Queensbridge Road Wharf

Longbow

Western Thunderer
I forgot to congratulate Gareth on his excellent modelling. By coincidence my O Gauge layout has the same track plan as his except for a sector plate in place of the turnout at the station throat, which allowed me to keep the layout to 2.2m length in 7mm scale with a maximum train length of 3 wagons. The layout does allow for quite an involved shunting sequence involving the swap of 3 full wagons for 3 empties.

Returning to the signalling question I defer to Chris's professional opinion, but the goods yards he is referring to are very much larger with access to busy main lines.

If a prototypical reference is needed, inspection of the large scale maps available on the National Library of Scotland website will show you the location of the NLR's signal boxes and signal posts.
 
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michael mott

Western Thunderer
Hello Gareth just finished going through your thread and what a delight to see the idea coming together the pictures of the various warehouses rekindled my thinking about an early layout I built many years ago called Macton Locomotive Works. your comment about not having to fill the whole yard with setts made me smile. On the building with the large archway did you place the curved bricks individually or is there a special trick to creating the curve?

Michael
 

Rob R

Western Thunderer
Wonderful little layout.
From a layman's (me) viewpoint the signalling will depend more on what is "off scene" rather than what you can see in front of you.
Is there a double junction with a busy main line under the bridge or just the back end of another goods yard?
Does the right hand exit track lead off to another running line thereby forming a through route or just meander through the back alleys to a dead end?
All options are possible, it depends on how complicated you want it to be.
Above all, have fun with it.

Rob
 

cbrailways

Western Thunderer
Sorry, I didn't mean to infer that all goods yards would be signalled, just that having a goods yard as a layout doesn't mean that it can't have some signalling on it. On the subject of experience, although I have worked in the S&T industry for over 50 years now, I still learn new things about it all the time and one can't be an expert in it all but only offer help and advice as to how it 'could' be done prototypically.
 

garethashenden

Western Thunderer
Between the barge and the signaling I have been giving some thought to the location of this layout and how it fits into the wider railway scene. I feel somewhere further east would be a more appropriate setting, as opposed to on Regent's Canal. The North London ran passenger services between Bow, Plaistow, and Barking via the London, Tilbury & Southend. My proposed change is for the NLR to build its own branch from Bow or Poplar to Barking via the Royal Docks. We can imagine that the Great Eastern would have objected to this syphoning off of their traffic, so the North London was only given permission to build a single track line. With the LNWR now easily connected to the new large docks by way of the North London (always under the LNWR's influence) traffic began to flow in large quantities in both directions. The combination of heavy through traffic, local stopping traffic, and light (by NLR standards) passenger traffic in two directions on a single track line kept the signalmen hopping.

The layout is now imagined close to the banks of the River Lea, in the black box on this map. The existing NLR line is shown in yellow, LT&SR in green, GER in blue, and the new branch in red.

nHjzbvk.jpg


I think this would suit my ambitions for the layout without changing the physical infrastructure too much.
 

garethashenden

Western Thunderer
Hello Gareth just finished going through your thread and what a delight to see the idea coming together the pictures of the various warehouses rekindled my thinking about an early layout I built many years ago called Macton Locomotive Works. your comment about not having to fill the whole yard with setts made me smile. On the building with the large archway did you place the curved bricks individually or is there a special trick to creating the curve?

Michael

There is a special trick to curving brick sheet. Take a vertical strip of bricks no more than three bricks wide, two is probably better. Cut between every brick about halfway or two thirds the width of your strip. The first cut just disturbs the mortar line a little, but as you cut the same amount on all the courses it naturally forms a curve. It works best with large radii, such as on the arch. The same technique was used above the windows, but it didn't work as well there. I got it from a thread on RMWeb, there are pictures there: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/i...4-copper-wort/&do=findComment&comment=3054123
 

garethashenden

Western Thunderer
I've been giving more thought to the signaling topic, and the realism of the track plan. IF this is a busy inner London route with through trains justifying any signaling, it should be double tracked. It occurred to me that there is enough depth in the baseboard to add a second track. This would most impact the buildings in the back right corner, but that corner has always been tight, I'm not sure this is actually worse. I need to rebuilt the left hand fiddle yard and build a right hand one, so the changes to add another track could be done then, that's not too hard. The first point on the left is a little broken at the moment. Some of the chairs have come loose and it is now puts everything that goes over it into the four foot. So when I rebuild it it wouldn't be too hard to realign it with the straight through route.

I have come up with two track plan options. The first just adds a second track at the back.
tMwvdCZ.jpg


The second removes the crossover from the original plan. This is probably the most realistic, but kinda blah somehow. And I don't really want to remove it.
RsvH8Du.jpg


Are either of these worth pursuing? Should I do something else? Should the two running lines be connected somehow? Would the best thing to do be starting over with a better overall plan? The things I want out of the layout have changed since I started it.
 

cbrailways

Western Thunderer
Gareth. I like the first one best. To add to it and allow a bit more shunting, how about adding a trailing crossover parallel with the RH turnout?
 

cbrailways

Western Thunderer
Hi Gareth. The single slip would be more prototypical (i.e. fun) if you have the space, but I have seen both arrangements in the past.

Edit to add: Just realised that you mentioned that it will now be a double tracked running line. In that case I think you need to change the single slip to a trailing one so the connection to the siding loop isn't facing to trains. In other words invert the single slip you have sketched in.

Also to add that if the main running lines are passenger class you will need two catch points, one on each of the LH siding exits. They can be single switch rail types interlaced in the first siding point if you are tight for space like this:
P1040364.JPG

My Copyright
 
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