WEST ORTON

[Brian]

Well I bow to you sir! I just cant keep up and technically I have around 15 hours a day free, but many are spent doing "Domestic Chores" or watching the latest box set TV series, which SHMBO wants to watch too! Grr... Lockdown gets to you in the end!

[cadman]

What a lovely project, Steve and great progress.........HB

[Carl L]

That looks very impressive.

A blank canvas, the stuff of dreams, to start all over again. I'm not so far down the road (a current ballasting blitz) but I can't help looking at the layout and thinking I wish I'd done this, that or the other, or seeing something and wishing I'd considered it. Do we ever overcome that?

Good luck with the planning.

And..... What a spotlessly clean and neat area, might have to go for a tidy up of mine, again!

[Steve M]

First doodling of a potential station throat.

Three tracks in the station (yes it’s on the curve again!) leading out to a two track mainline and a branch. The current configuration allows all tracks entering the station to access all platforms but leaving the station the branch bay can’t reach the mainline directly. That should require some careful routing of traffic into this area. One exit route will pass under the other so there will have to be inclines, as one rises the other will fall - not enough space for a single incline. No idea how successful this will be so it will undoubtedly change as reality bites.

2021-03-16_12-47-04 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

[Carl L]

Steve,

Nice looking junction, something I wish I’d thought about more somewhere on mine.

Re: “there will have to be inclines, as one rises the other will fall - not enough space for a single incline.”

If this helps I did exactly that to achieve a clearance in what I worked out to be half the length of inclining just one set of tracks. Not sure how clear it is in the image , but the rear tracks rise, the four in the middle drop, while the goods yard is level at half height of the total clearance.

[Steve M]

Thanks Carl, yes that’s the idea. Mine is complicated by board joints as I’m trying to stick with the principle of modular boards. Not an issue at the station end but at the other end the tracks would cross the board joint at two levels.
Further complicated by having to bring the relative heights back together further round the layout.
Now you can see why I haven’t cut any sides for the board units yet.

[Steve M]

I have spent a good few hours at the paint bench this week and photos showing both green and black paint projects will hopefully appear soon. But I have managed to focus in a bit on the station throat for the new layout. Two very similar versions.

If I progress this configuration, the whole of the through station will be located on a curve which will range from 24” to 36” radius. I know this gives a bit of an issue with coach overhang and gaps but it’s a compromise I may have to make as it gives me a good 10’ for a countryside embankment and bridge across the other end of the shed. I did read about a layout that had drystone walling made from individual chips of dried DAS clay - appeals to the obsessive part of my nature.

2021-03-19_10-16-53 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

[Chops]

Only man creates problems for himself to solve. Any other critter, now or before, has a considerably more linear approach to problem solving. All your passenger coaches can glide in from the countryside into the station, but have to navigate a lattice of turnouts to find their way out, again. You seem to be creating a model railway chessboard. Quite remarkable, this OO Venus Fly Trap. Well done, sir.

Do keep us posted. Hopefully the coaches will waggle their way through that cluster of switches, and not derail because of buffer drag.

Again, one would but hardly see such a design on North American layouts, as coach service is largely treated as an afterthought. Your American Cousin, by exception, finds the British modality far more interesting.

[Puddles]

Hello Steve
In post 24 it looks like you have made patterns for the platforms on the curves.
I have tried to make curved platforms without much success, the carriages would bump against the platform edges and after some adjustment when they cleared the platform they would not look right standing in the station with large gaps between the carriage and the platform edges I could not seem to get a happy medium to work well and look right. I look at other peoples curved platforms and they all seem to work and look right. It was all rather frustrating, l gave up in the end and settled for straight platforms. I will watch your progress and will try and learn how to achieve curved platforms as I think they do add interest to a layout.
You are making good progress and very interesting to watch the build as it grows l don’t know how you do it all with your loco painting and work commitments.

Puddles

[Steve M]

Unless you have loads of space to create really gentle curves, curved platforms on models will always create too wide a gap and overhang issues - really no way round it.

But.....the platform on Low Ghyll is on a R4 curve although when viewed from a 'normal' angle, the gap is on the opposite side of the carriage and can't be seen. The platform nearest the viewer uses the platform fence as a view blocker for the gap.

It's one of the compromises I had to make and will probably have to do so again.
By putting the station across one end of the shed I think the main curve can be pushed to a radius of about 36" but I will need to tighten the approach curves to R4/R3.

Last time I cut the platforms from 18mm MDF but having seen how Barry put his together on Wykeham, I may try that approach - but I'm a long way from that as I'm still playing with templates.

As for finding the time, I find it's best to break down the jobs into small tasks and go into the shed with a clear plan of which part of the project is to be done next. It's a trick I learnt when I restored a car a few years ago - at no point did I say "I'm going out to build a car" rather "I'm off to put part X on." Do that a few times and before long the car was finished.