Bittern

The Goal I have two basic objectives for this layout - exploring new skills, and providing somewhere interesting to shuffle a few wagons around until I can build a larger/more permanent layout. In terms of track plan, the features I was looking for are: shunting uses on-scene paintwork if possible, and not a sector plate or traverser simple S&C, preferably including a diamond, to see how I get on building track plenty of car spots, to give purposeful activity realistic layout, plausible wagon variety Space is not particularly constrained - I want to keep this small, cheap, manageable, and moveable, because I'll be moving in 3 years, but the only definite limits are that it has to be less than 9' × 4'6" (including fiddle yard) and I certainly don't plan to fill that space. The Plan I was hunting around the old OS maps for inspiration and found the northwest side of Railway Dock, in Hull (for context, Trinity Dock Street Bridge is inspired by the northeast side). Viewed from the cemetery, there's convenient scenic breaks at both ends, and a run of buildings along the back. By squinting at Britain from Above's photographs (especially this and this) they appear to be wooden sheds, but I'm considering swapping one of them for one of the brick-built transhipment sheds between the railway and Humber Dock, because of the interesting weathering. The site also seems good because it has car spots at the transshipment shed, a crane on the curved loop, a weighbridge by the crane which would need to be unloaded before it can be locked to allow a locomotive over, and so on. As a first rough concept sketch, I put this together with setrack to get an idea of sizes (small loose-heel switches seem most plausible for the location and date it was laid out). The loop marked "6 wagons" is around scale length, but the segment marked '8 wagons" should be more like 14, so when I draw it in Templot I'll try to tweak the proportions. Having thought about it a bit more, it would probably be better to slant the tracks so that there is room at the left hand end for a barge or coaster, to make the view across the docks to the backscene more convincing and to break up the regimented alignment A peculiarity of that particular location is that it is accessed from a kick-back off a track alongside Prince's Dock (now under the Princes Quay carpark) with no way for a loco to run round, so it seems likely that trains would be propelled on- and off-scene. Questions Can anyone think of operational problems/frustrations with this design? I envision the sequence being a train arrives and is stashed in a loop, empty/reloaded wagons are collected from the crane and warehouse (leaving behind those which still need loading), and the incoming wagons are spotted at the right location for unloading, then the loaded wagons leave. Assuming someone doesn't know what was actually there, do you think I should attempt to make that diamond into a slip? It is marked as a diamond in the OS maps but in 1937 and 1952 photos there's some fuzzy curves that could possibly be slip roads on the inland (bottom) side. Do you see any benefit in terms of "play value" to stretching the right hand loop out to full scale? Uncompressed, the prototype scenic area is 586' long, which would be 2.34m so I could fit it but I don't think it adds anything. Do you know of any sources with photos of that side of the dock before it was redeveloped? There are loads of photos of the other side with its distinctive buildings, but the only photos of this side I've found so far are aerial photos in the Britain from Above collection, most of which are focused on somewhere else but have tantalising hints of interesting details, especially the earlier photos.

There's at least two that supply the UK trade: Alloy Wire International appear to make Code 55 for Peco, and there's a UK company that makes rail for several of the societies. There's a surprisingly large number of wire drawing companies who include flat-bottom rail in their examples of products — I was looking into custom profiles of a particular alloy for work, and kept seeing that shape in their marketing.

True that. The part that makes it a bit odd is that unless there’s a freight terminal those units are probably the only trains that do anything but appear, maybe stop, and disappear, because they can split or join units, terminate and reverse or move to stabling sidings, etc. something I discovered quite quickly from my first train set (which I named my account after) was that while through express trains are nice to look at (even if trimmed to 3 coaches, from the right perspective) they don’t offer much play value on their own. The manufacturers must love GBRf.

While I’m not exactly young any more, I’m a bit closer than many. For most young people getting into hobbies (involving a screen or not) the most common way seems to be associating with people who are already involved and wanting to have a go themselves, or recruitment at places like student club stands at university orientation. even when I was a teenager though none of the few other young people I knew who were into model trains had much interest in modelling the current scene: one had essentially an eclectic train set of “I like it and I can afford it”, the others were focused on pre-nationalisation steam, the 1960s, and pre-Amtrak American diesels true, though if they are concerned about their long-term viability recruiting new customers is important. For UK-based modellers Peco and Bachman can be fairly certain of getting some custom regardless of their chosen prototype (Hornby also to a lesser extent). Hornby seem to be getting most of the attention (deservedly or not, I simply don’t know) for trying to expand the market, though some of their attempts seem wildly misjudged. I think that’s partly explained by people being willing to imagine that each train is every identical train, so you only need as many of each type (class, operator, etc. combination) as you want on-scene at once. After all, without checking the fiddle yard, how long would it take you to notice if someone did have a complete set of the different 387s used on a particular line on a day?

For an interesting modern south London layout I'd probably forget about a station entirely and focus on a tangle of junctions like the St. Johns–Lewisham, Bermondsey, or Stewart's Lane areas, perhaps also with an aggregates, post, or containers terminal, built in N scale - unit trains running in and out of stations are just too efficient to provide operating interest through station operations, so I wouldn't use space for that, and when your region and era of interest are all about watching trains shuttling around ISTM best to focus on that. Now, what I'd do with that space is a load of docks and warehouses, shops, offices, yards, and so on: without space to reasonably include some of my favourite later main-line classes running at speed I'd be tempted to move to to an earlier period so I can also include trams - Hull had some wonderful modelling inspiration because part of the docks ran right into the town centre.

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.

I had been thinking of arranging the slopes under the scenery, since the land rises steeply inside the curve at St Bees and your short trains can probably cope with unusually steep gradients, but that's on the wrong side of the line to view the coastal section from the sea and it's a long way across the river to the hill where the priory is.

I'd go for a looped 8 to get the extra scenic space. Depending on how you arrange the station scenery, you might be able to do it on the flat with hidden lines behind the cliffs, though your trains should have no problem with much steeper gradients than you'll need and that would deconflict the two routes making it easier to automate the turnbacks and either interact with them via the signalling system (which might increase the operating interest in what is otherwise a very simple layout) or use simple alternating shuttles/JMRI/etc. to shuttle trains back and forth while you watch the trains go by.

At the cost of using slightly more filament, you could print extra infill between the sleepers: I believe one of Martin's development images showed that it could generate STL like where the chair pockets were deeper than the space between and around the sleepers to suit milled MDF sleepers, but if you can't in the current release fiddling with slicer settings could produces the same effect.

That's the one I was thinking of — I thought it was a bit later, no wonder I couldn't find it.

For a small frame with simple interlocking you might have more luck using FDM printing or laser-cut plastic to implement a system like the one AMBIS make (made?) based on slotted plates. (Similar designs were used by Hornby Dublo and, briefly, the NER.) A home-made clone was written up in Railway Modeller in the 1990s, along with an explanation of how to implement some locks, but I only have paper back-issues so it will take a while to find. If you're interested I can sketch up the basic elements, and/or try to find the article. The big limitation is that it can't do some types of conditional locking without losing the simplicity and robustness that are its main advantages, if it is possible at all.

Given your space constraints, have you considered doing something based on one of the ECML branches, where shorter trains (e.g. half-length 80xs) are to be expected and some branches aren't electrified? The line between Selby and Hull is ideal for your scenic requirements 😁 and can justify almost any non-electric ECML stock. The most operational interest is at Selby with the bay platform, junction (which could be offstage, or cropped just beyond the eastern vertex so the tracks remain parallel), and Cemex plant, though you couldn't do the real Selby's scenery justice because of the river and houses so you'd need a pretext to move that interest further down the line. The Durham Coast and Tees Valley lines also have some possibly useful inspiration, especially around Hartlepool, but there's several stations that do a lot with relatively small footprints, and it has been used as a diversionary route for the ECML. It's not as flat though. If you don't mind removing the building Stockton station might make a good basis for a terminus/through station, and while it has a family resemblance to Darlington and Hull it's a lot smaller. A radically different ECML option to consider would be something based around a facility like Highdyke Sidings, which in steam days was the exchange sidings for an iron ore branch but after closure in 1973 there was a preservation attempt: it failed, but they had some particularly important items. For the modern era, it could represent a platform-less terminus for the preserved line. For added interest you could keep one of the former British Steel facilities open (shades of the GCR(N)) and have their locos bring wagons to part of the exchange sidings, while the rest of the yard is used for stock storage (strengthening coaches, kitchen cars, etc.).

From when RTR carriages only came in a composite and a brake standard.

Drawing a shape and extruding it is pretty much the first thing covered in a 3D CAD tutorial. Creating a specific 3D curve is hard to get right from photos (hence the difficulty even major model companies have in getting it right every time with things like class 47 cab roofs or Deltic noses), but a bus seat in good condition is close enough to a straight extrusion with filleted edges that would probably do in 4mm scale (same for most train seats before the 1970s), and for a knackered old one no two are quite the same so poking the basic shape with the 3D sculpting tools should produce a fairly good result without much difficulty.

The trick is that the teeth need to be fine enough that pitch is less than the minimum rail web thickness, and not to push down too hard. A slitting disk is generally quicker, especially if you use one that's big enough to hold at right angles to the rail, but sometimes a saw is the best tool for the job, and I find it easier to get a clean, burr-free, cut with a saw.