O Gauge thoughts.
Cold Spring Shops notes my review of Iain Rice's layout planning book, and appears to disagree with the author about the suitability of O gauge for such projects.
Sounds like it's worth a look, despite the a priori ruling out of O Scale. Depends on what you define as main line, I suppose. Eight coach formations and 50 car coal trains do not a mainline make.
Yes, but....
It all depends on your definition of a 'modest space', and the level of versimillitude you want in your model. An American modeller used to building layouts in a basement the size of the total footprint of the house might consider a 20'x20' area 'small'. To most British modellers such a space would be considered 'huge'; an area 16'x9', the size of a single garage or the usable amount of space in a typical attic, is the largest space most of us can ever dream of.
As for realism, some people are satisfied with 3 to 4 coach trains representing 10 to 12 car expresses, and accept unrealistically tight curves as an acceptable compromise. Cyril Freezer has written a load of planbooks in the 60s, 70s and 80s with those sorts of restrictions. But this isn't really what Rice's book is about; the emphasis is very much on finescale modelling, where those tight curves aren't an option, and where major reductions in train length aren't really acceptable.
Posted by TimHall at December 17, 2003 07:16 PM | TrackBackI was surprised there were only N D&E era layouts, after all, for some bits of the country you can now prototypically provide a main line passenger service with 4 car (and under) trains, (and i'm not just talking about Virgin either, Chiltern, TransPennine, Settle & Carlisle all spring to mind without thinking too hard...)
Posted by: Martyn Read on December 18, 2003 09:26 AMI think Iain Rice isn't really a D&E person.
Actually his Bodmin Road plan would work just as well as a D&E layout; either 70s with surviving china clay on the branch, or late 80s/early 90s with the branch preserved.
Posted by: Tim Hall on December 18, 2003 01:06 PMProbably true.
We looked at Bodmin a while back, but felt it had changed too much over the years to be able to bring off era-swapping on it, it would be fine if we were all into modelling exactly the same period in time!
It would be an interesting thing to try it as a modern working junction. Wadebridge and Padstow (and Bodmin!) are big enough to warrant a half-decent passenger service, but I reckon doing so via the Southern routes would be a little pointless (between these locations and Launceston there is pretty much nothing there!).
My thought would be that Beeching closed the Southern lines and Wadebridge was then served via Bodmin and the GWML (which I think actually happened, but the Western just didn't try very hard!)
Trying to fit such a service into the actual arrangement of tracks there could be a pain, all passenger trains from Wadebridge would have to go East, so no prospect of a Wadebridge-Truro service, lets say...
Freight off the branch, (from Wenfordbridge with CDA's and Fitzgerald lighting) would involve some awkward shunts to head for Lostwithiel/St Blazey...
Thinking of it as a real railway, capacity would be a pain, with a reversal (time consuming for freight) but no passing place at Bodmin General, and no passing place at Parkway either.
Summer saturday Voyager services to Wadebridge would work, but it could presumably only take a single unit, not a pair at Bodmin General.
Hmmm
Posted by: Martyn Read on December 19, 2003 10:44 AM