Over the years there have been numerous plans for all kinds of layouts, none of which ever got anywhere near being built. Largely, I suspect, because they were far too ambitious, but there never was the space, the time or the money anyway. (It's called armchair modelling.) I intend to retire in March and so can begin to make concrete plans and cost, while not imaterial, is less of a problem that it was some years ago.
I suppose, like many others, in the past I had visions of an intensive passenger railway with long trains and lots of tail traffic. I would really love to see trains of diverse carriages being hauled by immaculate express engines. The reality is that I would need a huge space to do it justice. Even the loft here with 30*13 feet useable space would be hard pressed to produce a realistic railway based on such a premise.
However, over the years I have found more and more enjoyment in building goods stock. The carriage of goods was the life blood of the railways and, in the era I propose to model (circa 1900), the carriage of goods provided by far the bulk of the Great Western's revenue, about 60%. Having worked many times on Horton Regis (The Epsom club's layout) I found I got a greater kick out of shunting the yard than running passenger trains. So this railway will be almost entirely goods.
The one drawback of that though is that wagons arrive either empty or full and should then leave full or empty. Since we do not have 7mm robot people to load and unload them we need to find a way to provide for loading and unloading.
My intention is to build twice as many open wagons as I need to operate the railway, half of them loaded and an identical set empty. Wagons will disappear into factories with a load and emerge later without, or vice versa. There are plenty of examples of this in real life. Indeed, it used to happen at Curzon Street Goods Depot, where I began my short career on the railways. Vans on the other hand do not need this strategy and so can be parked in roofed over sidings against a dock where they can be unloaded or loaded in the imagination. I have yet to think of a way of making the doors operational! Back to top
To make matters even more 'interesting', I intend using a wagon turntable too. I know this can be done because Ian Hopkins achieved it on his 'railway in a clock' St Georges Hill and they were a feature of Curzon Street too. However, I was also inspired by the Slough railway system where the GWR provided direct rail access to many factories and ran regular trips to each as required. I am placing my railway to the North of Snow Hill but have yet to decide which part of North Birmingham will be demolished to make way for this factory complex with its tight clearances and cramped yard.
I have spent a great deal of time learning how to use Templot and I have used this to create the following plan.
In
order to get it on the page so it can be seen reasonably well, the plan has
been split in half, the lower of which includes the fiddle yard and goes to
the right of the remainder of the plan. The plan is 30 feet long and will be operated from the side where the part circles are cut into the baseboards. The other side will be the viewing side since it is intended that the whole thing be portable for exhibition work.
Where there are no timbers, it is intended that the area is cobbled. There is a level crossing over the main as it comes off the fiddle yard to cater for the acces road to the yard through a brick arch in the back-scene. I may try to rig up some sort of mini traversers in the various factories to minimize handling of stock.
I intend to build baseboards using extruded polystyrene and 6mm ply for lightness but have them laid on permanent supports in the loft. For exhibition purposes there will be portable supports, a proscenium arch and daylight lighting, though I would like to experiment with different lighting conditions, but we shall see.
The whole thing is intended to be run using 3 link couplings, DCC, sound in each engine plus, as far as possible, mechanically operated and interlocked signals and turnouts. Ambitious? You bet, but I think it doable. Back to top
The layout above provides for eleven terminating locations for wagons or vans, but there could be a couple of arrivals before a departure. The wagons will all terminate in factories. Either a full or empty wagon disappears into a factory and, later, an empty or full one emerges. I have yet to finalise what factories there will be but one will be a perambulator and velocipede factory, which neatly validates the NBR van, used to bring textiles for the perambulators from the North. It also means I could get away with the odd private or branded van of velocipedes. Cannot do too many though since vans were a relative rarity in 1900, but that could lead to lots of opens with big packing cases in them. A firework manufacturer had been intended but, after studying the subject further, it is unlikely that such a factory would have been allowed in a dense city area, even in 1900. However, if anyone know of such prototype, I'd like to know baout it. So the Gunpowder van may never tun after all. A heavy woodworks factory will allow me run a pair Barry mites with Baltic timber from Barry Docks.
I would welcome feedback, comments and even brick bats on these, largely, untested, ideas, especially on the workability of the layout of tracks so far.
By the way, it will be 31.5mm track gauge.
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