Harlequin

It occurs to me that if the tippers worked they should tip towards the viewer so he can see the operation more clearly. "Ticks in cool boxes" - entomology?

Is the standard gauge track going to be a bit hidden by the landscape? It seems to be in the bottom of the quarry, if I'm reading the plan correctly? You could shuffle things around a bit to have the standard gauge at the front of the scene, on the lowest ground where it could be a bit straighter and the run round longer. Then higher ground, possibly augmented by rough trestles carrying the narrow gauge and the tipping station. Then higher ground still where the narrow gauge starts to run on ledges, bridges and in tunnels. Then the highest ground at the back with buildings for extra height.

Hi @Clagsniffer Here's the final version (for now anyway): I'm sending you the PDF via PM. I hope you can bring this to life. Good Luck!

The nearside rear coupling rod on 2251 is a bit worrying!

It would be interesting to know what the problems actually are (or are thought to be). We can get some idea from looking at the Invision community forum. For instance this page: https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/434698-any-ips-41-high-load-community-examples/ The things to notice about that thread are that everyone has a different answer, some answers are irrelevant, some people avoid answering tricky questions asked of them and there's very little participation from Invision themselves...! So there seems to be no simple fix. The messages that I take out of it are that the latest Invision software is a performance hog on the server and that people are trying to workaround that by adding high performance caches and PHP7 to speed it up. @AY Mod If you're having trouble reproducing the problem would it be useful to screen share with someone who is experiencing it? The problem is sporadic but seems to be worst in the evenings (I think).

I would try shortening all parts of the goods yard and removing one of the two back sidings. Also allow the right hand end curve to be partly visible in the scene and bring it in closer to the station, allowing the headshunt to follow the curve almost until it meets the scenic break. The track crossing the yard diagonally from the cattle pens looks very awkward if we trust that the surveyor plotted it accurately. I would take it's exact layout with a pinch of salt but if it is roughly as shown then the junctions with the back sidings are so sharp that they suggest it was only ever used to shunt wagons and vans around manually or by horse. If that's right then it's tricky to decide what to do with it in a model.

Hi, @Clagsniffer, Don’t worry, only some minor cleaning up to do but I was also giving folks a bit of time to raise any other issues that might occur to them. You will be able to print the PDF at real size. I’ll explain how but to be honest I’m not convinced it would help because it might be difficult to align all those sheets over such a large area. Needs a bit of thought...

Hi Andy, You’ve got a great space but you say you don’t want to use it all. Fair enough for a first layout. A traditional 8ft by 4ft board is unwieldy and you need access all round, which can be awkward. It’s also a bit limiting. A simple setup that allows for an oval, or even better a double track oval, is four rectangular boards joined together to make a bigger rectangle with a hole in the middle. The four boards don’t have to all be same size but they shouldn’t be any wider than about 750mm so that from one side you can reach the other. Then the whole thing can be pushed up against the walls in the corner of the room. Then play with set track as suggested above before you commit to a plan.

Maybe design your layout before you think about baseboards...? Then buy laser-cut baseboard kits because they will save you a lot of hassle, they will be all-ply construction (as recommended by several people above), they will align accurately and will get you up and running quicker.

Hi, You’ve done a great job of fitting a layout into the space but I wonder if there’s a bit too much going on? Do you need the extra loop at bottom left? If you added a second trailing crossover where the loop rejoins you would have a loop in the main lines you could use for running round. If you imagined the main line was single rather than double you would save some point work and thus allow longer loops and sidings. Perhaps reduce the number of sidings in the goods area from 5 down to 3. That would make the goods yard more spacious with longer sidings and allow the platforms to be longer, extending further around the curve. BTW: Little Muddle is a great example of using a platform footbridge to form a scenic break.

Hi Ed, I agree with your maths. Measuring on Google maps from the overbridge to my best estimate of where the headshunt would have ended is nigh on 600m, so almost exactly 4m in 1:148 scale. It's just a very long thin station. If you can't accomodate that length you need to compress the track plan somehow.

On the invision website there are reports from 2015 of very similar symptoms to those we’re seeing now.

Lovely idea to use SetTrack but Claggy wants to use Code 75... I've just measured the geometry and it is 36mm long and 700mm radius, turning 3 degrees. The deviation from straight at the centre of the curve is 0.2mm!!! (Subject to the resolution of coords in my program and 1:20 drawing scale.) My suggestions would be: 1. A straight with 1.5 degree kinks at each end is probably not noticeable, so don't worry about it. 2. Take the rails out of the webbing, put them on their side on a cutting mat and roll them to get the 0.2mm deviation needed in the centre, then thread them back into the webbing.

Yes, you're right. ThInking about it, it would be much simpler and more flexible to use Loco Lifts to remove trapped locos if needed. They could be used on any storage road and could give extra off-layout storage. The spacing between all the FY roads is 55mm, just give a little bit more finger room. By the way, I did consider your suggestion to bias the storage more towards the east than the west but the way the curves feed in to the FY means that was very difficult. The best I could do was the loco stabling spurs.

Hi Claggy, Here's another update. I managed to squeeze in the facing crossover to the up headshunt by using an asymmetric 3-way to collect the tracks from P8, P7 and P6 in a shorter distance and shuffling things around a bit. The Streamline 3-way turnout is effectively medium radius so the routes through it are still relatively smooth. Made Platform 7/8 wider, more like North Road. Made the loading dock platform longer. Sketched in some more possible loco stabling in the fiddle yard. @Clagsniffer Do you mind if I put this image in my gallery? I'll send you a PDF version that you can zoom to see the details or print out at high quality. The access hole was originally provided just because of the depth of baseboards at that point. You don't really need it if the backscene is where I have suggested it, BUT... Think about the great angle it would give for taking photos! You could still have carriage sidings above P8, either as Zomboid has suggested or like Flying Pig's full North Road schematic. But the pillar and the proximity of the backscene would be a worry and the station can't be moved without compromising the minimum radii of the Down main line. The small red spacer track in the trailing crossover between Down and Up is critical to making the Eastern approaches work. It starts to separate the main lines from their normal spacing to make room for Platform P5/P6. The double slip is turned 3 degrees more than if it was directly connected to the curved point.

Hi Eric, You would save yourself a lot of trouble if you could avoid a traverser so it might be worth re-assessing that decision. If you only need 6 roads then the points fans at either end wouldn’t be huge. Maybe there’s a way to fit them in somehow by stealing some space from other parts of the layout and/or using the end curves?

I don’t think layout design is formulaic at all. Yes, there are rules, conventions and practicalities but combining them to create something beautiful that works well is an art form.

For the record, I’ve never had a single DCC ready loco, new or used, cause any problem after fitting a decoder to it. I have experienced a motor failure some time after fitting but I think that was unrelated. That’s about 20-30 locos.

Sorry to keep throwing plans at you, Claggy, but I'm having a lot of fun drawing them! Here's another update: Added the Platform 8 loop and adjusted the connections for P7. I've used Large Ys to keep the curves into P8 smooth and gentle. There are a couple of small discontinuities but I'll sort them out later if you want to go with this. The carriage sidings are in the same location as before but taken off P8 now and they are slightly longer. I think this is the best position - to leave room for scenery behind the station. The Up headshunt is also taken off P8. I haven't worked out a way to fit in the facing crossover from Up to the headshunt that's shown on Flying pig's schematic. It might be do-able but it's going to be tricky. I've tweaked the fiddle yard so that the storage sidings have headshunts allowing limited shunting without affecting main line running. There are also more spurs for loco stabling at "Laira".

Yes, there is room and an extra loop on the up side would be good for lots of reasons. There will be slightly less room for scenery behind so a bit more difficult to disguise the proximity of the track to the backsene. What we currently call Platform 7 will have to be shorter. Anyway, I'll draw something up along the lines of FlyingPig's full schematic and you can decide. P.S. Good news about the singular pillar!

Remember this is fantasy, this not Plymouth North Road in our universe. Overall it adheres to Flying Pig’s simplified 1989 plan with two turnouts replaced by a double slip for compression (not intended to look like earlier iterations of the station plan) and the loading dock added for interest. I think you could easily imagine that the loading dock remained in this universe a bit longer than it did at North Road. So I don’t think it’s a “mish mash”. We discussed the Up headshunt earlier and Claggy was keen to keep it. The scenic break on the left definitely needs more work. I don’t know if the lifting section can be scenicked (made up word?). That’s up to Claggy, as is the lie of the land and the way the railway leaves the scene convincingly.

Update: Joseph's fiddle yard design with a few additions. Loading dock. Up headshunt becomes a loop that rejoins the Up line off-scene. Down headshunt shortened. @Clagsniffer Would this work for you? Is there anything you really don't like? (Please tell me there isn't a second pillar on the bottom wall...!)

Do you fancy getting down with the kids by gluing some pointless gear wheels on the side, Kevin? No, that's too far. Maybe just a Skull and Crossbones flag!

Yes, it's not strictly needed unless the carriage sidings are in their prototype position. It is possible to have platform8 and the sidings in the protoypical position but the say "less-is-more" and on balance I prefer the plan a shown because it leaves space for some scenics behind the station. However the advantages of the long Up headshunt are that: it looks good, it is characteristic of North Road and it should add a bit of play value operational interest. (Especially if it was in fact a loop that connected to the Up line further on, as I think the prototype does. This all depends on what Claggy thinks, of course! The Down headshunt is probably too long. I think it should stop before the bridge, which should still be a useful length. I will add the second bay. Agreed. Platform lengths are on the order of 6ft. Hopefully they are long enough, @Clagsniffer? So fiddle yard roads need to be of a similar length plus a bit.

MDF = Most Dangerous Fibres. You must wear breathing protection when cutting it because the fibres are so small and fine they will get into your lungs if you don't. Any dust collection bags you might be using with power tools will almost immediately become blocked as the fibres clog up the filters. Best to steer clear of it for that reason alone, IMHO. Ply is the way to go, but if you care about such things, check the sustainability of the source. For instance, Nordic and Baltic Birch ply is generally better managed than Russian.