Hello all,
I haven't posted recently as I haven't had much to show!
Some of you may have seen my first attempts at creating something after 10+ years out of the hobby - Aslanvale.
This was a small branch terminus with a quarry terminal, set in Somerset and based upon a Cyril J. Freezer trackplan. The whole layout has to pack away in to the wardrobe to keep local government
happy.
I was progressing quite nicely, making loads of mistakes along the way of course but had had a go at scratch building somethings, done a load of wiring and laid and ballasted a load of track.
But, I hit major - in fact fatal - problems with the design. The different levels gave the layout far too much height to be easily put back in the wardrobe without damaging it considerably each time. Plus, most importantly, having toyed with what stock I have on the trackplan itself I realised it was a little limited, and that I'd tried to squeeze too much in to the smallish space. In 2m * 0.5m I had the station, the quarry terminal, a quarry terminal feeder line, a preserved railway an the fiddleyard.
So, I decided after much soul searching to strip it back and start again. I think I did this just before the point where starting over would have been emotionally and financially disastrous - I can still regard the first attempt as a learning/test bed.
Having thought about it, what I like to do is collect rolling stock (particularly modern freight) and see them running, not being too restricted by what looks out of place. I also like to have a good play with shunting things around, lots of points to throw and different sidings to put things in.
A few weeks ago I visited Coleshill Parkway station to collect the other half and noticed the Hams Hall freight terminal. This sparked an idea in my mind and I returned home to look at the whole thing on Google Earth. It seemed to have everything I was after - a large container yard next to a fast mainline with a small station. I've seen all sorts of thing things on the particular tracks as I motor around the region in all sorts of liveries.
The basic brief of the baseboards hasn't changed - the whole thing still needs to pack away in the wardrobe. This time however I have given the whole of the main 2m * 0.5m boards over to scenic sections - on one level this time. By clearing the shelf at the top of the wardrobe I have the chance to store some more boards and so can add 2 more to build the fiddle yard on and 2 more to connect these to the scenic boards.
So here's what I'm thinking of - of course I cannot hope to model the terminal in all its glory, the length of it is prohibitive even in N gauge, but I can get the correct platform length in for Coleshill Parkway station (to the bottom left of the plan). The yard has been turned backwards but is pretty close to the actual freight terminal. The scissor crossing appears at the entrance to the yard, although there are actually four lines running up to the yard from the mainline. I originally tried to include these but couldn't turn the upper lines within the confines of the still narrow baseboards. Minimum curve radius is 300mm - not that the curves will be seen anyway. The design has a total of 6 boards, I've tried to learn from a past mistake and have all lines that cross the joins perpendicular to them. The station building will hide the exit stage left and I plan to put part of a large motorway (the M6 moved a little...) at the other end. This seems to me more realistic than tunnels.
I still plan on using code 55, although this time around I plan to use mainly concrete sleepers. Is there a reason why points aren't made with concrete sleepers?
I'd love to know what people think of the plan - it's certainly not set in stone yet!
I haven't posted recently as I haven't had much to show!
Some of you may have seen my first attempts at creating something after 10+ years out of the hobby - Aslanvale.
This was a small branch terminus with a quarry terminal, set in Somerset and based upon a Cyril J. Freezer trackplan. The whole layout has to pack away in to the wardrobe to keep local government

I was progressing quite nicely, making loads of mistakes along the way of course but had had a go at scratch building somethings, done a load of wiring and laid and ballasted a load of track.
But, I hit major - in fact fatal - problems with the design. The different levels gave the layout far too much height to be easily put back in the wardrobe without damaging it considerably each time. Plus, most importantly, having toyed with what stock I have on the trackplan itself I realised it was a little limited, and that I'd tried to squeeze too much in to the smallish space. In 2m * 0.5m I had the station, the quarry terminal, a quarry terminal feeder line, a preserved railway an the fiddleyard.
So, I decided after much soul searching to strip it back and start again. I think I did this just before the point where starting over would have been emotionally and financially disastrous - I can still regard the first attempt as a learning/test bed.
Having thought about it, what I like to do is collect rolling stock (particularly modern freight) and see them running, not being too restricted by what looks out of place. I also like to have a good play with shunting things around, lots of points to throw and different sidings to put things in.
A few weeks ago I visited Coleshill Parkway station to collect the other half and noticed the Hams Hall freight terminal. This sparked an idea in my mind and I returned home to look at the whole thing on Google Earth. It seemed to have everything I was after - a large container yard next to a fast mainline with a small station. I've seen all sorts of thing things on the particular tracks as I motor around the region in all sorts of liveries.
The basic brief of the baseboards hasn't changed - the whole thing still needs to pack away in the wardrobe. This time however I have given the whole of the main 2m * 0.5m boards over to scenic sections - on one level this time. By clearing the shelf at the top of the wardrobe I have the chance to store some more boards and so can add 2 more to build the fiddle yard on and 2 more to connect these to the scenic boards.
So here's what I'm thinking of - of course I cannot hope to model the terminal in all its glory, the length of it is prohibitive even in N gauge, but I can get the correct platform length in for Coleshill Parkway station (to the bottom left of the plan). The yard has been turned backwards but is pretty close to the actual freight terminal. The scissor crossing appears at the entrance to the yard, although there are actually four lines running up to the yard from the mainline. I originally tried to include these but couldn't turn the upper lines within the confines of the still narrow baseboards. Minimum curve radius is 300mm - not that the curves will be seen anyway. The design has a total of 6 boards, I've tried to learn from a past mistake and have all lines that cross the joins perpendicular to them. The station building will hide the exit stage left and I plan to put part of a large motorway (the M6 moved a little...) at the other end. This seems to me more realistic than tunnels.
I still plan on using code 55, although this time around I plan to use mainly concrete sleepers. Is there a reason why points aren't made with concrete sleepers?
I'd love to know what people think of the plan - it's certainly not set in stone yet!
