CameronL

Thanks for that, Nick. It seems that whatever you want to do there's a prototypical example of it. Would people please stop talking about islands? As a huge fan of the Isle of Man the idea of an island-based railway is more and more appealing. There would still be plenty of operational interest - after all the whole island's every need would be supplied by ship and therefore transferred by rail for distribution round the island, you could have quirky industries like an Edison-type power station (mostly long gone on the mainland by the early 20th century but hanging on in some places), forestry, a mineral branch a la Foxdale, fisheries industries such as a kipper factory and shipyard (already got them), the list goes on. As previously mentioned, the Isle of Man railways seemed to have their own way of doing things - for instance, on an island network totally run using tank engines they had one turntable, at St Johns. This was deemed necessary because the trains on the west coast route to Ramsey always ran with the sea to the west, and therefore received a battering from the prevailing south-westerly weather which caused one side of the coaches to weather much faster than the other. They were turned periodically at St John to even things up. Capturing the beauty and "Traa dy Liooar" (time enough) atmosphere of the island would be the real challenge. It'd probably need a bit of a cut down to the current plan in terms of complexity, with fewer stations and maybe a wayside halt or two. Aargh! Somebody stop me before I'm back to the drawing board.

I get the point. I think the difference between my names and yours is that mine sound like something out of a Carry On film whereas yours sound like even if they aren't places they ought to be.

Sorry Martin. I tried to make it as eye-watering as possible. I've always had a fondness for puns and double meanings in my layouts. The BLT on which Knower Vale is based was a GWR-inspired layout called "Nitt Combe", and another I was developing when I proudly took delivery of my first company car ended up called "Escott Ford". I think it all harks back to one day when I was in Manchester Victoria station and BR (as it was then) were proudly announcing improvements in services to the north of the city with posters proclaiming "MORE TRAINS TO BURY". Now, we know that Bury is a town to the north of Manchester famous for its black puddings, but the mental image it conjured up gave me a fit of giggles and set a precedent I've tried to follow ever since. When the KVLR was in its early design stages I was listening to the radio and heard the presenter use the phrase "to no avail". I immediately made the connection and the rest, as they say, is railway modelling.

Hi All, and once again thanks for all the positive comments. I think I'll keep Difford as a lazy S with two platform faces. I like it more operationally and esthetically. Zomboid - the idea of an island as a basis for an independent network is a great one. I think if that was a route I was following I'd choose to follow the example (if not the gauge) of the Isle of Man Steam Railway. That network seemed to have a Rule 1 of its very own. In an island only 32 miles long there were 46 miles of track with 33 stations and halts including no less than five termini. It went through a period of three separate railway companies on the network, briefly had mineral trains carrying lead ore from Foxdale to Ramsey and boasted a head office station building in Douglas that would have done justice to a much larger network (with a manure siding - now there's something you don't see on many layouts). Mind you, the Isle of Wight has its appeal. A station on a pier, a history that included a paddle train ferry, all make for great modelling potential. Ventnor itself seems a perfect subject for a BLT modeller. It has an interesting track plan that led to some strange practices, a turntable because of the lack of space and as soon as the trains left the station they disappeared into a tunnel. The backscene would be a cliff, with caves excavated in it for the coal merchants (troglodytic lineside industries, no less). But I digress, and if I keep thinking like this it might mean a total redesign to an island layout. I'd probably have two harbours, where Itshall and Knower Vale are, with Moorhaven as a mineral branch. I don't think I'll do it though, The current plan is the one I've wanted for a long time, and the exchange sidings with the XXXR give me the scope to include strange stock and visitors that an island railway would never see. It occurs to me that the redesigns of both Moorhaven and Difford have resulted in a reduction in size without a loss of operation. Maybe there's a few other stations I could apply this to... Cam

Thanks for that (and Titanius Anglesmith too). I never considered the Meon Valley when I was originally planning this, but I think it was designed with ten coach passenger trains in mind.Difford Junction is only the way it is because I thought it needed to be so for operational reasons - a train from the Moorhaven branch would have to connect with up and down trains on the Itshall to Knower Vale line. Three trains, three platform faces. Silly me. Having read your post and given it some thought I realised this could be sorted out operationally rather than with lavish infrastructure. The following sequence sprang to mind - Tram arrives at Difford from Moorhaven with passengers from the ferry. Passengers get off. Tram runs around its train then shunts into one of the exchange sidings. Up and down passenger trains arrive at Difford from Itshall and Knower Vale. Passengers for Difford and Moorhaven get off. Passengers from Moorhaven get on. Up and down passenger trains depart. Tram backs out of exchange siding. Passengers for Moorhaven get on. Tram departs for Moorhaven. Eureka! The two platforms with three platform faces can be replaced by two platform faces and some shunting (which is what this layout is all about). Two platform faces are provided by one island platform, and all of a sudden Difford has a much simpler design. I've kept the footbridge because I've based it on Tan-y-Bwlch on the Ffestiniog railway. I've always liked the "lazy S" platform there. It's still quite a big station because of the exchange sidings (got to have somewhere to shunt those coaches) but the station layout is a lot simpler. Below is a "Before and After" of how it might appear. What do people think? I know that the "After" has lost one siding, but that was planned to be a short Permanent Way siding, which has now moved to Knower Vale since the redesign for the continuous run. OK. That's it. Now I would be the first to acknowledge that this layout isn't quite a Light Railway. Maybe I should just call it a "fictional pre-grouping" system. I just want short trains in a landscape and lots of shunting interest. If it includes turntables, footbridges and loco works, well, so be it. It's the layout I've dreamed about for a long time. But thanks to everyone for their input. My Dad was an engineer, and he used to have a saying that "A camel is a horse designed by a committee", meaning that if too many people get involved in the design of something it's not going to end up what was originally intended. OK. I'm loving my camel of a layout. The input I've had so far has produced something much better than I started with. Other viewpoints on things have produced something much better than I achieved on my own. Thanks to everyone. Any ideas about Overth Hill? Cam

Thanks again. The extra siding at Milton Gate hadn't occurred to me. I'm sure it'll find its way in. As for the scenery on the Moorhaven branch, I think that hillside will be a bit cliffy and wooded. I know a few such roads like that (OK, without a tramline down the middle) and I'd like to model it that way. It will also provide a bit of a scenic break for the Moorhaven operator, who will see a train come into view from behind the hill and chug down the valley. The hills either side of Saddler's End will have plenty of scope for static grass. Joy. Cam.

Following on from all the amazing advice and positive comment about this layout I've had a bit of a re-design. And firstly, having taken on board a lot of comment I've turned Milton Gate into a junction and Knower Vale into a through station (well, actually I've included a lifting flap to create a continuous run from the brewery to the forge as suggested). This will hinge from one side or the other to facilitate this. It does make for quite a long spotting track leading to the forge, so I've put in another point to include a siding which might be used for a small Permanent Way train. I didn't want to change Knower Vale too much as it's probably my favourite station on the layout and harks back to a previous BLT I once built. I have redesigned the colliery to be on a curve and lose the "fiddle yard" look a bit. I know this reduces the gangway to 2', but only for a short space and I'd already decided that if clearance was an issue with operators' extremities interfering with the modelling anywhere on the layout some Perspex screens attached to the baseboards at the problem points will solve this, so the colliery and Moorhaven will definitely have them. I've also reduced the size of the brickworks at Milton Gate and the creamery at Saddler's End as I felt they were too large for the scenes. Martin - otherwise I've left Saddler's End alone. I like the design too but was worried that it was a bit of a sprawl. However, after your kind words I think I'll leave it as is. I also take your point about passing places on the line. Previously Difford Junction was the only intermediate station where two passenger trains could pass. To include another one I've redesigned Milton Gate with an island platform accessed by a footbridge from a station building on the road overbridge which forms the scenic break. Unusual, but I like unusual and Stretford Station on the Manchester Metrolink (which used to be a four-platform station of the Manchester South Junction and Altrincham railway) has a similar arrangement. As far as wayside halts go, I've largely left them off the layout, although Overth Hill has a halty feel about it. I plan this to have a simple wooden station building, and there's not as much in the way of goods facilities as at other stations. It mainly serves as a way to shunt trains for the quarry and forestry sidings. As such for me it's probably the least satisfying design on the layout, and not because of the halty feel to it. It's just a bit too much of the industry/platform/industry configuration I've tried to avoid if possible. Maybe a redesign with a mineral line going off to hidden sidings could replace the quarry, with an exchange siding and maybe even an engine shed for a light tank engine to work the mineral branch. The track at Difford Junction has been redesigned to allow the trams easier access to the mainline. And finally there's Moorhaven, which is a lot more compact without losing any function. Thanks to everyone who pointed me in the direction of light railway transferring coal to sea (Martin, Pacific 231). Having realised that you don't need a structure like Tyne Dock to put coal on boats I've decided to place more emphasis on moving it by sea from Moorhaven, by the simple expedient of adding another siding so that more wagons can be handled. There will be a simple chute or tipple to handle the transfer. I've found a lot of rail to sea facilities where the only function was "putting rocks on boats" but I was aiming for a general purpose harbour like Madderport or Saltaire (aiming high there). For me the new more compact design still allows both interesting operation and the space to create the feel of a bustling town harbour, and the valley down to Moorhaven will be a major scenic feature on the layout. I've even put a gradient on it, realising that it's the only one on the entire layout so far. Going a bit out there it makes me wonder if there could be room for some kind of freelance articulated tram to handle the coal trains. I know there were Garratt trams in Belgium and the New York Central had some Shay trams for use on road lines (although they had to be preceded down the road by a man on horseback to reduce pedestrian deaths) so I'll give it a thought. Thanks to everyone for your advice and positive comments. I get the feeling that there's a few people who, if we ever meet, will hear me saying "The first beer's on me." Cam

Hi. For simple patterns with corners not curves on flat surfaces such as your unpanelled coach I used to use florists tape (gutta percha) to mark out the shapes before painting. It isn't too sticky and it's easy to work with so I could use it to mark out simple squares and rectangles, although doing a whole coach would take several applications following a lot of planning on what I could do with each one (mainly stick to one direction per application). Panelling is a pig, but I did find a way that worked for me. The surface of the panelling was painted using a very fine mapping pen with the tip bent down through 45 degrees. A very small amount of paint on the nib applied from the back of the nib held parallel to the line of the panelling would give an acceptable line (especially if not viewed too closely) but it did take a long time. I did once try applying a gold line to the inside of the raised panelling using the point of a needle in the angle, again one small bit at a time. Results weren't bad but it took forever and from even a moderate distance you couldn't see it anyway. This is the kind of issue that has to be considered. A lined coach looks good, but if it's just the basics and any visitor to your small empire whips out a magnifying glass and says "It really needs a fine gold line inside the panel edges as well" simply refer them to that famous self-help book "A Life And How To Get One". I used both these techniques in my teens. I don't know if I'd have the patience / steady hand / eyesight to use either one now. Best of luck. I'm sure your results will be worth seeing. Cam

Wow. Thanks for all the replies and useful information and positivity. Some points I feel need addressing. The exchange sidings at Itshall were never intended to be much more than a hint at a larger company and a way to store extra goods stock (although on reflection I think a cassette system might be worth including). Personally I don't think they're that much of a problem to operate. An up goods destined for the exchange sidings will pull into the loop at Itshall, reverse to drop its brake van on the siding next to the gasworks and then simply pull forward and propel the entire train into the sidings. An engine taking a train from the exchange sidings will pick up a brake van, propel it into the sidings to pick up the train, pull it back into the loop and run round it to take it off down the line. I quite like that approach, and it's why I didn't feel the need to design a runaround on the hidden sidings. Engines will always be at the right hand end of trains entering or leaving. As far as train length goes, I designed the layout with platforms a maximum of 3', but passing loops at least 4'. This gives me a chance to run trains consisting of (for instance) a tank engine, twelve wagons and a brake van. Even with a tender engine I should get at least ten wagons and a brake van. I don't want any longer - they'd look too big for the sections of layout they're running through and I want trains running through scenery, not dwarfing it. Large demands for freight movement will have to be handled by inventive scheduling. I know Itshall looks cramped and busy, but it does what it needs and gives me more room for other things. Difford Junction does have transfer sidings - the two at the lower end of the station. These can easily be used to switch stock from one company to the other. However, I take the point and will redesign with an easier connection to the mainline. As far as moving coal by sea goes, there's a lot to think of. It would be possible to fit a larger coal wharf at Moorhaven to allow more shipment that away. I've decided Moorhaven is going to get a redesign anyway. It sprawls far too much and I want to make it more compact. Doing so shouldn't be too much of a problem and I think I'll manage to get a larger wharf in the process, if still with a simple wagon tipple system as at Watchet or Bullo Pill. The photo I referenced earlier was taken in 1907, which is close to the period I'm aiming for. I think I'm also going to tighten up Saddler's End. The layout is unusual, but like Moorhaven it sprawls too much. I think a more conventional layout with the platform alongside the passing loop would be neater. And finally, to Martin. Where is this layout based? England. That's all I can say. After much consultation of information on the coal fields of Britain I couldn't really find anywhere that fitted what I wanted so I've left it vague. The names are English sounding, so it's in England. I suppose I could try for a Scottish feel and have "The Railway of the Glens" starting at Nyeton Town and passing through Glen Morangie, Glen Fiddich, Glen Livet and Glen Kinchie to a terminus at Bauchle Hame (that's Scottish for "stagger home"). A Welsh setting would involve names like Caer-yn-Siwrans, Llandahoy and Pant-y-LLaen, but as each of the names is either an eye-watering pun or has a special meaning I'm keeping the English setting. Thanks to all. Cam

Dear David. Thanks for your reply. Motive power for the layout will be what's appropriate from my collection (currently in storage as I've been abroad for several years). There's all sorts in it; some useful, some not. The BR 9F will probably never set wheels on the layout but a whitemetal GWR 1361 class from the 70s might after a repaint, as will an ancient Hornby M7 and a Stroudley Terrier. There's also a wide variety of goods wagons which with a repaint will probably fit in, and several GWR Ratio four-wheelers (which I actually plan to fit bogies to in order to improve the running). This is the beauty of a fictitious layout. Nobody can say "Wrong" because what you're doing isn't true to a prototype. There is no prototype. I've also been quietly building up a collection from eBay and various other sources of period-appropriate RTR stock. It's all a bit up in the air at the moment. Regards Cam

Thanks for that. A lot to consider. Moorhaven does have a small coal dock, mainly for a small coaster which will take coal to the island of Northolme (the reason behind a lot of traffic destined for Moorhaven). However, when I looked into coal to sea transfer the facilities aren't pretty and are quite large (having seen Moorhaven on rmweb now I'm beginning to think it's too big and needs downsizing anyway). Coal transfer at Moorhaven will probably be achieved using a simple wagon tipple like the Victorian one on the iron ore railway at Watchet in Somerset. There's a photo at http://www.westsomersetmineralrailway.org.uk/watchet.php and it makes a person think that Watchet must have been a pretty quiet place if simply unloading a wagon could draw such a crowd. (At Moorhaven the loads of course will actually be lifted out of the wagons using the 0-5-0 shunter). As far as general facilities go on the line, carriage and loco works aren't strictly necessary or even prototypically accurate, but I was trying to re-create a complete system, and also these facilities create more customers for the forge at Knower Vale, therefore more train movements. As for the turntables, I have a couple of old 0-6-0 tender engines from the right period which I want to repaint and use on the system, probably to pull trains heavily loaded with Rule 1. The odd excursion train might appear from under the road bridge as well, although I think the 9F will have to stay in its box. It's a simple matter to redesign Difford to make things easier for the trams. I think after starting this thread there will be quite a lot of similar tweaks to the plan. I'm already thinking that the colliery also needs some work as there are too many straight parallel tracks. It looks like a fiddle yard. I might bite the bullet and narrow the aisle between the colliery and Moorhaven to allow the colliery baseboard to curve out to 3' and allow a less geometric shape to the section. I'd much rather get all this design stuff sorted out before I start building. Shoving a few pixels around is much easier. Thanks again for the comments. Cam

Thanks scottystitch. I did have my worries about Difford and had thought about making it a single island platform (like Tan-y-Bwlch) but it needed to be this grand. One of the boats in Moorhaven is the passenger ferry to Northolme island, so probably three times a day there will be a boat train (tram) from the harbour plus up and down passenger workings to take the passengers from the boat further on the KVLR. Whoever gets Difford to operate will be sure of some busy times.

Itshall to Knower Vale I suppose I’m jumping the gun a little in starting a layout thread, when the layout isn’t anything more than a gleam in my eye and pixels in a jpeg file, but the gleam has been there for a couple of years and could soon start to become more than just that, so here goes. A bit of history to start with – my first proper layout was an 8’ x 4’ OO gauge with three loops on two levels. I could let the trains run round all day. (Give me a break – I was only 11). But it also had two stations – one on each level. While the trains were chasing their tails the thing I enjoyed most was to assemble a mixed goods at one station, run it to the other and then shunt it, taking the wagons that were already there back to the other station. I found this a lot more enjoyable than just watching the trains go round and as a result collected goods stock until the only way to store it all was to have most of it going round the layout in a mixed goods train (pulled as I remember by one of the original Hornby 9Fs with a ring-field motor that could handle anything I could hang off its coupling). It led me to a revelation about myself. I am an unrepentant Shunt Hog. This was confirmed when I saw the Aire Valley Adventure in Railway Modeller. The idea of a layout with several stations where goods traffic could actually move around the system with a purpose was really what I wanted. I was hooked on small empires. Other layouts followed, all with a focus on a good shunt. Well, after years of several layouts (and years with none) I finally get to build the layout I want. In the space available (28’ x 20’) it would be possible to build an oval with a fiddle yard on one side, a mainline station on the other and have fourteen-coach expresses thundering through. Trouble is, at scale speeds they’d only be visible for about 45 seconds and once they were back in the fiddle yard I’d have to get another one out. I’d much rather follow a little train from A to B (or A to F if possible), dropping off and picking up wagons on the way so that at the end of the journey the only parts of the train that started it are the engine and brake van. This means several stations and short trains, which points at light railways. So, a light railway it was. I’m not enough of a modeller to want to accurately replicate a prototype, so a fictitious light railway seemed the obvious solution. Apart from anything else it gives the modeller a certain leeway in terms of stock etc. and a much wider variety of RTR and kit stock to work with, as irrespective of where they came from you can repaint them to your own livery. Following on from that pre-grouping really appealed. The pre-grouping scene in the UK has always interested me. It had a diversity and individuality that was lost after the Big Four were formed, much like the British motor industry before it all became British Leyland and then the Rover Group (possibly because it was going to the dogs). Engines from those days weren’t just engineering; they had some art about them as well; a beauty which seemed to have been totally lost in the Standard engines of later years. Surely somewhere in pre-grouping Britain there would be a small corner for the type of railway I was contemplating. Next I had to settle on a purpose for this railway, and it didn’t take much time to realise that it had to be coal. I know that light railways existed to carry many types of freight as their main purpose: china clay, iron ore, fruit etc., but coal seemed the best for me because not only does it need to be shipped out of the system but it can be supplied throughout for both domestic and industrial purposes. A coal mine opens the doors to a huge range of train movements, full and empty. Was it going to be a standalone system, with a coal mine at one end and a harbour at the other? No. I love modelling a harbour and was tempted but that’s more for narrow-gauge operations (and if you want a really beautiful example of exactly that have a look at Ted Polet’s Craigcorrie and Dunalistair layout - http://www.009dutch.nl/cdr/ ), but a standard gauge line would have a link to a larger company somewhere. So, my layout would have to hint at the larger company and have exchange sidings. I still wanted a harbour somewhere in the system though, especially if I could run trains down the quayside road like they used to in Weymouth. Bring on the trams (even if the GWR didn’t feel the need). A pre-grouping, coal-carrying fictitious railway with a link to a larger network was therefore the plan. Having settled all this my next move was to decide exactly what I wanted from the layout. The first thing was no duckunders – the back problems are such that I was thinking of modelling a wood products factory called “Cameron’s Lumber Compression” to see if anyone spotted the pun. (I thought that referring to some chronic joint problems by calling one of the stations “Stiffing Badney” was going a bit too far). The second thing was taken directly from Derek Naylor’s Aire Valley. There would be “no lines crossing over one another that were supposed to be miles apart”. But more than that I wanted to give the railway’s operators (should anybody want to) the feeling of isolation. An operator standing at any station should be able to focus on their own segment of the line, so when a train appears the imagination can fill in the miles of track it’s covered since leaving the previous station, even if it’s only 15 feet away. Scenic breaks using tunnels, road bridges or even strategically-placed buildings were a must to split the layout into discrete sections. Using this technique I could also change the landscape, from grimy industrial through suburban and rural to woody upland and finally bare moorland around the colliery. And lastly I wanted plenty of variety in the operation. There would be passenger trains, of course, and each station would have the facilities for the 3 Cs (coal, cows and cargo) but I also wanted enough lineside industry to add to the interest. Industries that needed more than one type of wagon to service them were my preference, and if there was a degree of interdependence, with one industry producing something that would be used by another that was even better. Research into various light railways often revealed a lot of sidings labelled “Private Siding” which meant I could pile on the industries as much as I wanted. Anyway, here’s what I came up with. To keep the mainline element to a minimum, interchange with the larger rail company (which I currently think of as the XXXR) is hinted at Itshall Junction (pronounced “It’s-Hall”, not “It-Shall”). The backdrop on the lower side of the Itshall baseboard is going to be the wall of the XXXR’s mainline station. Somewhere along that (off-scene) platform will be a hole in the wall with a sign above it saying “Trains to Knower Vale”. Step through it and that’s where this layout starts. Goods interchange is handled in the three hidden sidings, which are accessed by a line which disappears under a road bridge and doesn’t come out on the other side, thanks to some jiggery-pokery with backscenes. After that the line meanders through Milton Gate, Saddler’s End, Difford Junction with its branch to Moorhaven (Yay, I got my harbour! It’s tram time.) and Overth Hill ending at Knower Vale with its colliery. Lots of lineside industries along the way should lead to many happy hours of shunting. Even non-stop, at scale speeds a train will take nearly five minutes to travel the full length of the layout, so with stops for pickup and set down of goods wagons it should be a lot longer. So what do people think? This is the first time I’ve designed anything on this scale, although Knower Vale itself is based on a BLT I once built. In designing each station I tried to consider it from the operator’s point of view – would there be enough to keep him or her interested? The intention was to produce a series of stations which hung together and told the story of the layout, but individually could be connected to a fiddle yard, rather than a small empire, and therefore still provide enough variety to stand alone for the operator. (The little halts with one siding are left to the operators’ imaginations). I hope I’ve managed. I will be getting the baseboards professionally made, and probably the wiring too. If I try to wire up a DCC layout this size the engines will probably play Radio 2 or interfere with low-flying aircraft. Comments please (as long as they don’t end in “off”). Cam PS – I must give mention to the “Nether Madder and Green Soudley” thread posted by Martin S-C. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/135768-nether-madder-and-green-soudley-rly/ . I look forward to and read his postings with a dropped jaw and a feeling of déjà vu, as he’s much further along a journey I’ve just started with the same type of layout. I just hope that I will be able to produce the same magnificent modelling that he shows in his postings.

You make me feel like dancing - Leo Sayer

You make me feel like dancing - Leo Sayer