Chimer

I suspect a tender axle box had seized and the shed staff did an one-day-only emergency swap which was never recorded in the annals .... No ? Oh, OK I'll get me coat ..

For what it's worth, my vision for my "last great project" is to run a planned timetable sequence of trains on a roundy-roundy but, given the effort to set each one up in the FY, let each train run a few laps so I can watch it - and/or shunt the yard and/or set up the next in sequence while it does so. If it's a stopping passenger, it'll stop just once in the station. For one man operation (with a smallish FY and only a few rakes of coaches which will have to multi-task), that seems a sensible compromise.

You would find the track plan you drew up really really needed 70'6" x 20'6" ............

Nothing to say now - your last change was almost exactly (just slightly better) than what I was going to suggest

I was just building up my nerve to suggest an extra crossover beyond the slip might be helpful, to allow simultaneous arrival and departure - and you went and did it!

If i understand your ideas correctly, aren't the two descents to the fiddle yards going to have to cross somewhere, which is liable to further complicate the gradient issues?

An alternative might be to have the FY in front of but slightly (say 3"?) below the scenic section, which eases the gradient dramatically. If you weren't able to train your eyes to not see the FY while you're in trainspotting mode, you could even have a set of removable scenic covers to pop over it when you're not fiddling ....... just a thought.

You could start taking orders for points from RMWebbers ........... if we just send you a templot print .......

Hmmm ... debate is right, I have to say if I ever had contemplated building my own track, I wouldn't be now!! I reckon if the great railway pioneers had had the internet available to them, and therefore had discussions like these, the canal would still be the favourite method of mass transportation in the UK ......

The answer is "don't cut". Start at the link below to discover all you need to know ... it says it much better than I can. http://www.brian-lambert.co.uk/Electrical.html

Armament Depot Timber Yard Creamery China Clay

An alternative solution would be to use non-corridor steam-hauled stock ......

There isn't an icon for "sensible advice brutally put", but if there was I would have clicked it on Velotrain's post

I'm guessing this is 00 - if so, I think the gradient needed for the track leaving the sidings to clear itself after a 270 degree bend on (presumably) first radius curves will be too much for all but the gutsiest locos on very short trains. Most people on here seem to reckon you need 10 feet minimum if the incline is straight, more on even a gentle curve. The advice to keep it simple for starters might well include keep it flat.

Just to say that having just taken three days to work my way through four years of trials and tribulations, I simply have to know what happens in the end. To throw away things I couldn't dream of achieving .......... amazing commitment to self-imposed stratospheric standards.

The thing surely is that "modern image" is a phrase which is entirely likely to be used in ordinary conversation unrelated to railways. For me, in a model railways context it will make me think WCML blue electrics, because I was reading RM when they started using the phrase with that meaning. But without that experience, I would expect it to mean today's railway - and its railway meaning is therefore ambiguous. If the particular arty period had been labelled "New Art", the same objection would apply, but sticking in the French means "Art nouveau" has held its original specific meaning. Perhaps if RM had used the label "image moderne" instead ........ For French scholars - I'm sure there should be an accent somewhere in "moderne", but don't know where, which, or how to type them anyway .

As described, screams "Coniston" at me ........ Just one quibble, to use the track labelled "head shunt" as a head shunt fouls the main line, so why wouldn't you just use the main to shunt in the first place? I can see it as a loco servicing siding with the water tower moved over there, or coal staithes if you wanted to make shunting tricky ...... And you might have problems with the crossover between the curved platforms, leaving enough space for swinging buffer beams while running round might leave a big gap to be minded between the platform and the train, please! Best of luck, though. Love the area. Chris

The remarks about a "real" tunnel and the "tease" imply anything else might not be possible, but do those 4 lines have to be parallel and apparently standard six-foot-way distance apart? If they were going at slightly different angles, it might be easier to imagine they were going to different places. If you're rebuilding central Southampton anyway .....