Harlequin

Update: Carriage/Parking sidings as per Flying Pig. They are usably ~3ft long. Longer West Bay platform. Extended headshunts - more like North Road. I hope you like it!

Thanks! There's no strong reason to lay the station out that way - just lots of small ones that make it feel right to me: It puts East on the right, you view the station from the South, sunnier side, the passenger entrance faces you, it's easier to fit the more complex pointwork on the right where you don't have to worry about the lifiting section. The pointwork at the West end was much easier to lay out: This is what the whole thing looks like: Nothing is fixed in stone and some bits need more work. I haven't included the carriage sidings yet or the spur off the East bay that's shown on FlyingPig's drawing. I think it used to feed the parcels depot but I'm not sure what it should do now. Note that there are both facing and trailing crossovers at both ends. The West facing crossover is in the non-scenic area, on the lifting section. Minimum radius (the smaller red circles): 610mm

Update: I got the Eastern approach to curve more (East is on the right in my version!): It's curving the other way than the real North Road - but it's only "inspired by" it, right? And we have to lake liberties to fit our layout into reasonable spaces! I managed to get some curve on the platform ends as well. I added a headshunt to FlyingPig's schematic platform 7. Haven't hooked up the bay(s) yet. The parts are all Peco OO/HO Streamline with whatever rail profile and frog type you fancy. E..g. "ML" is Medium Left. "CL" is "Curved Left", etc.

I see three problems with hiding one end of the station and connecting platform lines to the fiddle yard: Some crucial operations and movements take place off scene. By not building the offscene pointwork as it is in real life (or even as it would be in an imaginary station) you can't perform operations as they would be performed. If the splayed out platform lines connect to the fiddle yard with mininal pointwork then the fiddle yard becomes part of the station and FY roads can't be used as general storage. Your FY is greatly reduced, maybe even lost completely. With your 16ft space, some careful compression and creative use of the diagonals and the corners I think you ought to be able to fit a whole station in your scenic area. P.S. I think it's better to model a station so that you light it and view it from the sunny side if at all possible.

I had a go at the east of FlyingPig's simplified schematic: Used a double slip to help compress it a bit. Agh! I can already see an improvement. Too late now, I need sleep.

@Flying Pig Do the modern layouts have a platform between the running lines as you've shown? Sorry to question it but I don't have any Quail books - I only have steam era track plans and they show platforms either side of the running lines with one or two "middle sidings" between up and down. I realise things might have changed dramatically - just checking.

Best not to ask 10 modellers about anything if you want consensus! I think, having been starved of such things, modellers would grab any version they could get! The various kits seem to be quite limited in variety and yet they sell steadily, AFAIK. If not Toplights then some of the other common inter-war stock: Sunshines? Excursions? Concertinas? How about a Dreadnought?

There are still loads of Western loco classes they could have a go at successfully, especially with the pre-grouping trend that seems to be going on. (And let's face it Hornby aren't giving us anything new as far as we know.) One of the biggest holes I see in the GWR RTR spectrum is coaches. If Dapol are getting into the habit of tooling up for many variations maybe they are the people to take on the challenge of the Toplights! ? It's great to see these new CADs emerge because the Dapol Prairies were in doubt, as far as we knew, with the Hornby Prairie supposedly taking a large chunk of that market. But we still haven't seen the Hornby Prairie in the shops - and Hornby have announced an awful lot of other stuff to occupy their factories in the meantime...

Don't worry about it! Stick with it - we can help you make something wonderful, I'm sure. To clarify what i was saying above: If the movements in and out of the bays require the running lines to be used as headshunts and if those are proper, planned-for and signalled movements, they can't really be called "wrong road" running can they? Suggestion: How about drawing a schematic track plan first, to get the operations right, then worry about curves and fitting it into your space later?

It's great that you're exploring the possibilities but I hope you don't mind me saying this, Claggy: It's horrible! It's lumpy, the track spacing is inconsistent, lots of things that should be parallel are not and the curve you've got on the right hand side is cancelled out by the very strong diagonal straight on the left. I think the connections between the double track running lines and the main through platforms are still a bit odd - if we're still thinking about Plymouth North Road. (I think that the program you are using doesn't help.) Keep going. I'm sure it's possible to do something great in the space you've got available. Here's a thought: How much "wrong road" running would be done at the real station to get trains in and out of the bays? You're allowed to do the same amount in your model even though it might mean going halfway round your garage! P.S. That pillar on the top wall: Is there another one in the equivalent position on the bottom wall???

Yes, it’s great but David makes a good point: The slips have a horribly tight radius. I assume the two curving tracks are the main running lines. If so, the turning routes through the slips (over the tight radii) will only be used to traverse between the outer circuit and the inner storage roads, so not too bad but those routes will always involve a reverse curve through the slip... Maybe replace the slips with two medium radius turnouts if you have room. If the main running lines were around the outside, trains could circulate while you fiddle with stock on the storage roads without fear of interference. That might also help with the slips problem.

Please don't ever change the title from "Teaky's attic" - it works for whatever you do (and whatever colour your woodwork is painted...)

Still very funny after all those years and Petunia still has a prehensile lizard tongue: Edit: I love the way Joe very carefully reads the speech bubble through his binoculars.

Platform surface should be 12mm above rail surface level (i.e. a scale 3ft).

It may be that the first evidence of the effects of this health emergency on our small area of interest could appear in the upcoming Bachmann quarterly announcement. As I understand it, they have instigated this new quarterly process to reduce the chances of unpredictable delays between announcement and getting product to market. So if the emergency has affected, or they predict it will affect, production and shipping they may make fewer announcements or possibly cancel this quarter's update entirely. Or we might see the effects in the following quarter. This is speculation (as requested! ). BTW: I'm not dismissing the horrible effects the virus is having on people's lives and on far more important issues that railway models. Trusting that a vaccine will be developed before it gets too much worse.

Setting back into a refuge siding is more interesting, though. (And the facing point would have been frowned on for a large chunk of the steam era.) The trailing points for the refuge siding (bottom left) could be in the curve to make entry smoother, avoiding the current reverse curve, and making the siding slightly longer.

Withdrawn. If you have a comment on the original version of this post please PM me.

In my role as Devil's Advocate: Can you find a way to fit all or a useful part of Tondu into your 21ft by 7ft available space? Tondu is triangular whereas your space is linear. If it can be linearised somehow, it's quite a complex station with a lot going on, a wide range of traffic and specialised local motive power that is hard to model. Would it be worth looking at somewhere in the same area but quieter with a simpler, more linear track plan?

Don’t go up there again without a proximity detector and a flamethrower!

Re-adjustment: Lifting section is non-scenic (and could be thinner). Some baseboard changes at far end. Min radius 610mm (2ft).

Here's the sort of thing you might be able to do: It's just a sketch showing the general alignment of the main line. The small circles are R2 but as you can see you could do much larger radius curves (610mm and ~762mm). The more open curves should allow more of the track to be scenic (I sketched on a couple of tunnel mouths/bridges). And, depending on other curves in the final plan, your stock could be close-coupled.

Ditto. I would still like to understand these issues, if possible. Thanks.

What era are you going for? In the pre-1930 's trackplan of Plymouth the middle line was simply a very long trailing crossover. I only mention that because it's simpler than your plan, which might be beneficial and would eliminate some facing pointwork. I think the double track at the left should feed to the two middle platforms lines, as David has sketched. (It looks a bit odd that the outer track only feeds the top, outer platform.) What about curving the whole thing gently towards the viewer and the operating well? That should fit better in the room, ease some of the corner curves and give you curved platforms, which always look good.

Hi Neal, 94XX were first built in 1947 so a bit out of period for your 1930s timeframe...? Slightly closer than a Rocket, but still... If you're interested in sound it is possible to fit quite a big speaker in the Parcels Railcar without it showing obviously through the windows and without having to do any cutting or carving - just two soldered connections. (Dapol have modelled some basic shelving/racking inside the body.) Having said that, I'm having some sound quality issues with mine, which seems to be related to the decoder heating up. I'm working on it.