Harlequin

Thanks! I go the extra mile for the satisfaction of creating a pleasing design and because I think the details help imagine the layout better. By the way, did you notice that I didn't use Streamline templates in this design? I just made gentle junctions between tracks on the basis that they can be formed using kit-built or hand-built pointwork. This stems from Peco moving glacially slowly and sticking to their decades old geometry while Finetrax look set to surpass them in many ways. Interesting idea. I toyed with the idea of having the industry entirely off scene, imagined to be say half a mile up the line, with a facing connection to the station. This would mean bringing the traffic into the station before picking out the relevant wagons and making a special trip back up the line to deliver them into the private siding. In that case, the engine shed could stay put... An excuse to model a water mill would be great (in theory)! A definite change of character. In my mind Bucklecombe is a quiet, rural station with only one loco present at a time - 48xx, small prairie or small pannier tank. Perfectly valid but in this case I quite liked the twist of seeing the box from the back. From some close-up angles you'd be able to look through the side windows, over the frame, to the scene beyond. And it is doing a specific job on the near side of the track (along with the big tree) of breaking up the view of the station so that it looks bigger and so that the movement of trains is a bit more interesting by being slightly obscured. Yes, I think you are describing a location with more significance on the network than Bucklecombe - on the order of St Ives or Cardigan, perhaps. Thanks.

There’s some useful info in Atkins, GWR Goods Train Working Vol 2 . On p. 253 photo of horse in cattle dock at Paddington. Caption describes how tarps were pulled over the roof of cattle wagons when carrying horses to prevent them being spooked. On p. 255 photo of many horses in and around cattle pens at Brent after a horse sale. I’m pretty sure that I read somewhere, or maybe @The Stationmaster told us somewhere, that valuable creatures would sometimes be loaded/unloaded on the passenger platform.

Some very good choices there!

Hi Andy, I imagined the track continuing under that roof for some distance. (I should have drawn a dotted line, sorry). So the loading dock is almost the full length of the shed, and is covered by the shed but the final wagon length of the track is also covered.

Setting You might have guessed from the video that my Minories will be an Edwardian SE&CR affair. I'm normally a GWR man but it didn't seem to be a good fit for a small London terminus. The SE&CR feels more appropriate for that kind of station and has the advantage that there are some great period RTR SE&CR locos in wonderful liveries to bring the place to life. The Hattons SE&CR 4 and 6 wheel coaches will provide perfect commuter rolling stock - making trains look longer and pass through the pointwork more comfortably than the bogey Birdcage stock I've got. The latter will still make occasional appearances for special trains. Some LB&SCR stock might also visit. I know next to nothing about the SE&CR at the moment but I will learn as I go and all input will be gratefully received! Next steps To finalise the electrics I need to setup the point motors but there's not much point (oh dear) doing that until I can control them. I'm awaiting a Pi SPROG 3 v2, which are not available quite yet. I also need to replace the broken Small Left turnout. They are not in stock anywhere at the moment. The first scenic job will be to add the typical Victorian brick retaining walls but none of the products I've found so far are tall enough or are too thick. They need to be about 120mm tall and no more than 12mm deep. The ones @halsey has used on Hawkesbury look like they might fit but they don't appear to be sold any more... So just at the moment, I'm blocked on all fronts!

Please tell us what the problem is when you find it. Thanks.

Raked ballast, of course, around manicured plantings of Rosebay Willowherb.

Another brainwave: I. Joan, barmaid and Hawkins' paramour - Holliday Grainger

I thought of another possibility: C. Blakeworth, the cycling town clerk and regular commuter - David Mitchell

It's not Minories without the opposing crossover, IMHO.

Transportation parked up alongside: A moped with L plates and, horror of horrors, a beige Vauxhall Chevette!

Just to be clear, this was a joke. I simply assembled a list of the most grotesque and pointless "celebrities" I could think of at the time (although I must admit that I included Ant & Dec for the benefit of others - I would give them the benefit of the doubt). To stem the rising levels of discomfort with this idea and to let the Rapido thread get back on topic, this alternative thread asks about the cast of a good remake:

With news of Rapido's Titfield Thunderbolt film tie-in for the upcoming 70th anniversary of the film and Hornby's attempts to crash the party with Lion, there has been some jokey discussion of a remake. So, purely in fantasy land, imagine that a well-funded production was going ahead with the intention of making a really great film that's worthy of, and in the spirit of, the original... A thoughtful casting director is assembling the best cast that he or she can put together, money no object. Who would those actors be? People available for filming next year and who could bring charm and sensitivity to their parts: Cast list A. Valentine, the bibulous financier of the railway. B. Reverend Weech, the train obsessed vicar. C. Blakeworth, the cycling town clerk and regular commuter. D. Squire Gordon, everyman who wants the railway to remain open. E. Bishop of Welchester. F. Emily, Reverend Weech's elderly housekeeper. G. Dan, old engine driver. H. Hawkins, traction engine driver. I. Joan, barmaid and Hawkins' paramour. J. Crump, dodgy boss of coach firm. K. Pearce, Crump's sidekick. (List cribbed and slightly amended from Simon Castens' book.) --- First suggestion: E. Bishop of Welchester - Stephen Fry ?

Hi Graham, Your mantra is a good one and I have some suggestions along those lines. The "bay platform" was a real world feature and it's something that a lot of modellers reach for as a way to increase the operability and playability of their designs. It needs to be signalled properly which is not difficult but adds visual complexity, especially with the imaginary kickback passenger service. It also shortens the main platform drastically and usually places trackwork near the back of the scene, making the transition to the backscene more difficult to disguise. You can probably see where I'm going with this... My suggestion would be to abandon the bay platform, making the main platform longer, getting more space for the rest of the plan and simplifying the signalling. Then seek other ways to generate interesting operations. The three parallel tracks you had before were one way of doing that. The centre track is a shared run round loop for the platform line on one side and a goods siding on the other, making run round operations a bit more flexible. (You could physically run round goods stock while passenger stock is in the platform and vice versa but that seems to be more of a model thing than prototypically correct.) Those three tracks also make efficient use of the space so that the goods yard can open out between that goods siding and the rest of the goods yard. You can justify the turntable if you imagine that the branch line is very long, like Fairford or Launceston. For realism, though, don't use a huge RTR 70 footer. Go for a 45' or 55' just big enough for your typical branch locos. That also helps with the proportions, preventing it from dominating the scene. Where you have it at the moment is vaguely similar to Launceston and it naturally fits inside the curve of the main line but access to it is a bit awkward. Perhaps the turntable and engine shed could perhaps usefully fill the top right corner instead of the dummy branch? I think somewhere in the thread you were talking about allowing cassettes to cross the doorway? Would that give you extra scenic length? If so that would be very valuable and if it's only a cassette blocking the door there's no too much worry about getting trapped... Just make it so one of the mountings breaks when given an extra hefty shove! BTW: There's a subforum where the people interested in track planning hang out: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/forum/66-layout-track-design/ P.S. There's a 10ft wide L-shaped layout design inspired by Lambourn in my album (including a bay platform! Argh!).

Thanks Kevin. Yes of course you are right. St Ives is one of the best known examples of a distant engine shed, although not on it's own spur.

The connector for the DCC controller arrived in the post. Testing resulted in having to swap a couple of wires around and add one new dropper to overcome a dry joint on one of the turnouts. I trigged up a temporary headshunt stub, with a safety block at the end so that I could run locos past the final clearance point. And... It's alive! Not a twitch as locos cross the baseboard joint!

Dave! You beat me to it! While I was looking up St Ives in "A historical survey of Great Western Engine Sheds 1947" (great book!) I found Aberayron (the book spelling). It's a single platform BLT at the coastal end of single line which has followed a river valley. As Dave said, the river flows under the run round loop (so double track bridge) and the engine shed is kicking back off the loop on the inland side. I can't show you the plan from the book for copyright reasons and sadly none of the online mapping services seem to show it either...

Thanks! That's a really interesting idea for backstory and location. The ancient landscapes around the B&H are my kind of thing! (That might need a new place name, though...)

Kickback sheds abound. Long kickback to shed: Abbotsbury. Long kickback over bridge to shed: An artifice to make the scene more appealing. But maybe there is an example out there somewhere... It was just an observation related to other recent threads. I don't think I would do it and perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it!

Hi Keith and Zomboid, Good point about tankers actually requiring loco shunting - I hadn't thought of that. That's another point in favour of a dairy. I think it was quite common for early branch line infrastructure to be built optimistically in readiness for double-track, even when they were otherwise struggling financially. (This is my feeling after much reading but I can't lay my hands on a specific reference at the moment.) More prosaically, you could say that the site is extremely restricted and the only space available for the shed was on the opposite side of the river, making best use of the site because road access is not needed to the shed. You could say that this is a compressed version of the real thing and combines the real shed position with a river bridge that in reality is further up the line. You could also say that many apparently illogical and unlikely features can be found in the real world. Ultimately, of course, it's done for scenic effect and I'm sure that fully "scenicked" it would look absolutely fine. Coal would be unloaded from the back siding normally. It looks tight, I know, but that's justified partly by foreshortening (the scene would be viewed from a low angle) and by the similar arrangements at Henllan, where the weighbridge and office were some distance away from the yard. There might be a way to include them on scene realistically, but if not, then they are up the hill behind the trees somewhere! I don't think so. It would require the mainline to turn into the scene and then turn back again, possibly making it a bit too curvy. I imagine that the cassette connection outside the backscene would be a small further spur of track leading to a nice square mounting point and having the cassette angle into the room somewhat might be an advantage.

Thinking about the spaces available in my house for layouts, I returned to the area I had originally thought of for Hampton Malstead. It's a blank wall that was intended for shelving and wouldn't get in the way of normal life at all. The original Hampton Malstead packed both the scenic area and fiddle yard into the space but that meant that it was highly compressed and the appearance was compromised by the plain technicality of the FY. I realised that I could make the entire 3800mm (12ft 6in) width scenic by using temporally attached cassettes as the FY and then the entire width would be good to look at and would allow the layout track plan more room to breathe. (I'm not abandoning the idea of a roundy-round layout somewhere. That is still the ultimate goal but this idea popped up and I had to follow it through...!) Some of the aims were: Place the station in the landscape - don't fill the box with just the station, leave room for non-railway features. Create a visually pleasing scene that's balanced and well-staged - like a 3D painting. Create a station that looks realistically small - not obviously compressed. Allow shunting to take place without the loco disappearing off scene. Have some industry nearby that requires specialised traffic over and above the normal goods and passenger workings. And this is where I've got to: You can probably see shades of many well-known GWR BLTs in this plan. They swim around in my mind and I think this time they have come together in a natural way without any obviously direct lifts. The valley location creates some nice levels changes, with the ground rising from the river towards the station level and then rising again behind it. It also helps to explain why the station track plan is small and curvy. The loco release spur is long enough to hold a van as well as the loco - helps to get the brake van out of the way for easier shunting of the kickback. The kickback industry is probably the biggest question mark. Notice that, although this would realistically be operated using one-engine-in-steam, the position of the engine shed spur would allow limited shunting of the yard while passenger movements were going on - if you wanted to play trains. There is no bay platform!

Good point. Remember that the mogul has a cast metal running plate to give more mass than a traditional all-plastic bodied model. (If you look inside there really isn't room for any more ballast except for the smokebox where the decoder gubbins lives.) The point about waiting for the tyres to wear-in a bit is also a good one. Dapol clearly had to make some very finely balanced design decisions for this and the related locos and on the whole I think they've done a good job. Not perfect but then nothing ever is - and the next revision will be even better.

Thanks Andy. I'm glad you're on top of it!

The Get Britain Modelling forum seems to be a place for people to ask any question about any subject and post any content - the same sorts of things that are already discussed and posted in RMWeb's main forums. This seems to be a bit unstructured and kind of fighting against the organised layout of the rest of RMWeb - a little isolated island where "mainland" RMWeb people might not visit so much. So the “islanders” might not get the benefits of being in the "mainland" community. Am I right to be slightly worried about it?