very difficult for the human brain to create a truly random distribution - it either wants to create patterns or it sees them when they aren't really there!) If you could find a process that would get an end result something like that but without the scratch marks, I think you'd be onto something!

Could you widen the corner curves and include them in the scenic area? The lines running through the scenic area could even be curved all the way! Have you got a track plan we can see?

It's a dangerous road to go down for a railway modeller because there comes a point when it's more about painting than modelling. In the extreme case - why bother modelling it at all? Just paint it. Everyone has a different idea where the acceptable threshold is between modelling and painting and of course it changes depending on the use of the image. Personally, I want an image to show the model as I would see it with my own eyes.

Hi Newbie2020, Would SWMBO be open to negotiating a new peace plan? Could you get access to the end of the garage if you moved her tool cupboard and explained to her that the space would be used much more efficiently? Maybe offer some new shelving as well? Remember that as you've currently shown it, you will have to stand outside the layout and walk around it to operate it, possibly getting in people's way. If you had the end of the garage then, assuming there are no doors in the way, you could abandon the 8ft by 4ft lump and have 10ft by 5ft (approx guess) with a proper operating well in the middle. You'd be out of her way and using up the same space when you take the space to walk around the 8by4 into account... Then you'd have more flexibility in making your track plan.

Hi Chris, This is very clever! If you could ease the curves on the top level roundy-round circuits you'd get more visible running. Maybe then hide some or all of the implausible junction instead. Or at least obscure it from normal viewpoints. If you move the position where the green descending line on the left crosses the low level line until a bit further around then you'd have a few more inches of width available for the top level circuits.