Just a quick thank you for all the likes - my eldest was very happy with this arrangement and is very keen to do more!
On the train in this morning, I was having a think about how traffic and operation will be handled in practise. Fundamentally, there are four strands to this and the motive power requirement is basically a pair of panniers and a pair of industrials and anything else is just for fun. The branch freight could take a tender loco...
- Branch passenger/mixed train (perhaps). Simple enough and I have sufficient coaches - though really one brake compo would do. The likely candidate, a Maunsell Push Pull set is not actually in EM, yet... This just goes out to Ilchester, the loco changes ends and returns.
- Milk - either as add ons to the passenger service or alone - three milk tanks are sufficient, and I have all the parts (but, none are remotely finished). They are simply tripped into a simple off-scene siding and are drawn in or out as desired. A couple of six wheel brakes are in the offing, too (because I like them. I really don't need them).
- Roadstone - two five wagon rakes, one loaded and one full.
- The idea is that the quarry line runs onto a cassette and so the loaded rake outbound can be swapped for the empty when they go off scene (and vice versa). This saves the messy and awkward business of loading and unloading which makes things easier. I almost certainly already have sufficient wagons, a mix of hoppers and flat bottom 16 tonners. Obviously, I have more in the drawer...
- Tar and oil products go with that, either tacked on to the branch freight, or hanging on to the mineral wagons. The odd wagon of coal for added interest.
- General freight. I could fill the layout 20 times over...
Note that all the freight workings could go up to Ilchester and get shunted on the way back (except the milk, that gets picked up/dropped on the way: no loop at Podimore, just a double-ended siding, though it could act as an aid to shunting. You just can't pass trains in it. I have a plan to hold freights on the 1 in 100 to replicate the van brake, as an alternative, but that's for another time.
Extras:
A three coach SLS railtour rake, headed by
Brighton Works. Currently 3 mark 1s.
Departmental/track lifting trains, one rail, one ballast.
Obviously this feeds into fiddle yard design and this is something about which I have
thoughts. More on the those anon. Of course, you could simply run trains out and back and move wagons around for the heck of it. That's all part of the fun too.
Adam