Stockrington - Mojo ignited. Thanks, Heljan!

[LNER4479]

I was thinking of having a coal stockpile to the side of one of the roads on the right - they seem to be a very common aspect of NE MPD's, but one that I have never seen modelled.

 

There's a 300mm square that looks rather empty behind the turntable - I shall study my LNER Shed in Camera volume to see just what sorts of infrastructure there was around a steam depot. I'm sure I will find something of interest - it's a rather large piece of real estate - maybe a boiler sludge pond, with some reeds and a few ducks on it???

 

Looking good Scott,

 

Have you noticed the sheer legs on the prototype plan? This would be an interesting feature on your model, again rarely modelled. Grantham shed also had a set of these and they were fairly common at mid-large sized depots, for removing wheel sets for axle box or other repairs. You could possibly have a building representing the fitters shop and make this (the area around the turntable) the repairs area? Not all repairs were done in a shed in them days (they bred 'em tough!) I'm sure the reference book you quote will give you lots of ideas.

[92220]

Morning Scott (well, it's morning here at any rate, probably a beautiful balmy evening in Perth!)

 

Without being an expert in any way, I like the shed area plan and I think you've done the right thing by starting with a prototype and tweaking it a little. Having tried 3 times to plan a layout from scratch it only made sense when I began with the track plan of Camden and then condensed and tweaked it a bit.

 

Iain

 

[Physicsman]

Hi Scott. Just got myself a copy of the January Railway Modeller, specifically to have a look at Hannem Central. I can see why you were impressed - and all packed into 14' x 8'!

 

I hope you feel you're making progress with Stockrington. The trackplan is coming together nicely and you'll soon be able to start filling that empty room of yours!

 

Jeff

[jukebox]

Good morning/evening (delete as appropriate) all.

 

I am comfortable with where I am with the MPD now - I may need to tweak and tinker when the track goes down, but as a concept, what I have is light years away from the fiction I started with, and will be a better model for that effort, I am sure.

 

Hannem was indeed a curates egg; Graham shot some "on board" videos with a fob cam; if I can find the links I will post one here, to give everyone a tatse of what he'd achieved (although he was the first to admit it was a work in progress, no less than 30 years on from when he first started it!)

 

Yes Iain, a summer's evening here, and not too shabby, either - we hit 32C this afternoon, so they lawns got their last mow of the year this afternoon, after I spent the morning at nippers (surf lifesaving club) with the kids. It's well and truly action stations around the house at this time of year.

 

And inside the house, too:

 

 

Yesterday, occupation of the railway room formally commenced, with the ritual climbing of the the 17 steps to Stockrington. About 20 times (which is rather appropriate considering Jeff is in Stockton, and descending into his bunker - I'm in the Southen Hemisphere, after all!)

 

All the goodies that have been accumulating in my study are finally out of the way: flex track, turnouts, those blue shopping bags are the telltale signs of a visit to DCCconcepts, some tubs of rolling stock, all securely wrapped up for th e last 12 months... on the right is 30m of timber - mostly "4 x 2"s - recovered from the temporary works needed to build the extension, plus the larger off cuts of the 12mm hardwood floor boarding. Not sure if or how I can use the latter, but it looks useful, so I was loath to se it thrown in the skip... I have two tubs (those 50L plastic storage boxes that are a dime a dozen these days) of smaller pieces of each material as well, that I will try and keep int he shed until I need. I figure that if I bring too much up, I will start playing the shell game of having to move too much stuff as I build: the trick is to bring enough up to get the long side built, then shift the materials under that side and out of the way.

 

Of course as I paused to admire the handiwork, I realised I'll have to shuffle some of this lot out of the way to get curtains fitted. That's an early 2013 job, after which I can get cracking. But at least I'm underway.

 

Scott

[David Todd]

But at least I'm underway.

 

[jukebox]

So the lack of updates in recent days can now be better explained. I'm rather a long way from home, enjoying the novelty of a white Christmas (eve)in a log cabin:

 

 

So to all of you following Stockrington, and to those who come and visit occasionally, I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, and look forward to sharing my build adventure with you in 2013.

 

Seasons Greetings!

 

Scott

[LNER4479]

Hi Scott,

 

Came across this picture by chance last week; I think it might be of some interest(!)

 

 

This is Stockton shed, taken on 23.7.39 (according to the info on the back of the print). Quite a substantial building - I love the clock; quite a few sheds had them, of course. You can also see the crossover in the bottom left corner that we discussed as the depot track plan was being drawn up. Looks like you're going to have to go into mass production for NE (Raven?) 4-6-2Ts!

 

This is a photo from a private collection, so unlikely to have appeared in a book?. Hope it is of use to you

 

[Physicsman]

What a marvellous photo that is! As a Stockton resident with a "slight" interest in railways, all I can do is bemoan the loss of such magnificent engine sheds. 

 

Highly inspirational! Scott, you really are going to have to scratchbuild one of these structures. I'd build one myself, but it might be a little out of place in the rural S&C!

 

Jeff

[jukebox]

Happy New Year to one and all!

 

I am now safely back home, defrosting in 28C heat (it's 8:15pm here), down from a high of 35C today.  Makes a rather big change from my Christmas Morning:

 

 

We were tucked away for White Christmas/Younger Son's Birthday/New Year's Eve in Lapland, and everyone had the time of their lives. Room for one more self indulgent snow photo? Why, not - it's a novelty to me:

 

 

As you can see, all those lessons about stranger danger to my 6 year-old daughter have apparently been wasted. Dress up in a red suit and fur mitts, and she's yours!

 

And so to 2013.

 

I did not do a lot of buying for Stockrington over the holidays: I grabbed some Tamiya weathering powder compacts that I saw for a good price in Hong Kong, ditto some supplies of plastic sheet for scratch building (though seeing the volumes Ron (Heggs) goes through, I have no doubt this will just be the start, and when I get going I will be able to better project the industrial sized numbers I shall really need).  I also stocked up on wire there: 100m of thick speaker cable to use as a 9V DC bus wire, plus AWG18 and 22 spools for 9V DC distribution. We seem to pay a fortune here in Oz for cable compared to the UK, when I look at your RS Components website, so it was worth lugging it back in the baggage.

 

Thanks very much for the shed photo: there are a couple of views from this angle around (though not many), but none from the sides or rear - but yes, building this very NER structure is on my list of cameos to attack. It was a key reason I wanted to maintain 8 roads in the MPD.  Silverlink has a similar building central to his Haymarket Cross depot here, too.

 

As for the A8's, I'm a bit put off by the cylinder-bogie relationship and how it would limit the travel on curves, so I've actually acquired 3 Craftsman Models A5 kits, and will batch-build these as a starting point.  Hopefully ArthurK's (Northeastern Kits) A6 will be a few more months away from release, so I can save up for three of them!  I have the Orange Volume (NE Region) of BR Steam MPD's and this has the allocations for Stockton, Haverton Hill and the others - as well as some small photos that are useful.

 

I still have a little room prep to go - we have someone quoting on curtains for all the upstairs rooms, and the father in law and I need to build a storage floor in the rafters of the new roof, to replace the area we lost in the old downstairs roof.  That will let me shift all the boxes out of my shed and under the roof, and give be some working space.  At that point, I will be free to start on benchwork.

 

But before then, I'll repost the station area details, as I'd like to have a group discussion on what I might need in the way of trackwork there, if I am to represent a locale where engines were attached and removed...  I shall try to get something posted by the middle of this week for consideration.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited January 14, 2013 by jukebox

[92220]

Welcome back home Scott and happy new year to you and the family.

 

Snowing heavily here but a long way from -20!

 

Iain

[jukebox]

Well, with the very useful iterative work out Northmoor MPD trackplan got here, let's try the same process with Stockrington Station - an area of the trackplan I have not fleshed out in any firm detail at all.

 

So, the parameters are a four track mainline, paired NE style DS-DF-UF-US. To my mind, there is not a mandatory need for the Fast Tracks to serve a platform - the way the trackplan works, in fact, it makes more sense if the fast tracks represent through trains.

 

Because of how the layout is set up, I see a need to either change or remove locomotives at Stockrington - but am not sure what trackwork work typically be found at a medium sized station to accomplish this.

 

I have two schematics as a starting point:

 

 

This is the simpler of the two, where I assume a the loco from a train on the down (Blue) line crosses onto the fast track using B, then across to the up line using A, then is able to run back to the MPD.  The fresh loco, that has been held at a stabling point off the up track, backs down and draws away.  In the up direction, the replacement loco is waiting on the track beyond the station, and the loco coming off uses C to cross to the up fast then off to the MPD.

 

 

While this version has more track, I assume it may be a bit more prototypical, with the run around tracks within the station used to stable and shuffle incoming and outgoing locomotives - also possiblly add portions to trains? I have shown an island platform in the middle here - I assume that if I add the run around tracks, then having four platform faces makes more sense.

 

I have not made any allowance for terminating suburban workings, but as there is plenty of baseboard width here, it certainly is a possibility - perhaps a bay platform at the left hand end of the station?

 

Do not be too concerned about the upper road leading down to the carriage sidings - I have just shown it to indicate the storage yard is directional, in that ECS workings to off-scene can go down in either direction, but bringing new trains up on-scene can only be via the green line in the lower right corner, as that blue line down to the sidings is around 1:30 to get down below scenic level as quickly as possible.

 

The schematic looks crowded, but actually represents about 7m of track - so there is room to move, although the location of the flyover and MPD entrance are fixed because of room constraints (the doorway into the room falls to the immediate right of D, for instance).

 

I'd welcome a robust discussion on all this - budding track planners please feel free to wade right in!

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[georgeT]

Scott, What a cracking shed layout, l have always loved shed layouts as they are great if you love collecting engines, not bothering with rolling stock, well perhaps a few coal wagons, will be watching this one grow, well done..

 

georgeT

[MichaelW]

Hi Scott,

 

I know that your layout plan has the two pairs of tracks as different loops, but I think to look more convincing you'll need to include cross-overs to allow for trains from the fast and slow lines to be able to access either pair of tracks on the right side. 

 

I'm trying to think of somewhere in the Stockton area where this sort of thing happens - at the moment the best I can come up with is Northallerton - 4 track line from York divides into the double track to Darlington, and double track to Stockton.  The line arrangement is different, both slow lines head towards Stockton, fast lines to Darlington. 

 

I'm struggling to find a good station plan to point you towards.  I'm sure some others will be able to provide a lot more detail...

[LNER4479]

 Hi Scott,

 

I'd welcome a robust discussion on all this - budding track planners please feel free to wade right in!

 

OK, here goes then...(!)

 

I think I like the 2nd of the plans best, as there is more going on. Having said that, I'm having some trouble visualising how the flyover (blue line crossing red) will work. Perhaps you're showing it diagrammatically and therefore these lines actually cross some distance from the station? Otherwise you're going to have to start your grade separation within the station which might look kinda wierd?

 

I like the centre roads for stabling locos awaiting a loco change, quite a common arrangement at the larger stations. But I'm wondering how the relieved loco on the down (blue) line gets back to shed if the loco replacing it is on the centre road? Maybe you need to reinstate the loco holding spur from your first plan and leave the centre road free for the route back to shed?

 

In your description of the loco change in the Up direction, I doubt that a prototypical operating arrangement would allow a train to enter the station with another loco on the same line just ahead (if the train failed to stop for any reason then there would be a smash).

 

My current layout project features loco changing and, in both directions, there was a loco change spur provided. It seemed that speed was of the essence when undertaking loco changes so there would be a minimum number of reversals to get back to shed and the aim would be not to block a main running line for any longer than was necessary.

 

I too am struggling to find a suitable prototype to base yours on. York was of course a regular loco change place. Although it was on a massive scale compared to what you're attempting, maybe try distilling down it's trackplan to just those lines that were involved with the loco changes. That might give you a few further ideas?

[great northern]

Hi Scott,

 

 I'm having the same problem in trying to find a suitable prototype to work from. I think that as engine changes on main line trains would have taken place at York going Down and Newcastle going Up, it is unlikely that another change would have occurred in between. Your shed therefore would be catering for local passenger traffic, and a lot of goods traffic. I think the four tracks, with the fast lines through the centre and no platform access to them is spot on though. That immediately means that one problem with engine changing/attaching/detaching is more or less solved, - on the side where the shed is. All you need is a spur for the relieving engine, and the original engine can then just go on shed, because the main lines are not being blocked at all. The other side is more problematic, as you have to get both engines right across the formation. The GN did that with a long ladder crossover, as at the South end of Grantham, but I don't know if the NE used that formation, and even if they did it takes up a lot of space.

 

I wonder if you would be better off using your shed facilities for local trains either starting their journey or terminating?  And of course for goods workings. If we take the major centres where engine changing occurred out of the equation, and look for somewhere with the four tracks, good cross country traffic and a start/finish point for local traffic, I come up with Selby. Further South I know, but a NE junction nevertheless, and a substantial MPD close to the station. You could amend it as necessary, and relocate it wherever you choose, but at least you would be working from a suitable prototype, which I think makes life easier. You wouldn't have to include a river crossed by a swing bridge either, though that might be just the sort of infrastructure challenge you might fancy? Selby I think had just the two main platform faces on the slow lines, and an Up bay at the South end, so would not be too far from what you have already planned. Just a thought.

[The Black Hat]

Hello Scott,

 

I have just found this thread and found it all really interesting. I think if your on about locations perhaps Darlington is the area you should be looking at. Darlington at the time of the NER - to North Eastern Region, had it all. So you can choose which bits not to have really.... it had the modern shed, goods yard, branch workings, semi fast services a locomotive works to turn out new build or overhauled. It even had a pair of pacific class engines on standby duty.

 

Your station seems overtly complex. Rather it could be done by combining areas and grouping platforms together. The approach seems to show that all trains would be converging on the station, but do the fly overs mean the station is on two heights like one was at Leeds. If not, I would think some gorgeous approaches with fly overs could be done before it all mixes into one station with platforms allocated for kinds of trains and bays for some others etc.

 

Id be happy to help advise, being a young man proud of being North Eastern. I will follow this with great interest.

[jukebox]

Good morning/evening everyone - thanks for the responses, which I need to digest and look at how they relate to the track plan (I'm taking a quick break from fitting lining to the attic with my F-I-L...  starting to sound a bit like Jeff and his sessions in The Bunker at K/L!)

 

I had deliberately avoided adding an actual plan view of that end of the layout, as 1/. I thought it would complicate an already less-than-simple problem to solve, but I can see from the comments that this may help, rather than hinder, and 2/. it has never been fleshed out beyond knowing how I wanted to "knit" the seperate lines coming in from the right hand side, using a flyover arrangment.  Anyway, here 'tis:

 

 

You may want to click on that image to open it up larger.  It also includes the third loop of track, that is not shown on the schematic, as it plays no part in Stockrington Station equation.

 

The room width here is 4000mm, and as you can see, there would be room for a fast-to-slow crossover on the left hand side of the plan, on the approach to the station, so that is a possibility, and there certainly is room for stabling tracks to hold locos off the main lines...

 

Hope this helps the visualisation!

 

Cheers,

 

Scott

[jukebox]

Three tracks at a through station?  Seems to be a popular discussion point right now!  Some interesting thoughts and observations on that thread, if I dont say so myself....

 

S

[jukebox]

Well, it's Saturday Night here in Perth, and I'm pleased to report that with the welcome assistance of FIL, we have completed the "attic conversion" and made suitable floor space to store all the detritus that needed to be stored, and Mrs Jukebox and I had a very ruthless appraisal of crap that we have had boxed in the roof since our honeymoon 15 1/2 years ago, and thrown about half of it out!  The blind lady came and went, and we now await a quote to get those soft furnishing, but in the meantime, I've been move more railway material into my room.  And doing some thinking.

 

I have concluded I over complicated the diagram of Stockrington Station, and left out other important information, so let's try one more time. You can ignore all the flyover and access to the MPD etc - because the track plan outside the station is relatively fixed.  What I really have is this:

 

 

Isn't that easier to manipulate?  I had to go back to "how do I plan to operate the railway" and I realised that no matter how you carve the pie up, the following "rules" apply:

1. I can only bring empty trains in on the Down Slow line.
2. When I am taking them off scene, they depart from the Down Fast line (technically, the could go via the Up Fast, too, but I do not want to have to manage uncoupling locos at both ends of the stoarge sidings, so exclusively Down Fast it is).
3. Locos coming from the MPD arrive on the Down Slow, and going back to the MPD leave on the Up Slow.
4. Locos that bring trains into the station from the Carriage Sidings generally would be replaced with a fresh loco.
5. Train locos generally would not take their own trains back to the Carriage Sidings - one of the locally stabled locos would do this.

 

I can see with the plan as it stands, that points #1 and #2 create the biggest headaches trying to echo prototypical operation: How to get a terminating Up train across to the down lines...

 

On a seperate topic, if it is any help, I could fit a small (Kings Cross "bottom shed"-esque) 3 track loco stabling point at any one of the four corners of this plan with little trouble - it would make sense operationally, as I could use this as a Diesel stabling point for the 1st Gen diesels I plan to use to haul trains up and down from the Carriage Stabling yard...

 

With regards modelling actual NE prototypes, whilst I agree that looking to the real thing for ideas is sound, I'm fairly firm in my resolve to imagineer Stockrington as a fictional locale, if only to avoid the pitfalls of feeling I have to replicate a location I have no ready access to.  Doing that will give me permission to need to change locomotives, or move stock on and off scene, and hopefully increase the "play value" when the urge grabs me!

 

So... has that made things clearer, or did I just muddy the water a whole lot more???

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited January 19, 2013 by jukebox

[jukebox]

Meanwhile, back on the computer, SCARM has come in handy this afternoon....

 

How do you physically start a project of this size?  Good question!   I knew that I wanted to use L-Girder construction for Stockrington.  It's not something that you see used a lot in the UK, mainly as it is suited to larger, and more scenically oriented layouts (so is featured a lot in US basement layouts...).  If you aren't familiar with it, it was developed by a gent named Linn Westcott, and is essentially a framework of inverted "L" shaped beams, that support cross members which in turn have risers off the that the trackbed sits on.  It gives an open frame construction, and makes a lot of sense if you are portraying something other than fenlands, or wish to run trains on mutilple levels.

 

You can read a bit more about it here (this link is probably the best one, shy of reading Linn's "How To Build Model Railroad Benchwork"...), and here, and here.

 

So the starting point for me, is a series of L-girders that are built approx 50mm below lowest track level for a given section (to allow for loadbed, and risers).  So I set out some beams using the rectangle polygon tool in SCARM, and was able to rotate the view and zoom in and out, to see if these clashed with any or the proposed levels.  It's hard to demonstrate with still images, but I did find a few areas - mainly in corners - where I could not continue the girders, so cut these short and replaced them with lighter ones in the CAD so I'd know I needed to allow for them.

 

This is the overall room view - I kept the windows in place so I could see where they sat relative to the trackwork.  SCARM shows risers coming own from the trackbed - which does overly complicate the view. There's no way to disable these. I'm afraid...

 

Looking at the far corner of the room in the view above, from directly above - almost a plan view  - the L girders are in brown. You can see the short pieces in orange that need to be installed lower, as they clash with the storage yard track.

 

This is a tilted view of the above section, that sort of shows why the step down needed...  In this case, I will install them attached to the L-girders for the long wall (that runs away from the camera position) for strength.

 

Using the 2D output from SCARM, I can measure how many linear metres of L-girder I need to fabricate, and how long each section needs to be to fit the plan.   The civil engineer in me likes to see these things In The Flesh to really absorb the relationships, but I do admit that I'm rather chuffed at being able to "fly" in and out and around the tracks to check for clashes before I cut my first piece of timber.

 

I'm off to tote up a bill of quantities!*

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

*(that's a white lie:  It's a sunny 30C outside and school holidays: I've promised to nip down to the beach with the kids, who are on school holidays and killing each other...  the timber calcs can wait till after sunset!)

 

[great northern]

Hi Scott,

 

I experimented with L girders about 30 years ago, and concluded that it had a lot going for it. My big difficulty then was trying to envisage the whole layout in my mind's eye to see where the risers had to go. We didn't have computers then of course, though I admit that even if we had, I wouldn't know how to start to produce those very impressive images above.

[jukebox]

Hi Gilbert!  

 

Yes, I admit I have been putting off this weekend's work for a little while, as it needed a good dose of concentration and some careful thinking exactly what point to start from.  Another complication is that my "zero" datum is not mandatory, so I really needed to think about how high the backscene will come up covering the windows - it's a little daunting having to bring those considerations into play on Day 1, but I guess that's better than building for three months only to discover I obliterated 90% of the daylight available...

 

I've said before I would love to have the patience to learn Templot - esp. Martin's latest wheeze, where a straight plan can be massaged into a curve - but SCARM is giving me enough information to keep ploughing on.  If it ain broke etc.etc...

 

Regards

 

Scott

[jukebox]

And on the station front, we now have Rev A:

 

 

By adding a central bi-directional holding line, the operations would be as follows:

 

*ECS Down trains: Inbound from H, cross to holding track. Train loco is positioned at Loco Hold (Down), waiting.  Pilot loco crosses to Up lines at B and then reverses direction to return to MPD (or possibly pilot hol point near label "E"?)

*ECS Up trains. Inbound from H, cross tol holding track.  Train loco is at Loco Hold (Up) waiting.  Pilot moves off via C to MPD/Carriage sidings (or holds till ECS had departed and moves off via E).  Up loco backs onto train and moves off via E.

 

Coming "off stage", the process is reversed:

 

*Down trains pull into central track. Train loco moves to B and then MPD via Up tracks.  Pilot, waiting at LH/D, attaches and hauls stock down to sidings via C.

*Up trains pull into central track, Train loco detaches and moves off via Up Slow to MPD.  Pilot, holding at LH/D reverses, attaches, and then moves forward, taking the stock to sidings via C.

 

Advantages: the trains would always uncouple in the same locations - just inside of the LH/D and LH/U.  This would make locating Kadee uncoupling magents a lot simpler - and as there would be no uncoupling on the running lines, more prototypical.

Limitations: This plan may work better with slips rather than diamonds on the U/D fast tracks - and this would improve flexibility of movements. As I have drawn it, trains cannot come off to store from Up Slow or Down Fast

 

Perhaps a more symmetrical arrangement would work better? 

 

 

In this one, trains coming off stage always are coming from the Slow lines - seems to make sense; Up train locos that detached and held at LH/U would then run back through the station light engine to the Up Slow at A, before moving off to the MPD.

 

S.

[jukebox]

More planning to help me move forward;

 

Firstly, the L girders. Turns out there's 40 linear metres of L-girder, or 80m of timber needed - not counting legs.  By my reckoning, I've about 1/2 of that in salvaged timber from my builder. Some is way bigger than I need, but that won't matter - especially along the window wall, where the girders are 6600mm long (there's 33% of the timber right there).

 

SCARM came in handy again; I was able to delete all the spurious information and trackwork, and come up with what I call Stage 1:

 

This is what I will be concentrating on building first.  It is the storage tracks, the ramps up and down to them, and the track along the short walls that connects the ramps.  It gets interesting, as this includes a section of mainline, the turnout that the coal stage comes off, the lead to the MPD, and also a double slip.  There's 14 turnouts and the double slip to wire up and motorise (T1-T14, DS1).  The elevations of the L Girders are for my benefit, but you can see (shown in orange) where the corners have been dropped to clear the tracks that are winding up and down in those areas.

 

 

And in 3D:

 

 

The plan is to build the framework, and get the storage yard laid, as a circuit, and then electrify it. There's a few drivers behind this: 1/. it gets me to gradient testing stage as early as possible 2/. it gives me a loop to run trains around - a sense of progress 3/. the stoarge yards will be a DCC sub-district on their own anyway, so it makes sense to complete it, 4/. there's a good combination of turnouts to cut my teeth wiring up and fitting cobalts to, so I can get practice with those before I tackle the ones in the scenic area and 5/. there is a opening across the door for me to experiment with soloutions for the hinged span in that area (as I will need two more by the time I am down).

 

In short, building this part of the layout gives me a real taster for the challenges that lie ahead, without too much repetition or sheer volume of problems!

 

So with the turnout bill of quantities now at hand, I was able to make a start preparing turnouts. With the Peco curved turnouts, this involved nipping out the jumpers, and removing the centering mechanisms. The aftermath of this was this pile:

 

 

It's been a little too hot here to comtemplate soldering, but when I get a cool evening, I will also solder droppers and jumpers to all the turnouts, so they are ready to install.

 

Tommorrow I plan to set to laying out the timber I do have, to see what I need to go out and buy.  Looks like I may be headed back to work next week, so I'm keen to make the most of these last few days.

 

[LNER4479]

I had to go back to "how do I plan to operate the railway" and I realised that no matter how you carve the pie up, the following "rules" apply:

 

5. Train locos generally would not take their own trains back to the Carriage Sidings - one of the locally stabled locos would do this.

 

Hi Scott,

 

Don't you believe it! Train locos disposing of their own stock (or fetching their own stock) was far more common than you might think - pilot locos had more than enough to do around station areas as it was. I've even seen pictures of a whole train being propelled (reversed) all the way back out of a terminal station and straight into the carriage sidings half a mile distant (all in one move).

 

If you have time to check my thread, Andy Rush kindly posted some pictures of the last active Ivatt Atlantic (62822) arriving (terminating) at Grantham with a local train. His second picture clearly shows that the loco has then drawn forward along the mainline before propelling back (across both mainlines!) to access the carriage sidings.Many would howl with derision if you did that on a model but it really did happen!

 

All that having been said, don't let me for one moment dissuade you from operating the station as you propose. What you have outlined is all perfectly logical nonetheless and provides gameful employment for your station pilot(s) and I suspect will be more interesting to operate, so go for it - it's your layout afterall!

 

The SCARM printouts are impressive. All that carpentry should keep you quiet for a while