Sensible minimum radii for reliable continuous running

Heather Kay

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
There's an idea Best Beloved and I were going to use for an erstwhile loft layout, with similar restrictions to those you're encountering. What we planned was hidden sidings that ran below the layout. Using some kind of lifting mechanism to raise and lower the fiddle plate at each end, it kept the fiddle area within the width available.

Sadly, it came to naught.
 
flexible_coupling

flexible_coupling

Western Thunderer
Heather Kay said:
There's an idea Best Beloved and I were going to use for an erstwhile loft layout, with similar restrictions to those you're encountering. What we planned was hidden sidings that ran below the layout. Using some kind of lifting mechanism to raise and lower the fiddle plate at each end, it kept the fiddle area within the width available.

Sadly, it came to naught.
Click to expand...

Not a bad thought. I think train turntables giving me about six feet of length (a small loco and a rake of 10 wagons) is a fair cop for this location. Bit of engineering needed... purchase of a welder is not out of the question.
 
OzzyO

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
A few years back I did see a layout that was a bit different, in that it had two sector plates at the ends of the layout and a fiddle yard with about three tracks that ran down the back. If you made the sector plates about six or seven foot you should be able to get a good size train on them and keep the layout to a reasonable width.

100.jpg
Sorry about the bad sketch. On the front you can add all of the detail that you want with sidings Etc. on the back you could add some cross overs so a train could arrive on the front from ether end.

OzzyO.
 
flexible_coupling

flexible_coupling

Western Thunderer
Ozzy, that's the broad idea I'm working with... using a fully revolving turntable might actually be superfluous but I'd wanted to avoid having to handle locos too much - a 180° turn of the train to return from whence it came is a bit faster and easier to manage in my imagination.

I finally got time to properly measure my space. The maximum space (I won't use it all) is about 38 feet by 8.5 feet. It widens to 10 feet for about 28 feet of that length. Very conducive to the afore-mentioned 6 feet 'loco +10' scenario, which is perfectly acceptable to me. It'd be fun to go longer but at the price of O scale vs my budget... two or three rakes of ten will be a long term proposition any way I look at it!! And for the trip working at mountain ash, it won't look silly I don't think.

I'm toying with leaving 7 feet at each end for turntables with some space to 'fan out'. Three 6-foot modules for 18 feet in between has me at 32 feet total length. That preserves space for my washing machine to go where it's supposed to, and allow the rest of the 'man cave' a bit of comfortable space!
 
flexible_coupling

flexible_coupling

Western Thunderer
I've been busy setting up and organizing the space - there's a fair volume of steel shelving still to clean up and reassemble to expand my 'flat area' space and give more storage space. Simultaneously (and yes - as distraction takes over), planning for my kids' "roundy-roundy" OO scale trainset continues....

20140903_1842321_zpsb39168e8.jpg

This is the overall space. From the garage door (which I'm backed up against taking this photo) to the sink (green thing in the back left hand corner) is a little over 38 feet - as mentioned before, about 8'6" wide before stepping out to about 10'3". There's reasonable industrial carpet stuck down at the back, which will have my workbench and a heap of storage shelving modified to also give some auxiliary 'flat space'.... I never seem to have enough of that!

20140902_1958052_zpsfe9f19a8.jpg

A closer look at that pile lurking on the two doors that will form the kids' trainset...

20140903_1935411_zps86b85f8e.jpg

Ceremonial first running with everything I have that has the same couplings on it.... double-headed Caley 0-4-0ST action! A bit of playing to go until I lock down a formal track plan on that one. Hoping for a fairly quick build time to get to trains-running status... I have a few metcalfe card building kits to gradually build up and scenic detail can gradually progress along with the input of my two boys (6 and about to turn 5). I'm hoping to include the little oval of N-scale track in there as well to allow the occasional small-scale distraction somewhere to run! My dad and I built up a similar sized "trainset" from age 8 to about 16, and it was a great bonding exercise... hoping to channel a bit of that success!
 
oldravendale

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
OzzyO said:
A few years back I did see a layout that was a bit different, in that it had two sector plates at the ends of the layout and a fiddle yard with about three tracks that ran down the back. If you made the sector plates about six or seven foot you should be able to get a good size train on them and keep the layout to a reasonable width.


OzzyO.
Click to expand...

Over the last few months I've come to know another 7mm enthusiast quite well, although not a member of this forum (yet!) He has a pretty extensive 7mm garden layout running through a shed for storage of stock and due to lack of space has built a vertical fiddle yard. Train runs on and section of track lifts or lowers. I've seen it and can confirm that it works.

I don't have any details of motor/s, control system etc but I can contact him if there is interest. I understand that it might have been written up in one of the rags at some time and I know that there is a plan to write something up about the layout in another some time in the next year. (Steve Flint is the name mentioned, but I don't know for which mag he supplies material although I know he was a freelance model railway photographer at one time.)

You never know, of course, but he may be lurking on the side lines reading this! If so, please join and give us the benefit of your knowledge, Robert. Otherwise I'll get in contact with him direct and establish the reference.

Brian
 
flexible_coupling

flexible_coupling

Western Thunderer
The recent announcement of the Minerva Peckett E type tank engine, and my ownership of little blue Fowler and, most likely, impending purchase and building of another small tank loco, gives cause for me to re-open the can of worms of S7 and safe working radius. A picture in the announcement thread on 'the other place' (link http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/in...ched-and-announces-peckett-e-class/?p=1811088) whet my appetite something fierce. Double check-rails, incredibly tight curvature.... So I dug out some twice-previously-used copperclad sleepers and some ex-Hornby-Setrack flat-bottom code 100 rail, marked out a 3 foot radius curve and set my soldering iron and S7 roller jigs to work.


There was some tweaking of the check-rails required - initially I had the two bases of the FB rail touching - on the flat, it's perfect (even with the Slaters F7 wagon wheels I have - regauged back-to-back for S7) but more breathing room is required around the curve. It's not perfectly curved... but then, I've no doubt the real thing wasn't either! It's only about a foot of track, but after a little nudging of the check rails, my Fowler (the top isn't screwed on yet!) ran very smoothly around it, as did pushing a wagon around by hand. Not a high-speed-running situation, nor the sharpness of curve I would want to put any kind of reverse-curve transition onto without a foot of straight in the middle to settle, but in my books - it works. This opens up a myriad of options for designs of small layouts for me... interesting times await!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
What's New?
Top