Thinking in the Box

Taking the planning for the wrapping paper box project a step further, last weekend I mocked up the v3 Inglenook using the actual board parts and real points and stock to see if it actually worked in practice rather than theory. A few scraps of ply also got involved along the way...

The passenger coach here is substituting for a longer wagon, to test for some variation in the stock used. However the option is there for short passenger workings into the headshunt. I am conscious that the Lister is a fairly small loco and others, such as my Simplex, are a little longer - there isn't much extra clearance in the headshunt once the end of the board is taken into account plus any scenic treatment.

One option would be to have the board open-ended at the headshunt end to give a little more breathing space. This would provide a nice contrast with the necessarily closed-in sidings end. Here I've mocked up the positions of the wall and shelter leaning off it, but more importantly there is clearance in the sidings to allow three wagons to sit behind a magnet but still be recoverable beyond it.

Thinking back to the headshunt issue, a week on I opted to mock up the other possibility to breathe a little extra length into the space. This uses a second 'Y' point in place of the right-hand point and this affects the angle of the headshunt and the angles and curvature in the sidings. What it does not do is help me re-use the right-hand point that I intended to use from a previous project!

In many ways I think I prefer the way the sidings sit in the version with the right-hand point and having had another look today I think it should be possible to remove about 1/4" or rail between the two to squeeze a little more out, and angle the headshunt into the corner. We shall see...

Colin

Living in a Box

At Christmas, after a well-placed hint, I received a Scale Model Scenery baseboard kit designed to fit into a 'Really Useful' wrapping paper box. The intention is to produce something that can (hopefully) live in and be operated in the house. possibly as a 'desk sitter', although clearances may be on the tight side for that ambition. I haven't built the board yet but marked out the space (730 x 207mm) on some Amazon packing paper and played about with point templates, various rulers and a bit of post-production to run through a few options. 

The obvious one is an inglenook, a "standard" 5-3-3 seems possible but the second version is more a 4-4-2 with a shorter headshunt, the idea being that the rearward longer siding could have a rough platform to receive a simplex and a couple of 4w coaches from a fiddle stick run-off connected top-right.

The next option is to go for two points facing each other, along the lines of my earlier desktop-sitter 'Upcycle', again a passenger operation ought to be possible to the rear right hand line using a fiddle stick connected top-left. 

It's not too far from there to what to me is a very familiar plan adding another point... I have described this as 'Tragbar' as it is a mirror of an arrangement popularised in Scale Model Trains by the late Chris Ellis building the build of a layout of that name. It is more familiar to me as my Dad and I built a layout to this plan many years earlier called 'Chetley'. We hid the line top-right as a fiddle yard on the board but again this idea uses an optional fiddle stick. 

Next is a version of the plan I was previously looking at on the small cork board, a loop and siding. Whilst all of these plans benefit from a fiddle stick, this one requires it for full operation. However it would be possible to shunt it as a tuning fork without it for a quick operating session.

The final plan is actually a return to the Inglenook theme and has been created more recently than the other images. This switches the fiddle-stick line to the longer siding and the headshunt is a dead end. In some ways I prefer that as it creates a real restriction to the length rather than the possibility of cheating off down a fiddle stick! 

To fit in the box the board doesn't actually have much height to the backscene boards, 95mm - so buildings are something that have to be considered carefully. We are in the territory of huts, grounded van bodies and high walls. I envisage the line at the back running behind a wall, that get's higher and then has a lean-to over the middle line. Some shrubbery behind the back line would make it's disappearance complete as it wraps over the hole in the sky...

More soon...

Colin