A plan for all seasons

[All thumbs]

A series of recent happenings has finally conspired to get me off my comfortable sofa and thinking about possibilities.

Firstly there has been the Great Model Railway Challenge which showed how easy it is to get started. Next, in the October edition of Railway Modeller there was a layout plan, "In the outer suburbs", featuring a combined through and terminus station on a continuous circuit. I have been attracted to models of London's railway workings for some time and particularly like "Finsbury Square", "Aldersgate", "Hornsey Broadway" and "Sumatra Road/Harford Street". For research purposes, the article is below and I acknowledge the copyrights of Peco Publications & Publicity Ltd and John Flint.

(C) 2018 Peco Publications & Publicity Ltd and John Flint

Anyway, it struck me that John had missed a trick here in that the approach track to the terminus could have borrowed from C J Freezer's evergreen "Minories" plan which would have resulted in longer platform faces.

Then idly researching eBay late one evening (as one does), I came across the layout below being offered for sale, apparently on an 8' x 4' board. Its location made it an impossible purchase for me but the track design appealed with its two double junctions back to back. Again, reproduced below with acknowledgment to the present owner.

The double junction furthest from the camera seems unnecessarily fussy with one of the tracks/crossings redundant or serving no useful purpose.

It then struck me that the central space which in John's plan is treated as green countryside, could well become a loco yard like that at Kings Cross. As I happen to have amassed a large selection of LNER locos and an ADM turntable, it seemed to be worth the effort to see if all of this could be made to fit. So turning to AnyRail, I quite quickly exhausted the free version's 50 piece cap but was sufficiently fired up to purchase a full version. Certainly a design aid that seems very intuitive and straightforward.

Finally, in one of those strange serendipitous co-incidences, three baseboards came up locally, each 1500mm x 985mm and configured as end-to-end. I realised that if I changed the configuration and placed the boards sideways then I would have an area 2985mm x 1500mm or effectively 10' x 5'.

So I reproduce here what I have achieved so far with the invitation to make fair critique.

The grid squares at 328mm are a little more than 1' at 13".

So what we've got is a twin double loop that can be a tailchaser with either one loop inside the other or as a folded 8. There are storage loops under the terminus (not shown in the plan above) and these are at base level (0cm). From the storage, the tracks rise to 5cm at the other side of the board (roughly no more than a 3% gradient) and then rise to 10cm for the station. The critical gradient here is on the right hand side up gradient which has to clear the twin tracks burrowing underneath down to the storage area. At 3%, the clearance of the bridge is in the order of 5cm which may not be quite enough (anyway, it's the only measurement which AnyRail presents in red). For convenience the track library I have used is Peco Code 100 but in order to get the curved crossover (again on the bridge) to fit, I have had to use Peco Setrack points. For planning purposes, I used 51mm track centres but I know that by coming down to 44mm this would result in a more efficient design. My main concern is that the two large crossings on the left hand side and the single large crossing on the right hand side all straddle baseboard points which I imagine is hardly ideal - but at least no moving blades are involved.

The terminus platforms are good for an N2 (or other tank loco) and 2 x Kirk/Mailcoach Quad artics. The headshunt isn't of that order but then, I expect the services simply to terminate, the arriving loco to uncouple and pull forward slightly before a waiting tank reverses back from the rudimentary engine servicing point (yet to be designed). If I can get 5/6 Gresleys/Thompsons behind a Pacific tailchasing then I'll be perfectly happy with that. Currently i have provided 6 storage roads, three in each direction but I am not really looking to "fiddle" i.e. do much lifting stock on and off tracks in this area - I expect that 10cm is not very much clearance (it's only 4 inches) and it may be that looking at some form of sliding tray to come right out from underneath is perhaps the design solution.

I hope the loco yard is self-explanatory with engines arriving from the left tender first (the fiction could be that there is a larger terminus off-board or even the Cross itself, particularly if instead of being the outer suburbs, it is inside the Euston Road/Pentonville Road boundary). The engines attend to the firebox then coal up before turning. On the way out they can replenish water and there is an inspection facility and a track for locos waiting their next duty. To get back to the main terminus, again they run tender first on the left. There is a lay-by siding in case the yard is congested.

I haven't shown any trap points and on the main line, I have tried to use Peco's large and curved radius points. I am aware that Peco's single and double switches are 2' radius but in realising this as a project, I want to use code 75 bullhead (not necessarily Peco's - I do like the Exactoscale 00 bases which fortuitously have recently been reintroduced). In fact, I have it in mind to sign up to the Templot course being run at the next Missenden Abbey modelling weekend in March with a view to translating whatever finally emerges as a plan from here. That will give me a more accurate set of templates for producing (or commissioning) some nice looking trackwork.

Obviously looking for some GN features but not slavishly so. On the scenic treatment, John in his article suggests a central backscene because he is wanting to present a suburban setting on one side and a countryside on the other. However, I envisage a road scene running left to right with maybe a roadway actually running over the terminus similar to that on Finsbury Square or Harford Street. A series of 3/4 storey terraces (in typical shades of yellow, brown and black London brick with maybe a little dash of terracotta) with street frontages on one side and rear juts/central valleys) on the other, backing onto the loco yard - lovely! Maybe Alec Guinness on the corner...

So, whaddya think?

[S.A.C. Martin]

I rather like that track plan. Obviously you can't cram King's Cross into its entirety into an 8x4 but the spirit of it remains. I particularly like the tail chaser aspect of it. You could have a lower level mimicking the Met lines and a little bit on the side for the Met Shed N2s too in theory.

[Hatfield Shed]

The practical layout access stuff. It's a big reach into the middle of a five foot width across tracks and scenic features. This also requires access down both long sides (and you also need that side access for the proposed slide out fiddle yard tray). If you have a room that allows this, better to use the full width of the room for the layout and have a central operating well. This also provides slightly more length of run, always a help if gradients are present. Of course that does mean not using the boards in their current form which may be a complete show stopper...

Clearance from track base top to overhead trackbase underside needs to be 60mm as a bare minimum, and requires models to be good for scale. I know someone who very skillfully built an OO code 100 track layout to this standard, in order to keep gradients as shallow as possible. He used thin aluminium sheet for the upper level track support where it crossed the lower level track. There was (visually) about 3mm clearance above the highests points of locos. All was well until the day he failed to get the body properly relocated on a Bachmann std 4 2-6-4T, and the additional height resulted in the chimney sheared off the smoke box on its test run. It was something of a pain retrieving the resulting derailed loco too.

It has the feel of something that could be very GN. Small suburban country end turnaround station, crammed into a small site with tunnels and gradients abounding. The very home territory of N2s and quad arts, with a J50 lurking to bank a freight.

[All thumbs]

Thank you both for your comments and for suggesting there is something GN-ish about the plan.

Ordinarily I would never have contemplated a 10' x 5' board but a) it was taken up by the producers of GMRC which in turn influenced the Outer Suburbs plan which first caught my eye; b) fortuitously the three boards which were offered for sale came complete with a set of trestles; c) I am lucky enough to have a room which will allow me to walk around the layout when erected (always provided that I don't leave the thing up permanently); and d) I can reach 3' or so normally.

Hatfield Shed, thanks for the clearance dimension between the lower and upper decks. With 100mm planned for, there should be more than the 3mm available in the example you quote. Also the tip about using aluminium sheet to form the top deck.

I have spotted a point in the loco yard straddled over a baseboard break so it looks as if there will have to be a minor revision.