Lacathedrale

I've looked at those changes here: My first impressions are that it certainly it looks longer and the more simple track layout offends the eye less, but now we have nowhere to lay over locomotives between turns, and shunting goods will only ever be a shuffle between the runaround and the single siding. Those feel like big sacrifices to make - but there's nothing to stop me starting with the core plan above and then adding those extra tracks if/when they become evidently required? EDIT: I'm afraid the turntable can't be behind the running tracks - there's a hot water boiler in that corner!

So, I'm a kicking myself a bit - I just lost a post :( @kitpw points out obliquely that a turntable for the terminus is almost required. Thankfully, this is an easy fix: by rotating the loco siding, the goods yard and the carriage siding positions clockwise, we end up with what may well be the perfect double-track terminus layout: The max train length of four 63' coaches is accomodated everywhere: all three platforms, the runaround, the headshunt and the carriage siding. There is also capacity for a rake of five 48' pre-group bogie coaches, or a fair few 4w/6w coaches. In addition to the reasonable passenger accomodation, there is are modest but proportional goods facilities. The layout is drawn with all 1:7 turnouts and minimum radius of 36" so would work in EM as well as 00 using hand laid, Peco or British Finescale turnouts. I have been thinking hard about the 00 conundrum and there's definitely a desire for flangeways-smaller-than-railhead that EMSF and P4 provide, but I look at Mikkel's layouts or something like Everard Junction and that fact is just lost in the mix of good modelling. Maybe I am using my desire for objective FS track standards as a bit of a crutch for other areas of my subjective artistic modelling not being quite up to par!

Layout Plan Well, the "Lindfield" layout plan above does clearly trace its lineage from Minories but with the additional runaround and goods sidings, it has become a more general mid-sized terminus layout (with the possible exception of the goods yard being atypical) and I do not think is constrained to an urban setting in the same way a pure Minories is... As a happy coincidence, it looks like the runaround by P3 is long enough for my 4x 63' coach minimum. @kitpw I had not checked out Littlehampton, (ps. love Swan Hill!) - and looking at it, it seems a fine station indeed. I'm not sure I'd change it, but LH would suggest the loco pilot road should be in the foreground with a turntable, and the engine shed road running behind the platform. This would allow tender locomotives to be turned on-layout, and a huge benefit. Finescale vs RTR I have fully embraced EM-SF for finescale, I need no convincing there - but in the interest of bringing down barriers, maybe finescale is a better idea on paper for me? Re: SECR - have you looked at the prices of those locomotives recently? Just the three of them would set me back the large part of £800, plus the cost and time of re-wheeling required for EM-SF. That's a no-no - by comparison, for the SR era and the same money I can get a nice core working set of layout stock in 00: SR Lord Nelson 4-6-0 ex-LBSCR H2 4-4-2 ex-LSWR T9 4-4-0 ex-LBSCR E4 0-6-2T 4 Main-line Maunsell corridor coaches 3 Main-line Maunsell corridor coaches + Bogie Van 3 ex-LSWR 48' Suburban bogie coaches I wouldn't use this as a sole justification, but it's a compelling argument... I would apologise to anyone following this thread and seeing my apparent indecision, but I would reiterate: I've always wanted a steam-era system layout with interesting operations, so I started from a baseline of RTR and a multi-station layout scope, investigating different scale and gauge combinations to achieve it. I reined this back when I realised that it would be too big of an undertaking. With a more limited layout size, finescale became an option - but has become clear is no less an undertaking but this time in the challenges of constructing all the required stock, rather than in layout scope. Maybe there is a goldilocks point of scope like the finescale layout, but leveraging RTR that I can find a balance between my desires for operational authenticity, low barrier of entry and visual accuracy. I guess any 00 Layout would have to be nice and high up!

Thank you!

Too Long, Don't Want to Read: Reining my expectations back even further, leveraging RTR 00 to actually get traction. I read a section of one of the 1950's RM's and it really stuck out to me, paraphrased: "Don't bite off more than you can chew, arrange things so that you can start off with at least three working locomotives for a layout" - and while I really like Victorian LCDR, on frank assessment I'm just not sure I'm up to scratchbuilding all of the locomotives and kit-building almost all of the stock in either time commitment or ability, to get a critical mass. I am reminded of Jas Milham's proliferation of S-scale layouts, where he is able to make progress quickly by re-using stock and buildings, but only after he's built them all at least once. Victorian LCDR would be an ideal life project maybe, and something I'm happy to peck away at - but not the way to START a layout. Anyway, after musing on that and considering how I might be able to leverage 00 RTR, moving the time period forward a little to the Grouping makes the most sense to me. Taking @Harlequin's advice about making the layout stationary, rather than exhibitable permits me to ignore 3.1 and thus find ways to make everything fit more easily. In this case, the leeway to include 4'6" platform roads and traversers which means I can accomodate a Maunsell ten-wheeler and four 63' coaches. Additionally, I then spent a large amount of time looking at Bigbury-On-Sea on Youtube and enjoyed it massively. At first I thought initially it was 0 Fine, then realised it was 4mm, and then I finally realised it was 00. The fact I couldn't tell suggests maybe I do need to compromise on my finescale-or-die attitude for this layout in order to just get something bloody done. Certainly, I was enthused to spend a little time on YT and found a few SR Malachite or SR Olive locos which would be just perfect, and for quite reasonable prices indeed. Though I think the faux-HV scheme has mileage, it is one which is very specific to a victorian city terminus and doesn't really work as well in the Grouping period or out in the provinces. So, I have dusted off the riff on Minories from the last page and I think it would work a treat as a large market town around somewhere in Sussex: "Lindfield" in 2' x 12' The main addition to the base Minories formula is a goods loop, highlighted in red, I think in a much more sympathetic manner than in the previous plan, and a carriage siding. Both are fairly notional but are oriented 'correctly' I think, the pilot being able to push carriages into and pull from the siding without running around, and an arriving goods train able to set back into the goods yard. There is enough room to shunt four 63' coaches beyond the throat without running into the traverser. Taking hints from Caterham with a high-level station building, a (now demolished, in the grouping-era) platform-end Engine shed, a loading bank adjacent the platform runaround, and a retaining wall beyond which is heavily wooded. Though it's not the perfect layout - it is a variation of a theme that has been developing for a couple of years, and it really does feel like this is achievable within my natural lifetime in a way though I was enthusiastic about, the Victorian LCDR Holborn Viaduct layout does not. Maybe a smarter choice?

Hi there, Am I correct that at the same time the Malachite green livery was introduced by Bulleid that the black goods livery was also introduced? Is that the one with green lining, the plain black being a wartime thing? What point did the lettering change from serif to sunshine? Lastly, what liveries would the ex-LBSCR E4's have worn between SR Olive and BR black? Many thanks!

I keep coming back to the idea of using 3mm for this layout but the biggest problem is going to be rolling stock - Steam in SR and BR(S); I can find almost nothing! Oh well...

@Harlequin, a wonderful plan as always. I really don't think I can get away with three sides of the garage; I'm certain for one wall, pretty sure for an L-shape, but the U-shape at least initially won't be psosible until I can get further along with the plans and at least demonstrate some of my ideas in reality. Speaking of plans, while I'm waiting for the varnish on my ballast wagon to dry, I feel like I should re-state my initial aims: I want to model a [part of a] railway system, not a moving diorama. It should consist of at least one block section so that I can have working signals and 'rules' to operate the 'game board' of the layout. The more I conceptualise the layout like this, the more I like it. I want the layout to be a double track terminus: Supporting interesting passenger operation ideally some NPCS/goods working of the steam era. With the appearance of normal train length I want the layout to be at least nominally finescale in track appearance, in an L-shaped space no longer than 13'6" x 8'. The baseboards should each be no larger than 4'6" x 21" Train length can be no longer than 4' If there is a corner piece, it should be at least notionally be able to be removed and the layout operated with the FY connected to the linear scenic sections Note that as per my original statement, scale and specific time period (barring steam-era operation) are still pointedly absent.

May I please have the issues these are in? I've recently got a RM subscription so would be good to be able to flip to them!

I would seem that one great benefit of urban layouts, particularly in cuttings, is that you can easily leverage view breaks to interrupt a taking in an under-scale train in one glance. I don't know enough about Buckingham's development to know if that was deliberate, but the signal gantry and signal box and the road bridge before the terminus appear to yield the same benefit there. Certainly the sorting sidings at Tower Pier appear to be about a compact a representation of a goods yard one can hope for in a terminus. Overall that layout is just a masterpiece of design, isn't it? Maybe I'm drunk on too much early Railway Modeller: I've not quite gone as made to look into making a GWR single-track BLT, but the pendulum is swinging towards something more provincial i.e. the Caterham, Bromley North, fictional Lindfield, etc. - mainly so I can have a gasworks, goods siding and coal merchant! That said, while I'll happily doodle between bouts of finishing off my SER wagons (still waiting on the bloody wheels for the loco), I'm not sure it's feasible in the space I have available even taking that additional 90 degree curve into consideration, particularly since I want to include an entire signal block for whatever I build (i.e. no cheating by having the goods yard enter on a parallel track from the FY).

Any progress on this wonderful layout?

I've bought a rolling a subscription for RM on my iPad and I'm reading the 1951 issues, and it feels like the wood and metal shortage they're describing is not a million miles away from the cost and availability of materials today! @DCB you can't argue with that, it was a very cramped site (NB it is 'Holborn Viaduct, connection to Ludgate Hill' abriged in the photograph) - and the platforms were too small very shortly after it was built - extended by the 1900's, then again with electrification in the late 1930's (outer platforms only) until the trains were of such a size that unless they kissed the buffers they would be blocking the throat entirely. It's not clear to me that connection from P1 to the loco pit was ever laid, but I guess it must have been as those plans were published by the chief engineer a few months after the station opened? @Pacific231G I have tried to sketch out Maybank a few times in standard form, but the skewed double scissors always proves troublesome to include. Another skewed double-scissors appears, if I remember correctly, in the throat of Buckingham which formed another not-Minories compact double track terminus I sketched up earlier too. No matter what happens with the prototype or the track plan the terminus of the layout can't be more than 9' long in order to satisfy the need for either a) a reasonable radius curve around to the rest of the garage, or b) a traverser with a 4' capacity, and so I think 21" is a good width. I think that @Harlequin is right about adding a short run into the layout from the FY tho, so while not immediately of concern and not part of the 'exhibition' portion of the layout, I don't see how a relatively simple double-track approach on a 90 degree bend can be problematic, so I'm going to include that in the build for sure. But I think I should probably finish off the wagon/s and loco kit I've got before I get too far ahead of myself - no point laying a bunch of EM-SF track if I can't build a loco to run through it! I'm still waiting on my return post of wagon and loco wheels from Alan Gibson on that note :(

Stumbled upon this while staying by Gellilydan - it was most pecular to be walking down a country lane only to fine a bunch of bullhead track and a single line branch!

IIRC Moorgate also had the SE&CR single-road platform with an integrated loco headshunt. WARNING: Holborn Viaduct Urban Terminus and Idiosyncrasy Chat The picture above shows Ludgate Hill during the LCDR period and shows a locomotive running tender/bunker first with 1st class coaches. It's hard to reconcile what train this might have been but unless it's a shunting movement, shows that turning of the locomotives was not always required even on trains which can justify a 1st class component. Track layout / Pilot Siding I hate to keep harping on about it, but Holborn Viaduct had both a pilot engine shed, water tower, coaling stage and ash pit adjacent the throat, accessed via a headshunt. The nearest shed would have been Blackfriars, which was only about 300 yards - but access to which would have involved navigating past Ludgate Hill and St. Pauls. The earliest station track plan shown above illustrates some rather extreme geometry with the headshunt accessible from both P1 and P4. Note that as drawn (The Engineer, 1874 - article by the chief engineer of the LCDR so unlikely to be completely wrong) P5 and its runaround (which would eventually become P6) have no direct access to the pilot siding or departure line, nor does P1 have access to the arrival line. The follwing I understand is one of the earliest photos of Holborn Viaduct (1879-1881) and and shows: an LSWR well tank in P1 adjacent the engine shed an LCDR T-class No. 145 in P2 taking on water Slotted lower-quadrant signals Water cranes at the end of P2/3 and presumably P1 too The siding at the end of P4/5 is signalled so presumably both for a locomotive and as in the case below, coaching stock P6 has not been built over the Metropolitan extension Intensity of Service At 1881 Holborn Viaduct had a quarter of the passengers (4,700) of the next largest LCDR station (Ludgate Hill - 16,700) - and so probably doesn't represent the same kind of service intensity of Broad Street (43,000) or Liverpool Street (57,000) - it had around 70 scheduled passenger movements and a dozen goods movements ranging from workmens trains to Victoria and Beckenham, ECS movements to/from Herne Hill, various splitting and joining of trains and shunting of stock to Ludgate Hill for collection or drop-off by GNR and LNWR services. Carriages and locomotive(s) were stabled overnight, and the train makeup was skewed towards the exceptional - 1 in 10 movements were ECS, 1 in 4 were 'special' trains such as mail, boat or expresses. The pilot would be called away to shunt other stations as far away as Loughboro Jct in the middle of the day. Fish and Cattle were either unloaded or transhipped at HV, and it saw both trains and locomotives from the GNR, LNWR and LSWR.

A fantastic observation of how the prototype worked that is lost when told only through photographs, thank you Tony. Unfortunately, Garage renovations have been put on hold by the other half in favour of more pressing home renovation tasks. That won't stop me building the layout in theory, but does make the working environment a little less cosy! I think for now, continuing building some stock makes alot of sense.

On 'my' layout it's become a bit removed from the base Minories, my Arrival, either Bidirectional, and Departure Platform can have up and down movements simultaneously. In the original loco pocket location, shunter movements block any departure, whereas the new location blocks arrivals. I guess the advantage in my plan for the new location is that it feeds into the platform where the pilot is needed most (i.e. the arrivals-only platform, where every train will need to be shunted).

I appreciate that a suburban station has less of an excuse for no dedicated freight facilities, but I can consider it: Off-scene in the foreground (a-la Eastbourne or Crystal Palace High Level (also LCDR): https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW041940 Up the line a short way, the other side of a bridge/cutting/etc. Not required at all due to location of other railheads (a-la Dover Harbour - which I'm fairly comfortable that I'm not too far beyond the pale in terms of what the layout can provide in a suburban setting: Bromley South had a similar arrangement of arrival/departure roads until the 1920's. Greenwich Park had a very evocative station in a cutting surrounded by smokey brick, the loco headshunt adjacent the throat. Caterham had the engine shed at the platform ends. All three had carriage sidings behind the platforms. Dover Harbour (preceding Marine) also used the single generic coach siding for P.O. traffic by photographic evidence) I acknowledge that the city terminus would be an EASIER fit for the layout type, but to me that means 'viaduct' I'm not sure if I want to mess around with the challenges of raising the trackbed above the baseboard particularly with mechanical turnout linkages. If anyone has experience with that I'd be glad to hear it. I had a bit of a tidy-up in the garage and at my hibernating N gauge layout on some trestles to get an idea - not so bad! White paint and some daylight LED battens coming soon... View from the door Load of clearance Opposite corner - more tidying needed!

Lovely, thank you. And thanks for the link to the easi-liner. As you know I'm struggling with my LNWR horsebox lining out and that looks like just the ticket...

I feel like the tone of the follow message is defensive in a way I don't want it to sound but I'm not sure how else to communicate my thoughts: I am generally satisfied now with the possible platform lengths of 4'6" and a train length of 4'. Fitting it into 8' boards brought me very tightly indeed towards a threshold I was unwilling to compromise beyond, but I think that moment has passed. A traverser fiddle yard of approximately 5 lanes at 12" wide should be more than sufficient (using Maybank's example of four train capacity for a six? platform terminus I think I'm OK there). The station throad is already very compact and doesn't lend itself to further curvature - for any meaningful curving (around 10 degrees) of the throat I'm skirting around a minimum radius on the pointwork. As much as I enjoyed seeing Plumpton Green and Sidmouth at ExpoEM, the vast expanses of "green" space left me a little cold compared to the action of the layout itself and so I'm not sure another 8" of woodland or a row of shops would justify (to me) the inability to exhibit should the desire come to me. I do appreciate however, the desire for a station forecourt - we have spoken about that in particular with regard to Caterham, eh @Harlequin You are very right that notional portability and exhibitability (???) are informing my design decisions, but I'm not sure what I would change were those not considerations. I am open to suggestion for 'tweaks' but I'm not sure the essential character of the layout would change. The nucleus of the terminus + traverser can be extended over time in the ways you have rightly suggested that would increase the impact visually and/or operationally: I can insert a 90 degree curve to extend the run of the trains I can add another 90 degree curve and replace the traverser with a standard fiddle yard I can implement a twig-off-a-branch station or goods depot infront of the curve or the fiddle yard. I can add a spacer between the 180 bend and the fiddle yard for an island/passing station. That said, I'm always interested in opinions, certainly reading the early railway modellers one can see an urgent desire for operating a layout as well as it have some degree of visual fidelity. The lack of a runaround and of goods facilities on this layout is conspicuous in absence.

OK, I've had another re-measure of the car and realised that actually there's a bit more space than I thought - I had the passenger seat as far back as it's possible to push it. With it in a more reasonable position it looks like two boards of 4'6" x 20" and a combined height of less than 24" can fit quite comfortably behind the passenger seat. Assuming as per @t-b-g's advice, f I am able to interlock the backscene of one board into the fascia of the other and vice-versa to create a layout cube, there will be more than enough space for the traverser, legs, stock, lighting, etc. should I ever want to exhibit it - and being interlocked rather than side by side they can be slightly wider, there's scope for a little more beyong the RoW as pointed out by @Harlequin: @RobinofLoxley you're not wrong, but it looks like after a bit of poking around I've found a terminus station layout which will work very well in the garage with minimal compromises required to make it also exhibitable if I so desire. As per my reply to @Harlequin earlier in the garage setting I can easily imagine a nice sweeping curve leading into the station throat, rather than the traverser mounted end-on - but that's an extension that can happen at my leisure.

Well darn it - I have just re-measured up the car boot and it looks like if I'm to use that for transport I have a few gotchas assuming traditional 75mm x 20mm PSE and 9mm ply construction There is no permutation where the traverser can be longer than 4', which means my maximum train length must be a couple of inches shorter than that - no issue here really. Laying side-on, to achieve an 18" width the layout boards can only be 4' long due to the boot/seat angles, with an overall height of 15". Laying flat alongside each other, the boards could be 4'6" long (overall height around 12") but the fiddle yard would somehow need to sit ontop of them. While the timber yard is closed, I'm sure I can figure this one out...

Yep. I think actually the P4 loco pocket works fine, since that's the platform that expresses will arrive in which will need the shunter to actually do the work for. Actually, with the simpler "early" throat, each road has a clear platform capacity of 350' - including the pointwork for the additional loco siding off the bottom of P4 and space for a tank loco to reverse out into the platform from it while a train is occupying the platform road. That gives me capacity for some fairly large modern trains (Lord Nelson + 4 Mk1's + Van) on each platform. Track plan finalised. @Harlequin my problem is that I am very good of thinking myself out of doing anything and resorting to yet more planning. If the layout is exhibitable then it has a 'reason' beyond simply existing for the sake of itself. That's not neccesary, but it means that there is a foreseeable motivation to keep it upon completion, etc. The reason I'm deliberately limiting myself to 4'6" lengths is so that three of them can fit comfortably along one wall, and it has the secondary option of making that exhibition participation a possibility. There is no reason why I can't add a corner piece when the 'straight along' orientation is complete, i.e. I was quite unimpressed with the huge scenic vistas on show at ExpoEM - it was 'boring' to my eye - but another few inches might help. I'll see if I can figure that out when I get back from today's BBQ. Maybe the traverser could be loaded on edge rather than flat - I’m not sure of the maximum height (thus , width of traverser) that I can fit in the car boot.

You're very right Tony! Thank you - after a moment of madness I'm back to my original plan. Here's the plan properly laid out on 4'6 x 18" boards - I think it fits quite well? "Norton Fakegate" I feel very blessed my thoughts on making the HV plan a little more suburban are aligned with yours, given your experience, i.e. the loco spur as drawn being extended to a carriage siding (given we are moving to a suburban-like setting) behind the platform (pink) a-la Greenwich Park and Caterham. a new loco spur in the bottom right (green). I had wondered whether it'd be a good idea off P4 (arrivals-only) shown in orange, or via P3 with a diamond/slip over P4 shown in blue? This arrangement was definitely in place in the 1874 plan for HV, but I don't know if it looks TOO busy. "Norton Fakegate" with carriage siding and loco pocket Thoughts on a postcard?

And if you can believe it, I was actually on my way down to the builders merchant for timber before I did a final measure-up and the boot of my car is just over 3' wide and the room from the end of the boot to the back of the seat is only sufficient for a 4'6" board - so in theory with capacity for four 4'6" x 18" boards at maximum - rather than the 5' + 5' x 20" depicted above. Re; the runaround you're quite right and that's bloody annoying! A quick sketch shows a connection to the down main for a runaround might help but generally, it's starting to look like someone has dumped a crate of track onto a baseboard rather than a railway layout and I don't really like it at all... Re: goods area - Caterham very much did have a set of coal bins right between the siding and the running line, as shown in the top-right of this photo - the coal merchants were at the entrance of the yard. However I do wonder if that 'goods' area might better be just a simple parcels dock and carriage siding, to keep the theme strong... Either way it looks like the accomodation of 60' carriage stock is a complete non-starter unless I'm happy with 3 coach trains (I'm not) - so if that's the case I may as well stick with my original plan of Victorian pre-group and enjoy the idiosyncrasises of the settled-upon plan above...

Happily my 0.8mm check rail chairs have arrived, and I've knocked up some EM-SF "gauges" too, so I'm ready to rock and roll. I already have an ultrascale-equipped EM gauge Lima 33 so I already have some stock to test on any pointwork I make. Huzzah! However, I want to get started with the actual layout pointwork instead of interminable 'test runs' - so that needs to get firmed up imminently. Just lost a big edit of this post so to suffice, I am a little leery of being so definitely pegged to the 1890's incase my efforts at stock and loco scratchbuilding fall short, so I have explored my options for tweaking the plan previously settled upon to support a slightly wider time period without looking completely anachronistic - and so have knocked up a plan that I think captures the essential essence but with some tweaks: "Fakewich Park" Notionally inspired by Greenwich Park's setting (if not the track plan) with the station building capping a rectangular cutting. Not pictured is a road bridge across the throat. The Parcels or Goods depot would need to be shifted left to accomodate. Though it might look significantly different, there are precious few changes from the plan previously settled upon: P4 omitted Runaround and goods sidings added to P3 "Fakerham" in XtrkCAD "Fakerham" in Templot To continue with the theme of Caterham, I've adapted the above plan with no trackplan changes to better mimick some of the salient features of Caterham, vis: Station is in a cutting, Station building is at road level with a covered walkway down to the platforms Engine shed and ash pit at the end of the platform as per 1860's station - probably just an ash-pit by the 1930's. Coal siding alongside down main Loading bank on the goods headshunt opposite P3 There are some differences from the prototype, but I do think it captures the essential character of an optimistic mid-sized terminus in the South fairly well. I'm quite aware that I have had lots of good layout ideas and it's really about getting down and building (one of) them - but I think I might have struck gold on this one (with the help of @Pacific231G in a completely unrelated discussion). Ignoring the third rail, this layout could exist more or less at any period from the adoption of modern station design (1880's?) up until the demise of Speedlink - so I'm happy to push forward regardless of the specifics of precise prototype and time period.