Colliery Baseboard. Is 2ftx8ft big enough?

[michaelp]

As part of my 00 gauge layout I want to incorporate a colliery, the space that I have is 2ft x 8ft.

I have the Bachmann full set of colliery buildings and a scratchbuilt headframe and 3 road screens/washery building. I would like to run ten wagon train lengths if possible.

 

Given the baseboard size and buildings do you think the baseboard would be big enough to house a colliery?

BTW this excludes any storage/exchange sidings, I have no idea how to route these in the space I have or how to position the buildings around any trackwork.

 

I have looked at various books and internet images but can't work out to get it all to fit.

Maybe I simply haven't got enough room to do it.

 

Any input would be most welcome.

 

Michael

[rope runner]

Hi Michael, 

 

Have you thought about slicing some of the buildings in two and having them built into the back-scene? 

 

You don't have lots of space, so if I were you I would focus on a small section of the colliery ie. workshops, screens, loco shed or spoil disposal point. 

 

Are you looking to run mainline locos or industrial - if it is the former then this severely limits you in terms of prototypical operation to the exchange sidings.

 

Rakes of 10 and a loco are very long, and almost impossible to do in your space. 6 plus a loco would give a similar impression I would argue...?

 

All the best and good luck

 

Paul A. 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

The railway bit is mainly the washery and screens. The art in this is to suggest the presence of all the other buildings that make up a typical colliery, without actually having them all (wholly) present, much as suggested in Paul A's post. This may seem a little disappointing especially as you have purchased quite a lot of buildings, but think of this: the biggest part of the colliery is underground in shafts, galleries and working faces, and you cannot see any of that...

[michaelp]

Thanks to you both for your replies, yes I was hoping to run a mainline loco with wagons and van bringing empties and leaving with loaded wagons.

Without placing anything on the baseboard I can now see the limitations that you both have pointed out, I worked out roughly that using small radius Peco points in the colliery the siding lengths would have to be 46" to hold rakes of ten hoppers without overhang on points.

Back to the drawing board I think.

 

Michael

[Flying Pig]

Here are a couple of versions I of a scheme I played with for a colliery layout in N, based on the dead end of a set of exchange sidings with the colliery buildings in the foreground and the main line connection off-stage to the right.   The idea is that the buildings hide all but the loco and first few wagons of arriving trains of empties, so these are all that actually have to be modelled and the fiddle yard can be correspondingly short (say a 2-8-0 + four 21 tonners).  After the loco has run round, the empty wagons are shunted by a colliery engine in cuts of three or four, so the headshunt can be short, thought its length is again disguised by foreground buildings.  Within this basic scheme you can vary the details to suit - e.g. you could omit the loco shed and rail-served workshops and replace with some of the structures you already have.

 

BTW I guess in real life, the empties would run through the screens left-to right and be shunted back to the exchange sidings via a connection at the other end off-stage.  However, it might be more interesting to shunt the empties off-stage and run full wagons back through the screens to be shunted on-stage.

 

As drawn the layout would need about 5' in N, so a little squeezing is going to be needed to get it into 8' in 00.

 

 

[michaelp]

Simon thank you for posting the track plan, yes some of the buildings could be substituted or left out.

 

I had another measure up earlier and found that I can actually get a 3ftx8ft baseboard to fit the space I had intended for the colliery, the extra foot should make a big difference.....hopefully!

 

Michael

[Fat Controller]

The railway bit is mainly the washery and screens. The art in this is to suggest the presence of all the other buildings that make up a typical colliery, without actually having them all (wholly) present, much as suggested in Paul A's post. This may seem a little disappointing especially as you have purchased quite a lot of buildings, but think of this: the biggest part of the colliery is underground in shafts, galleries and working faces, and you cannot see any of that...

The pit head was often away from the screens. We used to live in one of the houses belonging to Clara Vale colliery; the pit head and most of the buildings were on the southern side of the Newcastle and Carlisle line, but the screens and exchange sidings were between the N&C and the Tyne, where the eastern end of the golf course is now.

Tower Colliery was similar, I recollect, with the shaft being quite some distance from the screens- they were connected by a long conveyor, which crossed the 'Heads of the Valley' road.

I have seen a model that purported to represent the underground parts of a pit; it was part of an NCB display at the National Eisteddfod in People's Park in 1962, presumably intended to publicise the recently- opened Cynheidre colliery. I'm a bit vague on the details (I was only seven..), but I remember that it used Dublo EE Type ones to represent the locos used below ground- dad had  bought me one for the previous Christmas.

[Flying Pig]

Here's a 00 version in 8' x 2' 6", which looks ample width to me (and bear in mind you have to be able to operate the fiddle yard).

 

[Gordon A]

I suggest that you should allow a bit more width between the sidings to allow for the "Hand of God" to rerail etc.

 

Gordon A

Bristol

[corneliuslundie]

Most of the colliery layouts i have seen have had the "empties" and "fulls" sidings either side of the screens making a long thin layout. The wagons were often run through the screens by gravity or by ropes and capstans. There will be a line bypassing the screens as locos were not usually allowed under them. And wagons normally passed over a weighbridge on the way out. I can't see you getting this in much less than 16 ft though.

[skipepsi]

You could use a small industrial to place the ten wagons in the exchange sidings and reducing the exchange sidings to two long and one short one for brake vans might give you more room for buildings?

[michaelp]

Hi, yes thats a good idea, I have been concentrating on ten wagon sidings and not thinking about space for buildings which is probably why I have got no further with it.

As 34theletterbetweenB&D pointed out a lot of the work goes on underground and is not seen.

 

Even though I bought the complete set of Bachmann colliery buildings it doesn't mean I have to use them all

at best it is going to have to be a compromise, track and buildings and not either or.

 

Since the layout baseboards are still being built I have worked out that as an absolute maximum I get a

3ftx10ft baseboard built for a colliery, surely I can get away with that! Time will tell!

 

Thanks again to everyone for all the help and useful suggestions.

 

Michael