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Yes I’ve read through that thread start to finish, I definitely learnt a lot but I just had a couple of beginner questions I wanted to ask and I didn’t want to derail the original thread. I really liked the track plan that you both suggested which is why I decided to pinch it. Thanks for taking the time to help out :)

Awesome, thanks for the replies! This is really helpful to me, I have no prior knowledge of railways so this has really helped to build my understanding of what I can model. With regard to having a through station, I’ve decided on doing a terminus for the time being so that I can build the terminus as a stand alone section and just connect it to a very basic fiddle yard with a few points on it to store different trains. That way I can still have fun running a few trains back and forth without having to set up the whole loop. In the long run I’ll definitely consider a loop but for now I’m happy to get started with something small and manageable, especially since this is my first attempt at a layout. Thanks again for the helpful replies!

Thank you! This seems like a really nice track plan. You’ve done all the hard work for me! Although I have about 5.5 metres of length to play with just for the scenic section, I’m definitely trying to avoid putting too much track down, which is why I’m going for a branch line. If I could ask a favour though just to help my understanding… With the cattle pens and dairy industry being on opposite sides of the siding with the points in the middle, what would be an appropriate way to get wagons to their respective areas? Let’s say a goods train arrives into the platform with a cattle van and a dairy tanker. I assume the engine run around to the back, then shunts both wagons into the cattle pen siding. What then? Is this where pinch bars are used to get the dairy tanker to the dairy industry? (Does that therefore necessitate me using the hand of god? haha) Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

Thanks for the helpful info. Much appreciated. So for that siding at the end of the runaround, if there is no cattle dock or loading bay or whatever attached to it, I could remove it?

Hi, I saw this track plan posted in this thread: I really like the look of it and I'd like to build something similar, however, I don't know much about prototype railways so I'm looking for some information. 1. Once the loco and train are parked in the siding at the top of the layout, how does it get out? Does another loco come along to take the train to release the first loco? I don't see how else the engine can get around to the other end of the train. 2. There’s a little siding(?) at the end of the run around loop (in this diagram it's just behind/above the goods shed). What would such a short piece of track be used for? Could I put a small engine shed here? 3. Similar to question 1: how would a goods train enter the good siding? Does the train enter the loco first into the goods siding and then get released by another loco, or does the train enter into the runaround loop first, loco then runs around to the other end, and then pushes the train through the goods shed? 4. I have the room to add another turnout or two. Any suggestions to improve operational interest? I'm not 100% committed to adding more points but if anyone has a simple suggestion that would allow for a little bit of shunting or something using just 1 or 2 more points, I'd love to hear it. Many thanks!

Thank you for this! I really appreciate the clear photos, super helpful.

Thank you thank you thank you! This is exactly that I was after. Made my day, much appreciated! Have a great day :)

Thank you so much for this! Exactly what I was looking for. If I could ask for just one more favour… You have that photo there with the 3 different wagons on the track, any chance you could take another photo of the 3 wagons on the 3 different gauge tracks from directly in front? Again I can’t thank you enough, I’m considering choosing one of these gauges and spending decent chunk of money on some track and wagons for each gauge just for testing would be a little expensive. Your photos are saving me a lot of money!

I live about 16000km away from York so not really a feasible trip for me haha. I live in an area where model trains are mostly unheard of, let alone P4 and UK steam era. But yeah photos definitely help to get a little idea. Anyway not a big deal just curious if anyone had some nice EM and P4 pictures they could share.

Thanks for the responses. As someone who doesn’t have access to EM or P4 it’s a bit hard to assess the differences. There are no model shops near me so I didn’t fancy paying shipping and everything just to compare two bits of track haha. But yeah to anyone who has a side by side comparison of EM and P4 I’d be very grateful.

Hi, I'm not here to discuss the merits of each gauge, I am simply looking for a visual comparison. I'm hoping to find a photo(s) that shows the following: - Any loco on a straight piece of track - One example of each gauge - View from head on so the difference in track gauge/wheel spacing is easy to see. - Preferably with locomotive wheels visible I don't mind if it's a photo for each gauge or a side by side of all three in one photo. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I've attached an example image of what I'm looking for but I believe this one shows OO and EM, but I'd like to see P4 in comparison too. Also the wheels are a little hard to see, I'd prefer if wheels are visible.

That’s something I might have a look at later on, for the time being I have a few Peco large radius points and flex track lying around so I’ll be using that. But I’ll definitely have a look at your suggestions. Thanks!

Yeah I’ve seen a few videos and it does seem to get pretty close, but I notice especially when accelerating and decelerating that the sound goes out of sync which definitely breaks the immersion for me. That’s also an interesting point about the sound coming from the wrong end of the loco. I suppose that is something that YouTube videos aren’t able to portray!

This is a fair point I forgot to consider! The thing that got me thinking about this topic was the fact that I’ve just bought a house with a double garage and lots of room but I I’m interested in modelling just a small branch line terminus station. Not more than a runaround and maybe a single siding. Which got me thinking with all this space maybe I could consider doing fairly prototypical track work geometry. But anyway my skill level isn’t high enough for scratch building track just yet so Peco large radius will do just fine. But I was still curious about that would be considered most realistic

Ah that’s so interesting, this is exactly the thing I’d interested in. If it’s been done before maybe it can be done again, especially with Hornby doing having it pre installed in their locos, maybe it’ll catch on. I’d certainly be one of the first customers haha