Inglenook options calculations

[009 micro modeller]

5 hours ago, Nick C said:

I've not got room for it at the moment, but I've had an idea for a while of building an inglenook set in the corner of a carriage works.

 

I mentioned this to @brightspark at a show while chatting about Express Daisy, and he suggested an EMU depot for a serious inglenook - imagine shunting 8 4-car units round...

In a similar vein, but potentially taking up less space than a conventional Inglenook, I have seen a plan (I think on the late Carl Arendt’s website) for an Inglenook depot layout where you shunt locos rather than wagons (the locos being independently powered as normal, with suitable isolating sections, rather than shunted by another loco as wagons would have to be). I’ve sometimes wondered about doing a scheme like this as it would more easily justify the use of a space-saving on-scene traverser (as opposed to a non-scenic one) - the shed area at Steeple Grange might be suitable inspiration for an NG version, or perhaps one with tramcars, inspired by Crich depot.

Edited July 24 by 009 micro modeller

[Stubby47]

48 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

In a similar vein, but potentially taking up less space than a conventional Inglenook, I have seen a plan (I think on the late Carl Arendt’s website) for an Inglenook depot layout where you shunt locos rather than wagons (the locos being independently powered as normal, with suitable isolating sections, rather than shunted by another loco as wagons would have to be). I’ve sometimes wondered about doing a scheme like this as it would more easily justify the use of a space-saving on-scene traverser (as opposed to a non-scenic one) - the shed area at Steeple Grange might be suitable inspiration for an NG version, or perhaps one with tramcars, inspired by Crich depot.

 

Shunting locos around might work better on DCC, temporary 'consists' could be formed to move more than one loco at once, in a 'rake'.

[009 micro modeller]

26 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

 

Shunting locos around might work better on DCC, temporary 'consists' could be formed to move more than one loco at once, in a 'rake'.

Yes, which might be more prototypical (because you probably wouldn’t, in real life, power up all the locos just to move them around a depot, you’d haul them with a loco that was already switched on - less of an issue perhaps with some of the SGLR locos that are battery electric, but relevant for steam and diesel locos). On the other hand, DC with isolating sections does get round one issue with this design - variations in loco length. Most Inglenook designs seem to work better if the wagons are all of fairly similar length (to avoid say, three short fitting in a space intended for two long wagons) but here you could avoid that problem as there would only be able to be one loco in each section at a time anyway. Then again this requires the locos to be more spaced out than they would be on DCC or radio control, so the layout potentially takes up more space, and requires the track on the traverser itself to be split into at least two electrical sections (for a 3-2-2 Inglenook, I think it would be three sections for a larger one).

 

Edit: I must admit I was thinking of a smaller 3-2-2 Inglenook (rather than 5-3-3) for this, which would usually mean rakes/moves of only up to two locos at a time, with five locos in total. A larger setup is where I think the DCC option would come into its own.

Edited July 24 by 009 micro modeller

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Yes, which might be more prototypical (because you probably wouldn’t, in real life, power up all the locos just to move them around a depot, you’d haul them with a loco that was already switched on

Although I realise this might not work anyway as it seems as though you probably would have to move all of them singly at some stage.