Jon Gwinnett
Western Thunderer
All,
In other quarters the new 31 is getting the froth, so I'm going to quietly sneak my plan out under the radar.
On Neil's ever inspiring Morfa thread, I have mentioned my East Anglian ambitions, and the inspiration of Jan Mark's novels. Her Carnegie winning stories are set around the fictitious towns and villages of north-east Norfolk. The town is Polthorpe, which sounds suspiciously like Stalham, got a link the the Broads and a disused railway station which gets swallowed under a bypass.
Well not any more. My own fiction has the line branching off around about Wroxham and heading north-eastwards through Polthorpe, Pallingham and on to a terminus at Happing.
Now I'm afraid that this won't excite those who like pictures yet, as its not much of a trackplan, but I wanted to share my initial thoughts and get any feedback you care to share.
This is to be a rural backwater in its dying days, but I can offer various potential freight traffics to get in the way of the Cravens wheezing and rattling its way from Norwich to the coast.
Polthorpe has a small coal yard, mentioned in the books, which receives a few wagon loads as the year slips into Autumn. Spot traffic of fertilizer or seed arrives in 12t vans. When beet season gets going the empty coal wagons will return west loaded.
It all starts to get a but more sketchy as we head over to Pallingham. Here we might see a solitary siding loading beets, or possibly a small Section 8 grant type grain loader (think I might be too far east for this, but hey ho...). No coal any more, the merchnat roads it over from Polthorpe.
On we rattle to Happing (Happisburgh perhaps, offstage anyway). I have two thougths for traffic here - either stone or cement inwards for sea defence work, or sand outwards from the dunes.
What do you think. Are the curves too ambitious in EM. Is the traffic too optimistic. (I plan very light loadings). Does the plan work better (or not at all) with Polthorpe as a junction (DMU only northwards?) or with a sneaky continuous run from the Happing curve back round. Could I get away with a bigger industry (Sugar/Grain/Sand?) in Polthorpe?
Could Happing or Polthorpe justify parcels, or are they just too small? Pallingham definitely is.
Thoughts on layout for the coal yard or freight sidings also gratefully received.
Lots of questions, not many pictures. Awful isn't it. But I want to get this one built.
In other quarters the new 31 is getting the froth, so I'm going to quietly sneak my plan out under the radar.
On Neil's ever inspiring Morfa thread, I have mentioned my East Anglian ambitions, and the inspiration of Jan Mark's novels. Her Carnegie winning stories are set around the fictitious towns and villages of north-east Norfolk. The town is Polthorpe, which sounds suspiciously like Stalham, got a link the the Broads and a disused railway station which gets swallowed under a bypass.
Well not any more. My own fiction has the line branching off around about Wroxham and heading north-eastwards through Polthorpe, Pallingham and on to a terminus at Happing.
Now I'm afraid that this won't excite those who like pictures yet, as its not much of a trackplan, but I wanted to share my initial thoughts and get any feedback you care to share.
This is to be a rural backwater in its dying days, but I can offer various potential freight traffics to get in the way of the Cravens wheezing and rattling its way from Norwich to the coast.
Polthorpe has a small coal yard, mentioned in the books, which receives a few wagon loads as the year slips into Autumn. Spot traffic of fertilizer or seed arrives in 12t vans. When beet season gets going the empty coal wagons will return west loaded.
It all starts to get a but more sketchy as we head over to Pallingham. Here we might see a solitary siding loading beets, or possibly a small Section 8 grant type grain loader (think I might be too far east for this, but hey ho...). No coal any more, the merchnat roads it over from Polthorpe.
On we rattle to Happing (Happisburgh perhaps, offstage anyway). I have two thougths for traffic here - either stone or cement inwards for sea defence work, or sand outwards from the dunes.
What do you think. Are the curves too ambitious in EM. Is the traffic too optimistic. (I plan very light loadings). Does the plan work better (or not at all) with Polthorpe as a junction (DMU only northwards?) or with a sneaky continuous run from the Happing curve back round. Could I get away with a bigger industry (Sugar/Grain/Sand?) in Polthorpe?
Could Happing or Polthorpe justify parcels, or are they just too small? Pallingham definitely is.
Thoughts on layout for the coal yard or freight sidings also gratefully received.
Lots of questions, not many pictures. Awful isn't it. But I want to get this one built.