Flying Pig

Sorry no, it's still more complicated because the gradient is still in three sections with clearance requirements as above. However, the tricky bit is now keeping the gradient CD down without making the bottom section BC very steep. Looking at the plan though, I see no reason why the start of the gradient shouldn't be moved right back into the loops which not only adds about 1000mm to section BC, but puts the transition on straight track. Doing this and with the same heights as before (61mm clearance plus 30mm extra) the easiest gradients I can get are: BC 1 in 60 CD 1 in 40 DE 1 in 45 That's still a lot of hidden track with very limited clearance above it. Combine that with the very short terminus and tbh I'm struggling to see the advantages of this plan compared to a simple roundy roundy.

This version changes the gradients because the top board is wider and so the section CD is shorter. The effect is to make CD and DE steeper than 1 in 30 in all the variations I tried.

Because of the requirement for clearance above point C and below point D, if the upper board is set at the minimum clearance height, then BC and DE must actually be level, with all the height change occurring between C and D (this is quite easy to see on @Keith Addenbrooke's gradient profile above). With figures as in @Chimer's post this gives the gradient along CD as ~1 in 15... Counterintuitively, raising the upper board a bit actually allows you to ease gradient CD by introducing gradients along BC and DE. It's then a trade off between how much extra height you add and how you divvy up the gradients, but I found that 30mm is needed to get CD down to 1 in 30, with BC ~1 in 40 and DE ~1 in 35. This was the best I could do, as more extra height just makes the curved sections steeper. Again, this is without any allowance for transitions between gradients.

@Nearholmer's Desin Your Own BLT thread might be worth recalling here:

You were correct about the reporting facility - it's a separate feature from the quote facility, they just happen to be next to each other on the page. It's not brilliant ergonomics in my view and it took me a long time to find the quote feature.

A useful feature lost to improvement. However, if you click on the funny symbol at the top right of a post it will give you a link to the post.

I like this, but if you wanted to copy Buckingham more closely, you could drop the loco release crossovers and rely completely on pilots: there would possibly be work for a couple of them and it's a busy enough site for them to look believable. Check the spacing of the goods headshunt as it looks too close to the down main. Actually, given the tightness of the curve all the lines in this part may need wider spacing. The turntable and its headshuntmay be a wee bit close to the adjacent lines lines as well.

If a carriage siding is vital, it might be possible to work one in between platforms 2 and 3, but empty stock movements to carriage sidings further up the line (i.e. offscene) are probably more fun.

Your layout also shows how a streamline point can encroach onto the curve to claw back some of the length used up by the transition. The overall effect looks very good indeed.

A feature of trainset curves that's perhaps even more visually intrusive than the radius is the lack of a transition at the end which means trains hit the curve with a noticeable jolt. Transition curves will consume a bit more length than a simple curve but they also need more width, which is a problem if the nominal curve radius already fills the available board. My theoretical solution (which I stress I haven't seen used in practice) is to save some width by inserting a short section at a tighter radius in the middle of the curve where it is likely to be less noticeable, particularly if it coincides with a scenic break, and form a transition at the ends of the curve with flexitrack. So a 180° nominally 4th radius curve would have say 1 x 3rd radius double curve in the middle with 1 x 4th radius double curve each side of it and the final 22.5° at each end formed as a transition curve using flexitrack. This is probably a longer transition then necessary, but avoids having to cut the setrack curves. In this case I would fix the first few inches of the flexi firmly using a 24" radius Tracksetta and then allow the rest to form a transition naturally. Note that a double track curve is still possible with a minimum 2nd radius, the inner line being 3rd/2nd radii.

Thought you might recognise it

Oops - my apologies. Link now corrected.

Lots more pics of Buckingham here including a signal plan if you scroll far enough, which shows clearly how simple the basic arrangement of the passenger lines is.

Buckingham was terminus to fiddle yard, at least in its best known incarnation (I'm not sure how it is currently configured, but its custodian @t-b-g would know). Granted, there was an additional station at Grandborough Junction but a fiddle yard was integral to the working of the main line. The branch to Leighton Buzzard faced the terminus, exactly as per the general thrust of this thread although I think it was generally worked from the junction. BTW, I think there's a minor distinction to be drawn between systems where a train reverses at the terminus to serve the branch, which seems to be the majority of prototype examples on this thread, and the traditional "branch off a branch" model setup, where the branch is worked with a separate train. Berrow was I think of the latter type. It gives a reason to have an additional train and locomotive and an excuse for the Dreaded Bay at the main terminus.

A bit like us then. Do they post on RMweb? Perishable goods possibly? There's a plan of the steam age Birmingham New Street showing the fish sidings at: https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/lnwrbns_str1310c.htm Probably included a horse and carriage dock too.

Depends on what you're after, but that configuration can be quite effective:

I think it would be worth rearranging that on the lines of Borchester Market, with kickback goods top right and loco yard (not a full shed) on the inside of the curve to see how it goes (31A's Finsbury Square has the goods like that too). Also see the way Liverpool Central fizzles out into short platforms and loading docks which imo adds character as well as operational interest - in this case they would be below platform 3 which is technically the wrong side but probably not unworkable.

And carriage sidings and a centre road to be fair. A slightly more compact alternative worth looking at is Halifax Powell Street, particularly after Peter Kazmierczak's modification on page 2.

Several of the signalling plans on the linked site show facing connections to sidings controlled by a running signal with a bracketed disc reading to the siding, which if I've understood @The Stationmaster correctly is what he was suggesting for the shed. Also, judging by the 1904 Oban plan, wouldn't the loco release crossovers be worked by ground frames and unsignalled?

I think you have possibly misunderstood the goods yard at St Cyrus as although maps show a short loop as part of the layout, it's very unlikely that this was used for terminating and running round goods trains. At your station, goods trains would terminate in the platform and run round using the same loop as the passenger before shunting to the sidings. The sidings (like the white zone*) were for loading and unloading only. A single connection from the running line to the goods yard would be simpler than the two shown on your plan: remember that a trap and facing point lock would be needed for each one and the railway would not multiply expense unnecessarily. The goods shed would look better as part of tbe goods yard rather then isolated on the mineral branch where it will be inconvenient to shunt and probably require separate road access from the rest of the yard. I'm not sure about the mineral line but I've a feeling that it would have a trap point and be signalled as a siding, certainly by the 1960s. An alternative arrangement for the junction would be to bring it into the runround loop, when I don't think it would need any signalling at all. A headshunt for the goods yard is not particularly common at a small station like this, as the running line would often be used for shunting and your imagined level of traffic doesn't seem to be heavy enough that this would be a problem. For signalling, Clayton West (see thread below) would be a possible prototype example (it's BR(E), formerly LMS, formerly L&Ý). Imagine that the trap siding on the loop is the mineral line and it's almost a mirror image of your plan, slightly rearranged as I've suggested. The sidings at the time represented by the diagram are actually a colliery, but when the goods yard was open it was also behind the platform. *or possibly the red zone.

Several of their earlier designs were downright pretty, but they developed a rather lumpish aesthetic later on and did come up with one or two horrors. I've tried hard to like the Highflyers without success, though they were apparently effective engines. The Hoy 2-6-2t didn't have that excuse and was a strong candidate for "worst" in more than one category.

There's a song about that. It even has a train in it.

I was playing around with that arrangement myself but in the end I preferred @Satan's Goldfish's vertical flip because it does not block the arrival line when shunting the siding. @Harlequin, I think this station may have one road too many for the available width - it still has all the platforms of Minories (albeit one of them specialised) and adds a centre road. I would be tempted to either bin the parcels dock altogether and handle parcels in the two patforms, storing vans in the dead end of the centre road, or drop the middle road and copy Tower Pier. BTW there is a rationale for the slightly odd arrangement of Tower Pier, stemming from its origin as a station with separate arrival and departure roads. Geoff Ashdown, the builder, explained the details to me at Railex one year, but unfortunately I forget them now. This is a layout that benefits from detailed imaginary connections to the real world which help to give it purpose, but aren't perhaps so relevant in the case of a pure point to point layout such as we are plotting here. Note that it also has an entirely separate goods system at a slightly higher elevation which gets round some of the limitations of Minories and might be worth copying too if we expand our layout a bit to handle some freight.

That's a much more conventional layout for UK practice and allows shunting to take place along the departure road which would probably make life easier for the signalman.

I don't know whether anyone has already suggested this but it looks to me as though the drop ends ahead of the cylinders may be too shallow on the model, placing the front platform too high. As far as I can tell from photos of the prototype, the valance should be at the same level both ahead and behind the cylinders and valve gear - it appears to be higher at the front on your model. I also suspect that the buffer beam (which was of the Midland double type) may be too shallow on the model. Both issues would contribute to a nose-high appearance, regardless of the height of the body as a whole and its relationship with the cylinders. Apologies if I'm repeating earlier posts or have simply misinterpreted the photo of your model.