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Help in designing my new UK outline layout

I am looking for some help on designing my layout.

I have a space 17ft down the side of my garage. The main board is 13 ft long and 2 ft wide. The last section is 4ft square (with an access hole. Additionally, there will be a small branch line running around the edge and above of the 4ft square board into a small terminus on the back wall of the garage.

Images of the boards and a schematic of the proposed station layout (not to scale) can be seen at

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The basis is that of a small holiday town that gets busy passenger services in the summer in the early sixties (so that I can run steam and early diesels) with the usual need for coal and an output of milk and cattle. Not original as it is a crib from a design in Norman Simmons book. I have, however changed it to a double track station.

I have cribbed his design as I have never made a UK based layout before having always concentrated on US outline and hence I was at a loss where to start.

It seems to be a reasonable compromise but I have one issue with it. It seems to me that when the shunter has moved the carriages to the carriage siding, the path back to the Goods Headshunt, which is where I guess the shunter would sit, is very convoluted.

I would be grateful for any comments or suggestions on the layout. BTW, the arrows indicate UP and Down.

David SBX Model Rail.

Reply to
Long Haired David
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"Long Haired David" wrote

I'm guessing that the shunter would 'park' wherever was most convenient depending upon the time of day and duties to be performed. It might even be stabled in the bay platform or possibly the carriage siding if the next tasks were in that park of the station. Wherever you park it, the pilot will have to move around the station at some time or other.

I've only one concern and that is whether you would find the coal and cattle facilities in the same area - the risk of coal dust getting into the cattle

*might* preclude that, but I can't say that with any degree of certainty. Could you not switch coal & milk sidings?

I'm assuming you station has through traffic rather than being a terminius. In both cases there could be a main-to-main crossover towards the extreme right hand end of your track diagram on the two main platform roads. This would allow locos to run around any trains which terminated at this station, rather than relying on the shunter to release the train loco, quite an issue with a busy station.

John.

Reply to
John Turner

Sorry, but I gave up waiting to download those images! They seem to be of .bmp format, can you not replace with .jpg conversions, we might not need a T1 pipe internet connection then and you'll get more help!

Reply to
Jerry

Working on the assumption that this is meant to be a through station, this is quite similar to a Cyril Freezer plan used in several of his books (IIRC including Model Railway Wiring (PSL) and 60 Small Track Plans (Peco, unknown edition)), which I thinkl was based ona simplified variation of Axminster (the junction with the Lyme Regis branch), where the bay platform was assumed to be on the same side of the main line as the terminus, the bridge was removed, and the link form the goods yard to the branch line was removed.

The use of double slips in rural goods yards, where space was a non-issue, seems to have been far more common on the LSWR than most other companies, who prefered to save on maintenance costs by using seperate points where possible.

As one sibling post points out, the pilot would in practiceprobably spend most of its time lurking in the carriage sidings or the bay between duties, and indeed it would not be unreasonable for there to be no engine shed, and possibly even no coal stage at the junction, depending on the nature of the branch and the distance to the junction from the nearest shed. Instead, the locos would travel from the nearest shed each day.

Reply to
Philip

Didn't an MP have a rant about passengers being treated like cattle after having to spend his journey travelling in the guards compartment sitting in his wheelchair earlier this year ?

Now scientists are investigating the possibility that UK's 'cattle- truck' railway passengers could be struck down by deep vein thrombosis ! You try getting home in the rush hour on the M25 ... train for me every time please.

Now back to the post ......... I agree with John cattle and most other farm animals do not like coal dust, steam, rattling coaches, whistles or horns yet some station layouts DID have the cattle pens and unloading ramps next to the station building whilst others like

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had them adjacent the goods shed or
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The main criteria is how the cattle and other livestock were transported to / from the station. A small station may only need access for farm trailers etc. but larger stations would need suitable / safe access for larger cattle wagons yet still keep the movement of the animals on foot to a minimum.

Chris

Reply to
Dragon Heart

Thanks for the input. It actually is a terminus - which is why there are no release points at the end of the roads. I am using DCC so I think this will be a good operting point.

David

Reply to
David Pennington

Fixed.

They are now JPegs.

Reply to
David Pennington

"David Pennington" wrote

I don't understand that? A terminium station would be more (or at least just as) likely to have a cross-over at the buffer stop end of the main platforms.

John.

Reply to
John Turner

One other point. I don't know ho intensive you plan the goods service ont he Branch to be, but access tot eh branch from teh yard is awful, since you have to move from the yard to the main line, back into the bay or the carriage siding, and then onto the branch. If the gradients will allow it, it might be better to add change tthe left-most points on the right-main track to a slip, and add an extra crossover there to the branch, allowing trains to directly access the branch from the goods yard. Based on the lower drawing, using a flover from the goods yard to the branch would be ruled out by space considerations, although if space were avaliable, this would make an unusual scenic break.

If you added the crossver as I suggested above, then you might have room if you brought the loop forwards slighly , so that the branch was behind the loop for part of its length. Personally, space permitting, I would add extra loops on the main loop.

Reply to
Philip

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