Newmodeller96

@Pete the Elaner @The Johnster thank you both. I know what I am looking for in the layout I am just curious as to what others might put into the space and see their ideas. 

Hi All, 

I’m always curious about what else could be created in the space I have. 
 

I’m modelling 1970s to modern day, South East London/Kent what would have been Network Southeast to Southeastern Railways. 
 

Mainly EMUs with some freight. 
 

This is what I have planned my “layout on” but have been flexible. 

I have put a blank plan of my loft boards and would love to know what other people might get into the space with the above ideas. 

On 28/12/2023 at 12:29, Bittern said:

I'm sure I've seen an American design ( I'm visualising Model Railroader-style diagrams) where the inner track continued for an extra half-turn and then crossed back to the other side of the board while the outer track went straight, so that the helix effectively spliced into one track of a double track line, but I can't remember how the layout compensated for the unequal staging space for each direction.

 

A variant of that would be to put a double junction at level -1 relative to the main line on level 0, then have the curved route run under the main line on the level and rise up inside the main oval, while the straight route rises up to level 0 outside the main oval. The downsides of that, apart from congestion on the helix, are that the level curve needs to be outside the helix (adding an extra double track width to the circle) and you need a return loop on the lower level (though that could go under the helix).

 

TBH, if you've got a continuous run and can arrange access in a way that doesn't require a lifting section or duck-under (eg a section of layout on a trolley, or a loft/cellar), an around-the-room helix seems like a more practical solution.

 

@Newmodeller96 Where's the entrance? Whatever you do on a lower level needs to keep clear of that.

Thanks for this. The entrance is in the Bottom left that is a removable section. 

I think I have worked out the design now as have made it that both lines are able to go "off scene" and then they become 1 line for the helix down into the lower fiddle yard.

19 hours ago, njee20 said:

What’s the question?

basically a good way to add a diverging line and a goods/yard of some kind in the upper area of the picture. 

Hi, 

I have come back to my layout after a while away. 
 

I am working on one half of my layout. It’s 00 gauge and is to be set from the 80s to modern day in southeast London, so looking at dmus and emus mainly, but with some scenic freight aswell. 
 

I have a medium size straight roughly 3m down one side of my layout that I would like to use to create the look that the “mainline” goes off scene and onto my helix and then my “branch line” stays to the back of the scene and carries on to the smaller station at the side of the layout. I was possibly thinking of there being a “storage yard” or “line maintenance depot” on the front of the board so there would be lines coming off the line and down to the front of the board too.

I did have my head set on the helix at the right end of my layout however I am happy to change this to make it work for layout. 
 

I have attached a basic drawing of my layout. The station at the bottom is already laid. The outer line is the clockwise “down” and the inner is the anticlockwise “up”.  I hope this makes sense to someone. 
 

Thanks
 

2 hours ago, Harlequin said:

If the existing part is imposing difficult compromises on the rest of the layout design and/or making operations difficult then it might pay off in the long run to remove it and redesign everything with the low level storage in mind. I guess that's what Robin means.

 

BTW: Since you have no reversing loops or triangles (and it's difficult to see how such things would ever fit) then Multiple Units will always face the same way on your main scenic circuits, on the incline and in the storage yard. That means that you can set them up so that the driving unit never propels up the incline. That removes part of the propelling problem (if there is one).

 

I think I am happy with how the layout feels now. The current gives me a good range of main line and branch line operations.

agreed with the ideas about the MUs on the helix.

Definitely looking forward to using flexitrack to get this part of the layout set and giving it a more open feel to the set first half of the layout! 

1 hour ago, RobinofLoxley said:

Start again

??

I have done some work today on the design. Thanks to @DCB for the idea of getting a larger branch station on the opposite side of the layout.

I’m hoping to add the headshunt idea next to points for the helix but just need to work the best way to do it. 

2 hours ago, Harlequin said:

Before committing to any major redesign on the basis that multiple units running with the driven end at the rear is a problem I suggest that you need to establish that fact with the kind of rolling stock you'll be running.

 

Obviously in the real world MUs don't need to turn and so you'd sort of expect Hornby, Bachmann, et al to make their model MUs work reliably in the same way. But I accept that there might be issues.

 

It would be interesting to hear from someone with real experience of this.

 

I have very little running stock at the moment so I will be building by stock around what works for the layout to an extent. 

5 hours ago, DCB said:

Going back a bit, Frank Dyer of Borchester used kick back fiddle yards where trains ran into a head shunt and then reversed into dead end sidings.    maybe a headshunt or kick back could be added across the lift out hidden behind scenery.   Longer the better.  That way MU trains can come up the spiral power unit leading and reverse back down.   Then tricky cheat, loco hauled trains for clockwise come up with pilot engine on the front and the train loco comes up behind, the pilot uncouples  and the train loco takes the train on.  It keeps the illusion that trains go somewhere and still lets you run trains round and round. Backing down shouldn't be too difficult especially if the FY sidings and especially the point work slope down slightly

 

@DCBthis does solve all the issues with getting down line trains back onto the layout from the FY. Not sure if I would have the space for that points layout but we shall see. 

9 hours ago, DCB said:

A  "Developed" station where you can  reverse trains would sort things operationally.  See doodle.   PW yard lower left

I would definitely have double track leading to the helix so trains can pass and you can run a down train off the helix line as an Up train runs towards it.

@DCB I like the idea of this but worry how much it covers the helix so I couldn’t do any maintenance if needed. 

2 hours ago, Harlequin said:

 

 

I don’t think there’s a problem. It just needs a station at “New design here” where trains from the FY can terminate and reverse. That could be as simple as two platforms either side of the main lines and a trailing crossover. Something a bit more developed would be more interesting.

I think this is what I am thinking off. I originally had a smaller 2 platform station with a small yard off to the side for maintenance trains in my head a little like what is around the Hither Green area of the mainline. I have put a picture of Hither Green below do you think a smaller version of this could work with the addition of the maintenance yard! Ignoring the diverging red line! 

17 minutes ago, DCB said:

 

I had no internet for several days and my father in law died Monday so I missed this thread.  The only problem, and its a huge one.  with this plan is that there is nowhere for trains to run to.  either the cess to the spiral is the wrong way round or the station is.  Either way it won't work as drawn.   See my doodle, though I wouldn't recommend building it as the space could be used an awful lot better,

Hi, thanks for your reply, and very sorry to hear about your father. However I have already built the station area so that is fixed in stone. It is based on Orpington so I know how I want it to feel. 

2 hours ago, john new said:

I would suggest you make a sketch and move paper blobs around on it to make sure your stock can run where you want it to go. I am maybe not reading the plan correctly but as drawn it appears to show that of all that ladder of sidings you can only reverse a train from the inner circle over two diamond crossings into the back two right hand sidings and also get into the front left. The other three left hand sidings form an inglenook style separate system going over the diamond into one long right hand side road but unconnected to the rest of the layout.  No access whatsoever to those sidings from the other main circle due to use of a diamond not a single slip.
 

Hoping I am misreading the plan.

 

John thanks for this. I totally understand what you mean. 
I have done some drawings to hopefully help. The idea is that the top left sidings are a small EMU sidings for the branch line / slow services coming into the station from “London” (off layout). The top 3 platforms 3,4&5 are fed from these and are the lines running slow/stopping services to London. 
 

platforms 1&2 are the mainline UP/DOWN services to London / the South coast, these trains would be stored at loco depots nearer their destinations or the larger depots on the network. Ideally there would be 2 more lines coming out of the station which would be slow UP/Down lines but I didn’t have space for this as I wanted some scenic space too.

the diamonds you mention are all double slips so have the ability to open the upper platforms to main loops. 

with the help on this forum I am now going to rework the lower part of the layout to make it a bit more interesting - he says fingers crossed. I was never overly pleased with this area of the design hence why I started with the station area first. 
 

hope this helps

h

54 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Relatively easy to put the turnouts on the removable section if you want - just a bit more wiring if they have point motors and one more track joint.

 

@Harlequini think it should be fine. I’m going to have a bit of a play with the area of the TMD at the bottom of the design and include run to the helix into it a bit more. 
 

@Michael Hodgsonspot on. Where the points are on that plan would be fine as I can use what’s left as a removable section! 

7 minutes ago, john new said:

Where the two halves are joined. It can’t be a diamond crossing (that would be of no use) so must be a slip to allow ingress/egress to the various sidings.  Cruel screen grab below. EDIT After posting the image I have also noticed that as drawn the fiddle yard entry crossover has to have a single slip to work - better replaced by a crossover and left hand point for the same future maintenance issue. It would need the crossover moving one point length to the left.

 

 

 

Ah ok I see what you mean now. This is actually the main station and has already been laid as per the plan. 

16 minutes ago, john new said:

The fiddle yard has a double slip in a critical location - two Ys toe to toe does the same job with better options for any future maintenance needs and simplified wiring issues.

I’m not sure where the double slip in the fiddle yard you are mention is? 

14 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Combining what @RobinofLoxley and @Michael Hodgson have said this morning, I think there's a better solution. Something like this:

 

The operating well size and shape is almost the same as the original plan. The station remains more or less as it was, just some minor tweaking might be needed - no major re-alignment.

 

The fiddle yard line descends behind the station (the station baseboard would need to be offset from the wall slightly). It then curves around, still descending and feeds a fan of sidings under the station. If you're lucky you might not need an entire helix at all but if you do, just add as many turns as needed to get to the required level.

 

BTW: It's a bad idea to permanently cover a helix with scenery. The only access to clean the track and fix derailments is then very awkward from underneath.

 

@Harlequin thank you so much. I think

you have hit the nail on the head here! I guess I kind of ignored the other end of the layout but that seems to be the perfect option to get the helix run low enough! 
 

I will definitely keep in mind the option of uncovering the help and maybe the 2 tracks going above the helix will be on their own board just enough to hold the tracks above it. Then I can see as much as possible. 
 

thanks H 

5 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

 

Those are the mainlines through the station realigned so that they miss the helix.

 

Ah ok. So open the back of the board up totally to allow the helix to sit there? 

13 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Ideally, you need to keep the helix clear of all other tracks so that each wind of the helix only needs vertcial clearance to itself, and isn't forced to be steeper to clear other tracks.

 

You have a good location to do that (subject to there being some way to reach the back of it) in the bottom left hand corner, where the space beside the chimney breast is otherwise very difficult to use in the layout.

 

Maybe something like this:

Hi @Harlequin thank you for this. The only question I have is what are the 2 other lines coming away from the helix for? Would this be a long ramp back up/down so that I don’t need the second helix? 
 

@Michael Hodgson unfortunately I have quite a big slope on the roof so that corner that is unused isn’t able to be accessed standing up so I was planning on it being scenic/hidden below a hillside hence the helix below. 
 

the reason for the large centre is as you say because that is the only area I can “stand up” in and I actually can’t stand up properly anywhere which is annoying but I can overcome it. 
 

luckily I am 26 so don’t mind crawling around so much. I built the baseboard around the original design I had and have then changed some major parts since then so that is why they are already constructed. I will stick another post below with some pictures of the loft space for people to see so it might be easier to see where they layout is going. 
 

thank you for the ideas so far! 

@RobinofLoxley sorry I should have said. I am in 00 so was hoping to use a single 3rd radius helix. I will be modelling late NSE to modern southeastern stock so mainly EMUs and DMUs which is why I hadn’t added a return loop into my equations. Hope this helps. H

Ok thank you all for your comments. I guess the fundamental is that this won’t work. Here is a full image of my layout. Ignore the helix at the left I took a screenshot while I was playing around. The lift entrance is to the right of the layout and the 2 lines at that end are removable to allow access. Any help with a better position for a helix would be much appreciated. 
 

I’m pretty flexible with where it can go. I currently haven’t laid any track on the lower edge of the layout so can remodel to make that work. 

Thanks @RobinofLoxley I realised this today while having a play. I have had a bit of a play and think that I have come up with a better option. I hope this helps with the issue of getting lines below the main layout.