Harlequin

Yes, well, it does look very deliberate that the GWR livery will be combined with a BR number plate...

I'm sure it's all part of a cunning plan.

Hi Newbie ,

There's a section of the forum for track planning questions here: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/forum/66-layout-track-design/ You might like to post there to get the attention of the people interested in layout design. (Or ask a moderator to move this one.)

Here are a few things:

It looks like you might have used R1 curves in the inner circuit. Is that right? If so, be aware that most ready-to-run locos and rolling stock require at least R2 radius. (Some of the small 0-4-0s might be happy on R1 and 4-wheel wagons can work.) What do you intend to run?

The two circuits look a little odd in the way they change spacing - as if they can't decide whether to be double track or separate lines that just happen to be close together. But maybe you've got scenic plans that would make sense of that?

The journey from the inner circuit to the fiddle yard (and back) seems a bit awkward.

Welcome to RMWeb!

12 minutes ago, County of Yorkshire said:

Arrgghh. I cannot believe Dapol have left that ridiculous smokebox numberplate on the production run 7301 in G-W-R green.

 

Why would you produce a model who’s prototype appeared like that for a vanishingly small amount of time? I’m

not going to spend £135-plus to take a scalpel to a brand new model. It’ll be the shirtbutton version and some Fox transfers for me I think. 
 

Still, as 7301 is in such a ridiculous livery combination they might end up in the bargain bin anyway.... something sub £100 is a much more agreeable thing to attack with a blade... 

 

CoY 

Don't panic (yet). This is just the same old pre-publicity photo being wheeled out again. As was discussed earlier in this thread they made up versions of the models from a box full of parts for exhibition and early photography. They wouldn't be so silly as to use that smokebox door on the production models.

Fingers crossed.

Two industries seems like going a bit too far. I would get rid of Ind 1. That would allow the shunting yard scene to be more visible and to spread out a bit if needed. Ind 2 is in a good position to use space that would otherwise be unoccupied and it could help block the view of the FY entrance.

The Branch bay and branch storage looks a bit cramped. You could have the bay without the actual branch, imagining that the branch junction is further up the main line somewhere. Or send the branch line across the lifting section and devote a corner of the FY to branch storage.

Edit: Just spotted "Ind 3", which again I think is over-egging the pudding. My suggestion would be make it part of the shunting yard but maybe give it some special purpose within that yard. Maybe a "cripple siding" or wagon repair shed???

Pre-1900 Hawkhurst is very similar to Caterham of the same period but with some differences that might be useful.

Remember that, along with all your analysis, your heart has to be in it. No point arriving at an entirely logical design if the era, the stock or the setting don't grab you!

The kidney shaped baseboard is nice and the kidney shaped circuit of track is nice but I don’t think they work together very well because the track follows the edge without any variation and the circuit can never truly be in the scene.

Hi Neal,

Your chuffs are still not right, I'm afraid. There should be four per revolution of the motion. You have it set at 2 per rev, I think.

You can hear that every fourth chuff is accented. That accented chuff should occur when the motion reaches the same position every time.

The sound sequence she went through on the rolling road was weird. I guess a full sequence of all the samples is built into the chip for testing and maybe that got triggered by accident.

I've synced a few Zimo decoders without too much trouble but I'm now trying to sync up an ESU Loksound 5 in a Hornby King and that is being a real pain in the neck! Abject failure so far. I don't think I get on with ESU decoders...

1 hour ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Sorry to labour this, but I think we need to be careful about labelling things prototypical.  Consider the main line services through Castle Cary.  A train passes in the down direction and doesn't return in the Up direction for several hours.  Meanwhile, several identical sets pass in each direction.  Using one model, reversed in the fiddle yard, to represent all these real trains is economical but is it actually more prototypical than using two that circulate without reversing?  

 

I take your point - there are different ways to model prototypical operations.

But to answer that specific question: Yes, it is clearly more prototypical to have one model representing one real world train (and for that model to reverse to represent the reversed real world train) than to represent one train with two models.

We're dancing on pinheads, now, though!

5 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

If it's important to you that trains go past and then later return, so you can imagine they've been somewhere, then yes, you need to be able to reverse trains. If you are happy to watch a sequence of trains passing by then in this case only the branch trains need to reverse in the fiddle yard and your plan can be simplified somewhat (though @Chimer's scheme doesn't add much complexity).  You need to make your own mind up on this point and not be pushed by other's assertions of what constitutes 'operation'.

Yes, fair point. I was assuming that the OP would want to operate in a more prototypical manner with trains running Down and then Up later (or vice versa) but it doesn't have to be that way.

5 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

Where you must take advice is in removing the double slip from the main line and substituting a plain point and crossover.  Double slips were always very scarce in junctions like this and on modern high speed main lines they are pretty much unknown.

 

 

Great if there's room but slips really help with compressing a plan into a space.

Have you got enough capacity to perform lots of simultaneous (theoretically) operations? Maybe it's just too much for one person to control???

Have you thought about a fictionalised version of Caterham that brings together all the elements you want from the different eras under a convincing back-story? For instance, simplifying the fictional ownership so that stock is more straightforward to obtain/create. And/or maybe revising the track plan without doing away with the original station building? That would also allow you to adjust the composition of the scenery.

As David says, you need crossovers outside the loops to be able to reverse trains and run them on the correct tracks. Ideally you need two crossovers, or a scissors crossover, at both ends but that eats up space and it is possible to work with just one crossover if you’re organised.

If the storage loops are much longer than your trains (as they seem to be) then it’s difficult to use them efficiently and they are to some degree wasting valuable space. Shortening them would help to insert the crossovers mentioned above.

Some of the curves in the hidden storage look a bit sharp. If you’ve got the room then larger radii help with smoother running and closer coupled vehicles.

The station seems to be awkwardly curved. Gently curved platforms are great but tighter curves require a larger gap between track and platform, which looks less realistic.

I notice that Castle Cary has a very long lead into the branch line, starting far outside the station. That might be interesting to model. It looks like it was part of a set of loops to manage traffic at the junction, which would also be interesting if you could stretch reality and imagine that the station hadn’t been so ruthlessly rationalised. 

Please don’t  be put off by these comments. You’ve made some good decisions and I think you’re heading in a good direction!

Megapoints do 12 servo controllers amongst many other very useful bits and pieces.

I think @ISW uses servos controlled by Megapoints kit and he has some nice details showing how to mount them.

25 minutes ago, Worsdell forever said:

 

If it is the summer of '36 wouldn't the lamp casing be red?

 

Yes, good point.

What should the date be, @KNP?

Edit: Now fixed.

I tried my ageing technique on the colour scenery photo above but it didn't work. Don't really understand why - it just never looked right no matter what I did.

So I went back and tried it on one of my favourites of your recent photos. Hope you don't mind:

Edit: Changed date to '38, as per messages below.

How about this: Don't allow members to post status updates until they have reached certain content count. That would teach new users to use more appropriate means of communicating and to learn how other members use status updates before they are allowed to use it.

That wouldn't stop experienced members from making status update mistakes but it would cut the mistakes down by a large factor, I think.

9 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

Look just the same - pah !

Have you noticed the new reaction?

9 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

What are people going to moan about now ?

No problem on that front: People will moan about all the same stuff as before!

Lovely stuff!

Maybe check the chuff syncing?

If you are going to weather the track after you've installed it maybe you don't need to remove the bloom? Just make sure that there isn't any ongoing chemical reaction, paint rust colour over it and make sure the rail surfaces are clean.

You could optionally clean inside the point blades with the fibreglass pencil but with Unifrog points even that's not a necessity...

You may have stumbled across a way to create the most authentic rust texturing anyone's ever seen!

Sturminster apparently didn't read much of the thread above, which discussed lighting under the railway, depth of boards and removable sections for ease of work.

Don't worry about boards 5 and 6. They'll either stay simple, just doing the important job of getting the track past the corner intrusion or you'll find some natural way to use the space.

Another possibility for the FY is cassettes, which seem to be a natural fit for a shelf layout in 2mm scale. The FY shelf could then be thinner (a good thing next to the door and above the desk) and the FY would effectively become vertical, making use of the wall space above and below. Cassettes storing whole trains would be manageable. The downside is more manual fiddling would be required.

Where is your heart? Urban or rural? Branchline or commuter line? Pre-grouping, post-grouping? Modern image? Decisions, decisions...

One of my colleagues said on Friday, "It's only 2Meg"...

I had to hold myself back from explaining what things were like when I started in computing.

I feel like Grampa Simpson sometimes!

The angles in the top right corner are tricky but they could actually be useful. Where boards are trapped on both ends if you make the boards wedge shaped they can be disengaged more easily.

4 would slide easily towards the window (and then down, twist and out).

6 is not trapped on both sides so that will come down with no problem.

If you create a less angled joint between 1 and 2 they will each slide out forwards into the room without the need to dismantle anything else.

The corner boards would still require other boards to be removed before they could be removed.

So having just said that the baseboards should fit the layout I'm going to be very contrary and post a drawing of some baseboards! (But as Zomboid says, it's an iterative process.)

Just working through some ideas. The neck where the track(s) pass the corner brickwork (chimney?) seems to be a natural place for a scenic break.

Board 6 could be a traverser, perhaps?

Swoopy edged baseboards are a very Ricean feature and Rice is the expert on shelf layouts, of course.

I liked the all-swoopy version with only the FY straight-edged but the swoops might be a bit over generous because at that eye-level you have to look across them rather then down onto them. It depends what form the scenery takes and that again leads to Rice...

Iain Rice always says design the layout first then work out the support structure (and swoopy edges) to suit the layout.

Is it worth worrying about exhibition mode? There are many ways to display a layout from home, as we have recently seen. If you set that idea aside, it would make the design simpler and give you more flexibility for the layout in it's permanent home. (E.g. Longer fiddle yard, longer shunt limit less need to cross joints perpendicularly.)

How high is the top of the window? It looks quite low, so could the layout run above it?  That would allow that part of the run to be left in place more often and you'd get more light in the room, although I think all your high-level boards still need to be removable to be able to work on them comfortably (and then depth is less of a problem, of course).

1 hour ago, chuffinghell said:

I don’t know about cordless motor my Oxford Rail Dean Goods has a motionless one 

Really? You too? It's really disappointing, isn't it!

I managed to get one running today. It's the chassis and old motor of 2309 in the new (glossy) body of NRM 2516. The problem was that the decoder was dead - probably killed by the burnt out motor in 2475 when I was swapping things around. (Are you following this?)

Fitted a new Zimo decoder to 2516 and she's a runner -  a smooth runner even!

2309 with 2516's chassis only moves 5mm at a time.

2475 is standing on the scrap line, even with it's replacement motor. Shame because that one had sound and flickering firebox.