Harlequin

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.

Fair question. He did say he wanted realism 7/10. I was just putting forward an alternative idea but clearly this is not wanted right now. So I will back off for a while.

I've been looking at some real junction station plans and twiddling around. It really helps if the branch line is on the inside of the main circuits: All the trackwork is then simpler and smoother. Allows the station building to be on the outside platform with road connection to a possible town scene in the corner. Refuge siding running parallel to the main line tracks for a distance outside the station (not shown yet) for some fun overtaking movements and somewhere to park a train on scene. Around the back of the platform the through/passenger branch line stands against the island platform and there's a separate goods loop outside that with suitable connections. A loading dock at the left hand end of the Down platform for quick pick-up and drop-off of van traffic on the Down side. Minimum radius 610mm (2ft) - no trainset curves yet! This is just a draft - still need to develop the goods yard and position the engine shed (MPD). But not today.

I’m a simple man and I don’t understand all this highbrow artistic talk but I know a good photo of a rare chimney pot when I see one! (There also seems to be a railway behind it, which might interest some people.)

That's an interesting thought - it certainly feels like an American phrase, doesn't it? You can imagine it being pronounced "Deepoh"...

Hi Folks, When did the term "Motive Power Depot", abbreviated to MPD, come into use in the UK? The term feels wrong to me when talking about steam era railways and I'd like to use the right terminology for the different periods when I'm drawing plans. (Google doesn't help much with this question. Naive searches return lots of pages about "Multiple Personality Disorder" and more railway specific searches return nothing about the history of the term.)

BTW: The main point of this design is that the double track main line runs through the fiddle yard. It's not just a fan of 6 loops connecting to a single feed line at either end...

Why, Pete? It’s very valuable space and in the plans above you really need some way to connect the mainlines to the fiddle yard off-scene, as FP points out. Without it, operations are a bit weird: It’s as if the Paddington to Penzance doesn’t come back from Penzance - it re-appears from the tiny station at Farringdon... You shouldn’t need any more width and it would make things more difficult to reach as Keith points out. I worry that the loops either side of the platforms isolate the railway from the non railway scenery. It would be nicer if a road could approach a station building which was alongside one platform or the other.

You could happily shunt the yard up the main line in your U shaped format, of course. I prefer that basic design because: The BLT directly connected to FY is a cliché. (Although obviously your subject would makes this version rather special.) 2mm scale ought to give you room to do more than the restrictions suffered by larger scale modellers. You would have more scope for non-railway scenery, which would add to the realism. Your trains could stretch their legs and get up to speed instead of making short journeys at walking pace. There would be the chance to admire the stock clear from the station infrastructure.

"Hawkham"? "Caterhurst"?

PNG will compress simple runs of flat colours very efficiently, so while the bitmap might be very large in dimensions (and big when unpacked in memory) the file may be quite small.

That's what I was trying to say above.

It's great to see the new and improved images. They are wonderful! Did you spot the tricycle? And the full stop on the station name board is interesting - maybe just the word alone didn't look right to the Victorian eye? The design of that station building is incredible. It looks like the space inside might not have been very practical, which is maybe partly why they tore it down but what a shame that was because today we would really value the form and the craftsmanship. But all is not lost because you can recreate it in 2mm!

You'd have to ask the printers. Since they are printing on different materials and different colours, they probably can print white but maybe they can turn it on or off for different jobs? Edit: To clarify, I thought the question was whether the printing process would actively print the white colour of a bitmap with a white background. Martin has interpreted the question differently below.

Interesting. I guess when they say, "jpeg with maximum compression quality", they mean "jpeg with minimum compression and maximum quality"... So the ideal would be to create an all-vector PDF file to get the best from their printing process, whatever resolution they use. An RGB bitmap will (a.) print the background colour, white in your case, and (b.) have to be scaled to their print resolution which may introduce visual artefacts, depending on how good their subsampling is. It's not clear (hah hah) if transparent areas in vector PDFs would print or not. You would hope not so that the natural surface would show through. BTW: I wonder if your dark blue lines might be a bit too strong to look at comfortably while operating? Just a thought...

Looks like the Welsh Acropolis!!!