A flight of fancy

Imagine yourself on a light aircraft flying along the East Lincolnshire coastline. A few miles North of Mablethorpe you take a look out of the window. If you are imagining hard enough you might see this scene below you.

This then is ideally how I'd like the layout to look when finished. The length of the layout would run from the goods shed to the chapel graveyard and depth wise from the quay wall to the front hedgerow. Hopefully I could get the finished layout to look like this. It's certainly something to aim for.

In my minds' eye...

I am cursed. I have visions. Visions of Model Railway layouts.

Actually it's not really a curse (if it is, then it's a very nice one). It's just that some times I can see in my minds eye how I'd like a particular scene on a model to look and I can't get it out of my head. Luckily with an art college education under my belt I'm able to scribble the idea down pretty quickly in a form I can understand. Such has happened to me with the left hand side of the Haven layout.

If you can't make out the details in my sketch. The through line is passing in front of you, from left to right it appears from behind a tree and is crossed by a dirt track road before crossing a the dyke on a bridge that looks remarkably like some of those on the Wisbech and Upwell...

The road enters the goods yard with the goods shed to your left. You can see the mast of a boat beached at low tide appearing over the edge of the quay.

Perhaps the finished model will look nothing like this. But if it did it would be very nice.

More plans...

I left you yesterday with the comment that laying out the track for the layout full size had given me some more ideas for the scenic treatment of the layout. Well it didn't just give me one idea it gave me two. Two very different ways of looking at the same plan. When I was playing around with the full size track elements. As I slid the through running line rearwards, I became aware that it became less and less apart of the shunting yard and became its own element. That was when I finished the last post and went and sketched the concept below out.

To emphasise further the fact that the through line was becoming separate from the shunting yard, I placed it on the other side of a dyke. This would give the chance to create a little scene in the back corner there. A barn perhaps or a chapel. I reached for my print off from Google Earth of the scene to see if there was anything there to incorporate and I did something most unfortunate. I looked at the picture upside down. I saw things in a whole different way. This way...
The through running line now appears front left and departs rear right. The actual haven i.e. the dockside has been moved to the rear. That means I would loose the silted up river as a main feature. But I gain a potentially very nice scene in the front left where the through line appears from behind a tree, passes in front of the goods shed and perhaps a dirt track level crossing before crossing over a dyke all in the space of about eighteen inches. The through line then disappears behind a building to exit to the sector plate rear right. The flipping of the plan move all the shunting activity to the rear of the layout so that if I wanted I could use three link couplings in there. Which reminds me I still haven't made a definite decision on those. If I intend to use some kind of auto uncouplers then I have to place the magnets under the track when it is laid.

But with two new and interesting scenic developments to agonise over that decision might be a while away yet.

Do it... Jump!

Here is a further development of last Fridays design. Something that I am rather excited by. I'm getting a feel from this design that I didn't quite get from the previous one.

This design is pulling together some of the scenic ideas from the larger Saltfleet haven designs into something half the size that will still be interesting to operate and will give the viewer plenty to look at.

The most obvious feature lifted from previous Haven designs is the inclusion of the river and its bridges. Now two rail bridges rather than a rail bridge and road bridge (I always felt there was something awkward about that arrangement anyway). The anonymous structure front left acting as a view block could well turn out to be the tin fishermans chapel mentioned in earlier versions.

The Inglenook arrangement that forms the main part of the layout illustrates something about layout operation that I wish more people would pay attention to. That concerns the "unloading" of wagons. Unloading is a bit of a misnomer really as model railway wagons aren't unloaded per se; as 4mm scale working people haven't been perfected yet that could unload a van. So we have to resort to subterfuge that suggests these things happen. With vans its easy, they can be unloaded in the goods shed so you can't see that nothing actually happens. Likewise with the warehouse. At the outside loading dock you can't see that the doors of the van aren't being opened because it's happening out of your view. The problem comes with open wagons such as coal wagons at a coal yard. Unloading of those takes place in the open. So in this case the cheat is to tuck the coal yard out of the way around the corner of the warehouse so that you can see the coal staithes but you won't be able to see me reach in there and by some secret method yet to be devised (but will probably include magnets) remove the load. It's only a little matter but its one that has bugged me for a long time. This is my way around it, not perfect but at least a full wagon is delivered to the coal yard and an empty one collected.

So will this be the final design? You know I can't promise that. A lot depends on how I can arrange the buildings on the model. One thing that could change is that it could be built as a mirror image as this design is drawn with two LH turnouts whereas I have two RH. With, at last count, 10 4mm scale wagons and a class 08 I only need to buy track components, wheels, buffers and couplings I will certainly make up a shopping list for it.

(Yet) Another idea

You'll pretty soon be sick of all the schemes that I come up with in trying to build a P4 layout.

I wasn't meant to be planning at all this afternoon. I was just resting my lunch before popping out for a 4 mile run and I was leafing through Iain C Rice's "Light Railway Layout Design" and it happened...

I just looked at one of the plans that I had studied many times before in a different way (perhaps it was out of the corner of my eye) and I thought I saw something slightly different to what was there. So I had to sketch it out. Above you see what I came up with. It's basically an "Inglenook" of some description, with what I call an "orphan siding" at the rear. (That means it has no apparent connection to any part of the layout).

I've always had fun with "Inglenook" layouts and have built a couple myself. So I know that there is a lot of operating potential to be had there just working those three sidings at the front. Working the orphan siding at the back opens up some other opportunities as well. Perhaps it would be a couple of extra spots for wagons. Perhaps it could be the "main line" and after a train has been made up on the inglenook sidings and has been run offstage onto the sector plate it could then appear running through the scene at the rear of the layout. I dunno. Something to think about. Another plan to file away...

The plan that started it all

This is it, the plan that started the whole Saltfleet Haven thing more years ago than I care to remember now. This of course is not the original just a computer rendering from it. I do still have that original drawing somewhere and if I ever find it again I'll post it. It's a far cry from the ideas I've been producing lately. Much smaller, simpler and less inspired by the real location than the latest designs. This would make a mighty fine P4 test track too...

Havenbank - My tribute to Catcott Burtle

Without a doubt, one of the most talked about layouts on the RMweb forum is Chris Nevards Catcott Burtle. A beautifully observed, atmospheric slice of the Somerset and Dorset Railway that is only 5' long by 18" deep. There are simple locations all over the country that could inspire such a layout. So I thought I'd seek out a Lincolnshire one. Something to give a modeller a layout that could be small yet interesting to operate. It wasn't difficult. I give you Havenbank.

In 00 scale it could be about 6' long and 18" deep. Havenbank is inspired by three locations on the Skegness branch line. Thorpe Culvert, Havenhouse and Seacroft. The Station with those impossibly short platforms is based on Seacroft. As you look at the pictures of Seacroft you will see that the platforms are very short indeed. Seacroft Station however is long gone now. The station building burned down in the 1970's and the signal box was demolished when the level crossing gates were replaced by lights in 1990. The trackplan in the goods yard is an amalgam of Thorpe Culvert and Havenhouse.

You will notice that the station is on a double track line. In the summer time the line to Skegness has always been very busy with many many passenger trains and special excursions to the coast.

One really attractive feature of the Skegness branch was the amount of Great Northern somersault signals along the line. It would be great to model a working one of them.

The loading dock at Havenhouse Station actually had a 2' gauge railway on it that came from New Marsh Farm. The farm dispatched in excess of 200 tons of seed potatoes a year at its peak. The narrow gauge line line was kept in service until 1949. I've chosen not to add it to the plan in this version as there is little room to show it to its best effect. But if the layout was to be lengthened there's no reason why you couldn't add it.

You would probably want to lengthen the layout too as if you fancy running models of Skegness excursion trains you'll need longer fiddle yards and you really don't want to have a layout where each fiddle yard is twice the length of the visible area of the layout. I think though that as it stands in this shorter 6' version if you were to model Havenbank in the steam era you could have a quite interesting model on your hands, with a lot of agricultural traffic and a healthy passenger service.

Would I build it? There's no denying that I am very drawn to those short platforms and that arrangement of station buildings at Seacroft. But in P4 I think the layout would need to be a good three feet longer and then it wouldn't fit in my model railway room.

Coming together

I think the nuclear flask layout idea is starting to gel now. I can start to see it in my minds eye which is always a good sign. That means I can draw a sketch of the overall layout.

Hopefully looking at this sketch you will get a feel for what the finished layout would look like. It seems like the visible section of the layout would be about 5' long. Though when I laid it out using a couple of B6 point templates it seemed like I might be able to fit the visible section into 4'. There are times when I could do with some proper track planning software like 3rdPlanit or even Templot then I'd know exactly where I'd stand with the plan. But I'm a Mac user and such software isn't available for the Mac. Though of course I could run Boot camp and Windows OS to use them but just for designing model railway trackplans. I don't think so.

Past distractions (3)

As I awoke feeling considerably under the weather today (not swine flu I hasten to add) I decided that it would be unfair to subject my work colleagues to my coughing and hacking and sneezing and decided to stay home. Which for you lucky readers means I will post another past distraction for you to look at.

This dates from the time when I was considering a scrapyard layout and is inspired by scenes on the Trafford Park Railway in Manchester. A wonderful location where the railway line runs alongside the road and crosses it at wierd and wonderful angles to access the industries it serves. In its heyday the system covered 26 miles of track handling 2.5 million tons of goods a year. Nowadays it only serves a handful of industries, one of which is this scrapyard on Mellors Road. This shot of the fence was all I had to go on but that didn't stop me imagining what must have gone on the other side of the fence.

Once I had sketched out this idea I had a look at the site on Google Earth and I have to say that my interpretation is nothing like what the site is really like. But my interpretation makes for more interesting operation.

This layout calls for short wheelbase loco's and a two sets of scrap wagons. One full and one set empty. A loco would push a couple of empty scrap wagons and a brake van onto the layout, round that fierce curve. The train would pass over the points and drop the brake van in the headshunt and wait. Then automagically the gates to the yard open and the scrap yards private loco lumbers forward and picks up the scrap empties and shunts them into the front of the two sidings and pushes them offstage. It then returns to the rear of the scrap sidings and appears with a couple of full scrap wagons from behind the pile of scrap metal you can see. It then takes these full wagons to the waiting BR loco which then hooks up to the brake van and departs to the fiddle yard. Quite a bit of activity and 2 different loco's to boot.

There are a couple of things that work against the design. One is that the BR loco will mostly be hidden by the scrapyard fence. I was also very keen on the entrance from offstage around that sharp curve until I realised that it was going to make this a rather deep layout, perhaps as much as 2'6" deep. Still it might work well in N scale though.

Past distractions (2)

Today I thought I'd present another one of the distractions that divert me from my plans to build a 4mm finescale layout.

This one, like so many I've produced is inspired by my home county of Lincolnshire. New Holland pier to be exact.

One day I was flying over Lincolnshire courtesy of Google earth as I do very often, just looking to see what I can recognise from the air. I arrived at New Holland pier. Originally there was a station at the end of the pier that connected with the ferry across the Humber estuary. The ferry closed when the Humber Bridge opened and the railway station not long after that. But there is still a quite an extensive set of rail sidings there. So a quick Google for "New Holland Pier" bought up this page and in particular the lower photograph. A super picture that set my creative cogs a whirring and I quickly sketched out this idea.

I think the influences are pretty obvious to see. It certainly could be quite the busy little layout. A mainline train would arrive at the station and leave a selection of wagons in the loop. Then a private industrial loco would pick them up and shunt them off to their respective locations. Returning with some wagons to be picked up by the mainline railway later in your operating sequence. The shunting activities could also be broken up by a DMU passenger service running through the station from time to time.

This idea never really got off the ground as the exchange rate was rather poor at the time I came up with the scheme so I perceived the plan as rather expensive to pursue from a stock point of view. It might also be easier to produce the layout to a manageable size in 00 scale as you could get away with sharper radius curves than in P4 and EM. N scale would be even better. I also think that things might be rather hectic behind the scenes with a lot of offstage sidings. Mind you, John H. Wright's 21st Street Yard also has a lot of offstage sidings with it too. So perhaps the idea is not barking up a wrong tree. I'd better stop thinking about this too much as I might be persuaded to start thinking about this again.

See how easily I can get distracted...

Making an exhibition of oneself

There's no doubt about it. I love to show my model railway layouts at exhibitions. I enjoy talking to people about the models and explaining my motivation behind creating the layouts. I could talk the hind legs off a donkey when exhibiting at a show. I love to impart my enthusiasm for the hobby and I hope that it rubs off on some of the people that I talk to and they go away considering a layout like mine.

In fact, I've just returned from showing my HO scale layout at a show. Each show is a different experience, some are good, some not so good and you can come away with ideas on how to better your presentation for the next time. So it's quite natural for me to consider this P4 layout whatever it is to be an exhibition layout.

At the moment I am plainly considering this nuclear flask layout as an exhibition layout. A working crane would be a great crowd pulling feature and I am pretty sure that the vast majority of the show goers in Minnesota would never have heard of P4.

So my exhibiting experiences will affect the final design of the layout.

I like to talk to the punters, so operation from the front is definitely preferable.

I have tried operating layouts from several different heights and I have to say the higher the better - 48" is a minimum. I'm sorry little kids but you're not going to appreciate the niceties of P4 modelling anyway and if a layout is within your grasp you will try to touch it. I've seen you. I've given you every opportunity with some table top layouts I've displayed and the evidence is irrefutable. So, sorry but if you want to see the working crane Daddy will have to lift you up.

Also exhibition goers in a wheelchair. I'm really really sorry. I hope you won't struggle too much with 48" layout height. For me seated 48" is just below eye level. So perhaps there is some hope there.

This then leads me to the operators position. It has to be from the front. With a 48" layout height and a backscene as well. Then conversation with the punters would be difficult if not impossible. So the front it is. This then dictates the position of the working crane. If I'm operating from the front then it quite unsurprisingly has to be at the front too. To date the only one of the concepts I've sketched out that meets this criteria is the first one. Let's call it plan 1_a1.

Which is good, because I quite like it. It needs some work however, because that radius curve into the heavy crane is not a P4 radius curve (min 36"). But, keen to find out what sort of size this layout might turn out to be I traced out a pair of B6 point templates and put down some wagons down to get a feel for things. For the most part the scenic section of the layout will turn out to be about 4' long. Perhaps a little longer when I get the crane situated properly. But that's not too bad. Its about what I was hoping for really. Perhaps 2' deep at the deepest. There's other things to consider before I get to that. More of those later.

Important questions (1)

How long is a Class 31, an OBA barrier wagon, a nuclear flask on a Welltrol/Flatrol, another barrier wagon and a brake van?
This will be the "train unit" of the layout.
So this is what the layout has to be designed around.
This is the length of train that needs to be visible on the layout.
This is the length of train that the visible section of the passing loop must take. OK so the visible section of the loop ideally need only to fit the wagons.
It's a pretty important question to answer.
It's no point having a loop with a capacity of 24" when the train is 25" long.
Why a class 31? They are my favourites. I suppose I could allow for a larger loco like a Class 37 or a 47. A class 47 passes 11" long I think. Besides I don't like them as much as 31's. I like 37's and 20's though a 20 is shorter than a 31 and a 37 is pretty similar so I'm OK there I think.
A Class 31 scales out at 9" long. An OBA 6" the Weltrol/Flatrol probably 8" and the brake van another 3" All in all about 32". That's what I have to plan the layout around.

Past Distractions (1)

Like I have said, I get distracted. I'll see pictures in a posting on RMWeb or somewhere on the internet, or perish the thought, even in a book. That will get the creative cogs whirring and I'll have to plan something. So I thought I'd intersperse this blog with a few past ideas that I have considered for a 4mm scale layout.

I'll start with this scrapyard layout. I did get bitten rather badly by the scrapyard layout bug, but it was the combination of scrapyards and some pictures of an area of Halifax complete with Dark Satanic Mills that really bit me and I started doodling. Nothing too exciting really Just a basic Inglenook sort of trackplan with a single platform station on the rear line with most of the activity going on at the exchange siding for the scrapyard in the front two sidings.

I think in the end that was what turned me off this idea. Like I've stated before. I really think small layouts like this one really benefit from having some kind of working feature on view to get peoples attention. This idea didn't have it. So it was consigned to the file of failed plans...

More nuclear business

This is what happens when I get distracted. I can come up with a whole raft of ideas on a totally new project. Here is a third version of the nuclear flask layout that I'm quite taken with.

Once again its a strange shape so that I would be able to watch the trains come towards me and the crane is tucked away at the back so that I could make it work in one of my "Heath-Robinsonish" non-electrical ways. The idea of making a working gantry crane like this one of the factors that keeps driving me on this particular concept and is something that I could incorporate in many other layouts. On a small layout such as this some kind of working feature would be vital. One of my Gn15 layouts "Whinny Lane" had a working crane and when ever I stopped to load and unload a train with the crane a large crowd always gathered.

I have also suggested a lorry and flatbed trailer alongside the crane so that the loading and unloading of the flask would have purpose. Sections of disused trackbed, a derelict signal box and goods shed that has seen better days would help add some atmosphere to this little model.

Now to devote some serious thought to how to make the crane work.

Going Nuclear...

I get distracted.

The forum RMweb is a wonderful place. Thousands of like minded modellers offering support, inspiration and advice to each other. As far as I am concerned it's the best site of its type on the web.

The forum RMweb is a terrible place. Full of distractions to catch the unwary railway modeller off guard and lead him down paths he'd either forgotten or never even thought of.

Such a thing happened to me to me just this week (and not for the first time I hasten to add) I was browsing through the posts quite randomly and I came across one entitled Nuclear Flask Layout. Immediately I recalled the British Rail stunt from 1984 in which they ran a train full speed at a Nuclear Flask to prove their indistructability and decided to take a look at the thread. The gentleman in question had sketched out a few ideas for a small layout in a boxfile of a nuclear flask loading point in N gauge. Another poster pointed him in the direction of another thread containing prototype information about these transfer points. I should have stopped there.

But I didn't. That was my big mistake. For I was drawn in by the thread and the prototype photographs. Then I saw some pictures of the transfer point at Trawsfynydd in North Wales. North Wales is one of my favourite places in the whole world and I'm a sucker for anything sited there. I was also quite familiar with the Trawsfynydd location.

That was it the creative cogs started whirring and I started sketching and so here are a couple of ideas for your perusal .

The top one has somewhat of an unusual shape to it to enable the viewer to do something you can't do on most layouts and that is watch a train come towards you. It is an idea I'd like to experiment with some more at some time. It's something that can be done quite easily on small layouts but not many modellers choose to do it. I can only really think of three layouts that do this. One in 4mm scale is called Villiers Street, another is an N gauge layout (might be 2mm finescale though) that I forget the name of and I think I've seen a third one in 009.

The second plan is a bit more conventional in that regard. The trains only pass across your field of view.

Transfer points are not very exciting places really. There will be a big heavy crane to lift the flask off the wagon and on to a waiting lorry and vice versa. A security fence and a site office would just about complete things. In both plans I have tucked the crane away into the corner for two reasons. One it would help hide the fact that it doesn't work. Conversely, it would also simplify things if you did want to make it work. I did in fact work out some ideas for making the crane work but I don't know how feasible it is. The cleverer amongst you would have no problem in making a working crane. Scenically, Nuclear power stations are in remote places, Dungeness, Cumbrian coast, Welsh mountains. So there's a lot of scope for different scenic treatments. I opted for the overgrown rundown Trawsfynydd branch line.

Something this small could be an ideal diversion from your main project if your interest is waning or if you wanted to build a small test layout to try a new scale... Like P4...

No I didn't say that...

Straightening things out

More from Saltfleet Haven. Here I've straightened the lines out . Much more like an East Lincolnshire railway station yard. I'm much happier with this. I think the design is nicely balanced as well. I think I'll leave planning alone for a while now.

More from the Lincolnshire coastal plain

Sometimes I surprise myself as to the effect this East Lincolnshire Light Railway concept has had on me. I first outlined the idea to members of Mablethorpe and district model railway club some 25 years ago now and I still keep coming back to it. Saltfleet Haven has always been the preferred location to model and I have enough plans of that to write a book. Probably a very boring book. Nonetheless many Saltfleet Haven plans have seen the light of day and many have been lost. Here's the latest plan, or rather half a plan...

This latest one is the result of peering at Saltfleet Haven on Google Earth and trying to make the railway fit the landscape there. I really like the left hand side with the river coming in and the road and railway crossing it. If I can fit that into a final Saltfleet Haven plan I'd be happy. The problem comes at the other end. All those curvy sidings are straight out of an Iain C. Rice plan. Very nice but not very Lincolnshire. Straightness rules out there on the coast Grimoldby, Saltfleet, Theddlethorpe, Mablethorpe, Huttoft Mumby Road. Dead straight the lot of them. Skegness, Thorpe Culvert the list goes on. So some straightness need to be added to the sidings. Even after 25 years there's still work to do on the trackplan.

The Grand Design

The Grand design indeed. That is what my East Lincolnshire Light railway is. It is a fictional project I have had spinning around in my head for a long, long time. It concerns a railway that left the Louth, Mablethorpe line at Saltfleetby and meandered through the coastal villages of North east Lincolnshire terminating at North Coates close to the RAF base there. In the past I've written out a fictitious history of the line. Planned out many of the stations and even "modelled" one of them. When "Belchford Road" was operated as a one man layout. Off came the Belchford station nameboards and in their place appeared some that said Covenham. One of the vilages I decided would be served by the E.L.Lt. Rly. The one area that I have looked into modelling the most is Saltfleet Haven, an early trackplan sketch is shown below.In my version of the Haven, trains arrived from Saltfleetby and were reversed here before heading up to North Coates. The Haven also had a small fishing fleet that would be the source of some freight traffic on the line. It's a great idea that I have and I really should do something about it. Perhaps now is the time?

Home sweet home...

It had to come. Following hot on the heels of the Louth trackplan came my home town, Mablethorpe.
Once I get on a roll with my trackplanning there's no stopping me. Something based on Sutton-on-Sea may appear soon as well. Looking at the site in a different way was the key.
As, you can see with this idea, like the Louth plan, the centre of interest is the goods shed. With the platform shelter and yard office breaking the view on the right and the Engine shed on the left. According to my sources (thanks Ian) the Engine shed was torn down in 1924 so to feature it on a layout based in the late 1960's is taking a bit of a liberty but it works there. There was also a set of cattle pens to the left of the goods shed as well as a coal yard but I'm unsure of the exact location of that. Once again a swoop over Mablethorpe by Google Earth revealed elements that enabled me to scale up the trackplan on a 1906 map I had. I can fairly confidently say that this modellable in under 8 feet. I have altered the positioning of some of the buildings to do that and create the view blocks. Mablethorpe was a funny old station looking like it was "built wrong". Most of its traffic came from the South but the station was built to take most of its traffic from the North. For that is how it was built. From Louth and the North first only later being linked to the South through Sutton-on-Sea. One can only wonder how things would have been different in town if things had stayed the way they had been built. Most holidaymakers would have come from the Yorkshire coalfields, there would have been no "muchizzit?" fortnight because holidaymakers wouldn't come from Leicester. The town could have been totally different. We can only speculate.
Such speculation could form the basis of this layout, with the South exit (right) not modelled you could assume it never happened and all the traffic comes from Louth at the left. Three of the four platforms are modelled so that you could even run passenger trains.
I might be a bit baised but I think my version of Mablethorpe has quite a bit going for it.

A first idea

So, time for a first track plan. This one is inspired by the goods yard at Louth station and was kicked into life by reading the post at Grogley Junction that started "Louth would make a great model if someone had the space..."
That is a belief I've had for quite sometime too. Even though I have specialised in smaller layouts I'd never tried to get some of the essence of Louth into a small layout. Until now.
It might not be to everyones taste but it's designed for my interest in shunting and makes the huge goods shed that Louth had the focus of the layout. I don't know why I didn't come up with the idea years ago. Perhaps I'm just to close to the East Lincolnshire stations and needed to stand back from them a bit to get a new perspective. Look at them with a fresh pair of eyes, so to speak. When the idea came, it came in a flash. To use Newbridge hill as the front of the layout with the end of the ABM maltings forming an excellent viewblock in the very best Iain C. Rice tradition on the right. With the still preserved, Louth Signal Box at the left.
So what would the size of such a layout be. As this is only a conceptual sketch I don't really know. But having measured the site up using Google Earth I found that if you modelled the area to scale it would come in at about 8' x 2'. Which isn't a bad size for all this potential operation.
BUT. With a couple of fiddle yards at either end it's not going to fit my 10'6" available space. There is room for some compression there. The Goods shed is so huge it could loose a bay or two and you wouldn't notice and you could shorten the sidings a bit too. Even so it's still pushing it a bit to fit it all into 10'6". Oh well back to the drawing board...