The master plan

Might as well get this down somewhere as plans start to solidify :D

After discussion with my likely partner in crime, we're shooting for the original (wow, how far back was that?) idea I had.

Onnybrook Junction will be set between Craven Arms and Marsh Farm Junction: it's a smallish through station on the LMS/GWR joint line from Hereford to Shrewsbury: the date is late summer 1934 (with a tiny bit of leeway to allow me to run a 4-4-0 County (all of which were scrapped by 1933). Track plan to follow (it's on the other computer) but basically it's typical of that line in that it's two through platforms, and then a refuge siding on one side, and a loop and some goods sidings on the other, and the classic crossover with single slip feeding the loop. We don't yet have space for a full oval, but we do have a lot of length, so currently it'll be about 15' with a fiddle yard either end.

Someday, I may yet have a go at Craven Arms and Stokesay, but, as they say, This Is Not That Day. 

Well, that took a bit longer than anticipated!

Largely, to be honest, because despite the supposed extra space that having the workshop converted and the spare garage turned into a storeroom generates, we still have Too Much Stuff, compounded by being in a band with all the attendant stuff that entails.

Still, after much juggling, changing jobs, and other fun, I now have a clear shelf onto which I can move all the model railway stuff out of the back of the storeroom, and have started doing so. (Apart from anything else, once I get the toys out of the big Really Useful Box in there, it can be used for storing the band lights that are cluttering up my workbench!)

Please tell me I'm not the only person who has this kind of problem?

2018 announcements, planning

*sigh*

No love for the GWR this year from Bachmann or Hornby, and Dapol are releasing their own versions of things that already exist and I already have (61xx, Churchward Mogul).

Ah well, still got some catching up to do on LMS stock - the Webb coal tank from Bachmann is lovely, new since I took a break and ubiquitous on the area I like. Now if someone would make a Cauliflower....

Picked up an online PDF of the GWR 1936 working timetable for the Shrewsbury/Hereford area, which is fascinating reading (very distracting from what I'm supposed to be doing!).

I have drawn up the Five Year Plan (aka what happens when the tenant in the workshop gets to the point where they need more space and moves out), and the short term part of it is to go back to my original plan of building Longville on the Wenlock Branch, only on an 8'x2' (so plenty of room for scenery). I've been reading John de Frayssinet's "Scenic Modelling: A Guide for Railway Modellers", which is very inspiring, as it talks about the Pendon-esque approach of making the railway a part of the landscape. Recommended reading.

2018

Yes, that does mean I last posted 7 years ago. :D

Railway modelling has been a bit on hold for a number of reasons - first off, I'm also a wargamer, and have been quite (publicly) active in the hobby which has been taking up a fair amount of my time. Secondly, due to that and being in a couple of bands, available space for a layout has dropped to almost nothing. And thirdly, James is now 18, and has other interests (including a drum kit)

That said, the itch won't go away. We have just had the workshop floor relaid, which has entailed a massive clearout as well as getting one of our garages converted to a storeroom for all the accumulated junk. Unfortunately, there are other uses planned in the short term for the workshop, but that doesn't preclude some advance planning, and reverting to one of my older plans for a layout, namely Longville on the Wenlock branch, as a first step that can go elsewhere in the house.

I'll try and post again before another 7 years pass! (Apart from anything else, I'll be retired by then!)

Deeping model railway exhibition and fiddle yards

Went to the excellent small show in Deeping St. James (just up the road) last week. Several nice layouts, including Woodcroft. which was using aluminium-angle based cassettes in its fiddle yards.

I've just acquired, from a friend who's clearing out, a couple of 5'x18" or so papering tables. which are a touch wobbly to lay track on, but DO look as though they could be reasonable supports for cassette-based fiddle yards.

Hrm. Must think about that :D

A few achievements today...

...helped by having no broadband, and having to be in home for the solar heating engineers.

I’ve removed the original Bachmann “G W R” lettering from the tank sides of my 56xx, with a cotton bud, some enamel thinners and the end of a cocktail stick, and replaced it with HRMS Pressfix “GREAT WESTERN” lettering. For a moment or two it looked as if one side was going to read “GREA|- WESTERN” due to not pressing down on ALL the letters!

I also took delivery of a MicroScale ‘Truck Tuner’ from wizardmodels.co.uk, which is a very handy little widget (pointed out to me by the folks on RMWeb) for opening out wheel bearings on (in my case) Lima wagons, which tend to have horribly out of scale (and in at least one case out of round) wheels.

Also did a lot of thinking and planning, and I think the current aim is to:

• settle on a track plan for James’ 8’x4’ board, and use that as practice for track laying, ballast and scenery. I suspect this is going to wind up as a derivative of one of CJF’s ‘double track junction plus high level branch’ plans from 60 Plans For Small Locations, and will make James’ happy ‘cause it’ll have a tunnel! This will, I think be ‘Onnybrook Junction’ and I might try and squeeze Longville’s track plan in as the upper level station. What I do hope to do, though, is try and avoid CJF’s penchant for retaining walls, perhaps by adopting the approach from the Peco Settrack plans book of having a double sided scenic break.


• slowly start building baseboards for Much Wenlock. It looks like this is 3 4’x2’ board plus a 4’x1’ fiddle yard either end. The interesting gotchas are that the whole thing isn’t flat, and there’s at least one road that has to go from over to under the railway in about 7’. I think I understand how, though.

Or.... (what, me? indecisive)

... I wonder if I could fit Much Wenlock in 10' or 12' of scenic baseboard?

The main problem is it would restrict the number of rooms in this house I could built it in. Longville would fit along one wall of one of the (several) 12'x12' rooms here including its fiddle yards. Much Wenlock is markedly longer - it's actually two stations separated by a couple of hundred yards, for all practical purposes, as the old one became the goods yard when the new one was built.

Longville has two problems:

• It's positively dead in terms of traffic and loco availability - 3 passenger trains a day! 
• It slopes the wrong way! If you look at the diagram in the previous post, the terrain actually slopes down from bottom to top (being as how it's on Wenlock Edge!). Which would mean that ideally you'd want to view the layout from the top... which means the buildings block line of sight on half the track.

However, on the plus side:

• It's only four points, and is nice and small.

As far as Much Wenlock goes, on the other hand:

• Much more traffic
• No real slope, although the south/west bound line to Presthope is usefully at the back of the layout and raised a little.
• Has a proper engine shed and goods shed.

But

• It looks like it really needs 12', which restricts me to the outbuildings or the library, by the time I've added 3' of fiddleyard either end.

All quiet on the (Great) Western front

Walked back into work on Jan 6th to find I'd been promoted. Along with a music convention and a church panto to organize, life has been a bit busy.

Still:

Scored a Hornby Collet restaurant car on eBay. James has £65 burning a hole in his pocket and lamenting the lack of GWR RTR Prairies and similar - we're watching eBay like a pair of hawks.

As for the master plan? It's too cold to do anything out in the outbuildings, and I've been kind of busy. Toying with a couple of ideas at present:

One is to move Onnybrook Junction to be a fictitious station actually at Marshbrook Junction on the Marches Line. On the plus side, the track plan would a lot less ambitious and we'd still get to see the same variety of stock. Moreover, it'd not be impossible to make this portable, which probably has WAF. (Wife Acceptance Factor).

The other, that I'm seriously considering, is to have a shot at the RMWeb 2010 challenge with somewhere on the Much Wenlock branch, or perhaps a bit of the Clee Hill line. It would help if I could find the Wenlock Branch book which is somewhere in this house, honest!

Track Plan 2

Just idly considering two other options:

• taking the right hand end right round the corner and along the workbench, which gives me an extra 10' of main line run and room for Wistanstow Halt. If I can do that, though, I can cut it down a bit, and try for....
• a roundy-roundy with fiddle yard in 12' x 8' or so. My first run at a station plan with runaround loops for 6 coaches looks to be about 20' long, but it could be bent in the middle....

Track Plan

So, after a skim through Cooke section 63, I've reached a few conclusions...

I do actually have about 35' of length in the music room, and I can turn the corner at both ends for a fiddle yard (one end has a piano, the other is used for stacking flightcases, which in both cases will fit underneath) - basically a very stretched, inverted U

Essentially the layout of Craven Arms from south to north goes:

• south-facing junction, South Wales line off to west
• main station
• level crossing
• relief roads/goods loop
• north-facing junction, Bishop's Castle branch off to west
• Wistanstow Halt
• north-facing junction (Marsh Farm), Wenlock branch off to east and an up loop.

My mental map has had the southern end at the right hand end of the U, but I'm starting to think that's less practical if I want to slip the Bishop's Castle branch in, since it can come off a bit short of the right hand end and vanish behind the backscene to a two road fiddle yard, whereas the Wenlock Branch can curve round to the main fiddle yard.

Assuming I have 30' of clear run (allowing for turns into the fiddle yards on both ends), if I can fit the South Wales junction, main station and relief roads in 16', that leaves about 14' of open country to fit the two north junctions in. I might even have room for Wistanstow Halt. The Wenlock branch can actually round the corner in front of the main fiddleyard and have its own small (4', 3 road) yard.