Layout plan

So, to the actual plan:

The bones of it are the CPR Walkerton terminal. I cut off a bit on the west side and put a smaller engine facility on-site instead of the larger site the CPR had across the river. In doing so, I moved the stock pen from its original location west of the freight house to the 'industries' spur. Not sure how happy I am with that as of yet, but I do like the look of stock pens enough to want it somewhere on the layout.

The plan is sized so it'll fit beside the door along a bedroom-wall, with a little staging behind that door (when opened). I'm not necessarily confined to this space, but this is about as big and complex as I want to go. If anything, I might want to space things out a little more. Will have to see if this looks crowded when I start mocking up the scene (will be a while!).

In this plan I've conveniently hidden any transition to the backdrop with trees. Not sure if it makes any sense to have these roads and river bordered by a neat tree line though.

The viewing side would be the depot side (so looking at that from the rear). I figured I'd build the benchwork in two bits. Not perfect squares but rather like two jigsaw-pieces shaped around the turntable and engine house (see little brown line), so I'd have just the one rail-connection over the two benchwork parts.

I hope the plan mostly speaks for itself. Any feedback is much appreciated .

Thanks,

Marten

Not So Neat Treeline

Marten:

I would make the tree line between the river and the road a thick tangled tree and brush-filled slope from the road to the riverbank with trees and brush that never had been trimmed.  Think it would look natural that way and obscure the backdrop even more.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with this plan.

Looks promising Marten. I

Looks promising Marten.

I like the service area.

How long is your lead track for locos at the end of the runaround?

Ian Wilson's books are definitely a good source for ideas and inspiration.

Cheers,

Deem

My layout: https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/31151?page=30

Rivers

I would lose the river on the left.  It doesn't add anything major, there is minimal viewing because of the tree line and if its against a wall it will make it really difficult to blend into the backdrop.  Just terminate the left side with a tree line.

Not sure about the jigsaw joint, high degree of difficulty for eliminating one track joint.  I would be tempted to just make it straight to the back and cut across the turntable lead.  The ashpit can be very small, only the length of a firebox.

Which brings us to the operation. 

You have drawn a terminal, a train comes from staging inbound, spots cars and terminates.  The next day, the next session, the train originates, pulls cars and departs.  It won't pull cars on the inbound session because its not departing until tomorrow and its not spotting cars on the outbound move because there are no cars to spot, everything was spotted the previous day.

The alternative is the end of the branch where the train turns.  The train comes in, spots cars, pulls cars, turns the engine and then departs outbound.  It spots, pulls, and turns the train all in the same session.

The difference between the two is the engine facilities.   The terminal might need an engine house, turntable, fuel, water and an ash pit.  The turning point needs a turntable and water, maybe fuel, but not an ash pit or engine house..

The terminal plan can work either way and has the added scenic value, the turning plan is simpler and is less crowded.  Your choice.

Terminal Layout

This has a lot of promise. N scale has really improved over the years and good steam choices now look, run, and sound amazing.  
One thing I’ve always wanted to try was a cassette style staging and/or engine cradle to swap cars and locos with those stored nearby. It would also allow quick re-staging if desired. 
 

Following along!

Move the roundhouse back

Hi Marten,

Being a prototype modeller with my layout based on the terminus at Pembroke, Ontario, I left the roundhouse where it was (within the bounds of my basement) well out of town.  I'm glad I did for two reasons:

1.  Ontario is spacious.  You want to leave spaces between elements to capture the look of the place.

2.  There is more run time.   Turning the train doesn't take two minutes because it actually takes time to get down to the turntable and back.

If you actually have motive power that requires turning, I would find a way to turn it in the staging yard too.  Otherwise it will feel like you've gone nowhere.  If it doesn't require turning, a turnout is a much simpler and slimmer mechanism to get into a two-stall enginehouse.

The other serendipitous decision you can leverage was to build the turntable and roundhouse on their own slab.  This enabled me to move it to the workbench for all the fiddling it took to get it working.

Looking forward to see it come together,
Rene
pembroke87.wordpress.com

Looks like a nice little layout.

I have more space but I didn’t have space to easily squeeze in a turntable either and my locomotives run off scene for turning. I would consider doing that in your case. You could use the space for another industry.

Ontario branch-line stations

Make an interesting source of material for layout design.  You've captured the essence of Walkerton very nicely.  I tend to agree with Dave H's comments.  That turntable seems to have been characteristic of a lot of the stations on the Bruce peninsula and worht keeping.  I'd consider omitting the engine house, though, and making the turntable lead a tad longer.  That would give you a little more room to slice between the two sections of the layout.

Looking forward to your progress,

David

Thanks all, food for thought

Dear Chuck, Deem, Dave, Neil, Rene and Shawn (you almost managed to reply in alphabetical order ),

Thanks you for your comments and above all for your interest in my little project. In reply:

• The 'not so neat treeline' definitely sounds the way to go, it does make sense for that side;
• My loco escape stub should be just long enough for a 4-6-2 if I'd feel inclined to get that size of locomotive up the branch. Definitely something to check in 1:1 though!
• The river on the west side: yes, this will probably not end up being modeled. I'm considering the concave style of backdrop with 'wings', in which case I think a little actual space between this backdrop and the treeline would help, but it's something I need to try. This bit of river has little value to model as such, you're definitely right about that;
• Jigsaw: Hmm yes, you might well be right about just doing two rectangles;
• Ashpit: thanks for that bit of info on ash pit size, very useful;
• Terminal or turning point: I had not thought of it this operational way and it is a very useful point of view indeed. Giving the locomotive an actual 'home' is pretty much the only reason I've drawn the engine shed and associated service facilities. Whilst this is (currently) of sentimental value to me, your operational point and some of the other things you guys have mentioned might make me change to just the turntable;
• Cassettes: I share the temptation! My current staging philosophy is 'hands off' i.e. no fiddling during a session. Might still change my mind though;
• Turntable in staging: I did consider this. Ultimately I figured I want my loco's turned and I want to do it on the (non staging) layout. Most of the Ontario termini I've seen also have or had the turntable in a comparable position to what I've now drawn, rather than further away (but then those places are larger than this plan). However, a spacious look is also of importante to me, so we'll see...
• Build turntable/roundhouse separate: duly noted!
• Use turntable space for another industry: hmm, I think if the turntable does go it will be to create more space rather than add something else in, although I do fancy having an ice house...

So the major decision as I feel it now is whether to keep turntable/roundhouse/servicing, reduce to just a turntable or move the entire servicing area off-layout. Mocking up the layout will have to guide that decision. As I've said the 'home' for the locomotive is currently of sentimental importance to me, but these sentiments do have a habit of rationalising when they come into contact with reality, I've found

Another thing I'm considering is to remove the river and bridge entirely to give everything a little more breathing room.

A question, then, prompted by Dave's comment on my jigsaw:
What's the best way to 'cut the track' on a benchwork joint when it's not perpendicular to the joint? I intend to use Micro Engineering code 40 (I've read this probably needs some modification to work with model wheel sets, another thing I'd have to try).

Thanks

Just missed your comment David, must have posted whilst I typed my previous post. Thanks for the words of support. Leaving out the engine house is shaping up to be my number one dilemma at this time

Looks like a neat scene.

 I'd eliminate the small piece of river on the far left, and probably move the stock pen across the river to the siding on the right so they wouldn't have to drive the cattle into the busier area......DaveB

Cassettes

Cassettes are an elegant and space-efficient solution to turning the entire train in staging.  I found that for steam, the ability to run from turning point to turning point made it a run, rather than a shuttle. 

My first turntable was in staging, and I found that driving to the other end of the line to turn broke the whole layout for me.  I hadn't intended to build the scenic turntable so early.

As for the engine house, I would follow the prototype, but that's me.

Cheers,
Rene

Moving stock pen, turning trains

DaveB,

Thanks for your suggestion re: the stock pen. With the siding on the right I think you mean the track I meant to be staging (sorry, didn't mark that on the plan). Keeping this pen in a 'quiet' area is a good suggestion though, I'll see if I can make that happen.

Rene,

If I didn't have the door open against my staging area, I'd be more inclined towards cassettes. I don't necessarily have to put the layout here (I do have a larger garage available as well), so who knows eh. As for following the protoype: might well be the right answer in the end. Would solve the stock pen issue as well .

I guess what I'll be doing the coming time is building card mockups of the structures and shuffle them about on a bit of wood until I get a feel for this layout.

I had one question that's now dropped to the previous page:

What's the best way to 'cut the track' on a benchwork joint when it's not perpendicular to the joint? I intend to use Micro Engineering code 40 (I've read this probably needs some modification to work with model wheel sets, another thing I'd have to try).

  "What's the best way to

I like to glue down  pc board ties at a benchwork joint. If the joint angles across the track I just angle the nearest tie,then the next one a bit less and the 3rd one straight ( number of ties needed to get back to perpendicular to track varies with the sharpness of the joint angle ). Code 40 rail is pretty small so some N scale wheels will hit the molded spike heads . You could hand lay code 40 with pc board ties and solder the rails but that's more work. My N scale layout used Atlas and ME code 55 track and it worked quite well so you might want to consider code 55 instead of code 40. ....DaveB

Thanks for the angled ties tip

Thanks for the angled ties tip Dave! I actually already have some code 40 turnouts from an earlier project idea (had those made). I'm also familiar enough with hand laying code 40 rail, including tiny individual tie plates, to know I want to try the flex track for this project, also considering I enjoy photography where the code 40 appearance might be a real benefit. I've now sourced some ME flex (hard to find!) so will have a play with that when it arrives from the States. 

Multiple trains

Your plan looks excellent to me. I grew up in southern Ontario and I also model a (freelanced) branch line in N scale based on Wilson's 'Steam over Palmerston' (http://fmly.ca/njo/) so I'm really interested in following your progress.

I don't disagree with the points others have made, but regarding the engine house I'll add some info that may or may not help your decision.

Before 1960 most of these branch lines had multiple trains per day - a mixed train, wayfreight, and passenger. The mixed and passenger trains would turn at the end of the line and return to Palmerston the same day, but typically the wayfreight crew would layover and return the next day. So a small one or two-stall engine house would not be out of place. While that was not the case on the Southampton branch, where Walkerton is located, you said that although you're planning to model the Walkerton station your layout is not based on any specific location so some artistic license is allowed.

Regarding rails crossing a joint -- my track is all hand laid, so the pc board ties on each side of the joint are sufficient to hold everything in place. You could also try gap masters: https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/24337-- although I have no experience with them myself.

Reason for engine house

Hi,

looks like a very nice plan.

Actually I would try to leave the engine house in there, for a couple of reasons. It makes the turntable feel somewhat "complete" (at least for Europeans). It may be sentimental - giving you a place to display a loco or two on the layout. Finally, you can use it for that milk train which leaves very early in the morning to run into town (or the Doodlebug or whatever train). I think it's more a case of what you want rather than prototype practice (from previous comments I get that both were prototype practice).

Personally, I find the turnout in the road somewhat unusual. In fact I'd try to move the road to between the roundhouse and the station. By also moving the bunk-house, there might be enough space to put the roundhouse to the right of the turntable. Which creates enough space to move the road (and enough space for the module joint). Not completely sure if that makes sense, though.

Anyway, this is a nice plan, please go ahead

Have fun!

Thanks again

Really appreciate all your replies guys!

I definitely see the attraction of modeling Palmerston Chris, great project. Great info too, I certainly want to look into modeling all those three train types. Although I might add that I'm taking the CPR station for Walkerton as an example rather than the CN station

About the turnout in the road: I have been considering getting rid of that arrangement, although it is prototypical there so I haven't given it too much thought honestly. Also thinking of re-laying the road. I'm working on a few variations on the original plan, taking into account all your advice, so I have a couple things to mock up when I find the time. Also went a bit nuts on eBay to get some track and a train started. Will just take a while to ship to my continent.

Actually I would try to leave

A turntable without an engine house is not uncommon on old, short branches where the train would run in, turn and head back, and not overnight.

If the train parks overnight, then you need a place to service the steam engine.

Make sure the points aren't in the road, but I've seen examples of a road crossing the diverging part of a turnout.

Engine house

On a model railroad, an engine house is there to display the engine house, not the locomotives.   If you put the engines IN the engine house then you really can't see them.  The only way you display the engines is to put them on the ready track outside the engine house.

You also don't need an engine house to "service" an engine.  An engine house is there to do mechanical repairs to an engine.  The vast majority of an engine's life they are sitting outside, even steam engines.

If it was a branch and the engine had an off day where no trains ran, then they might want an engine house to store the engine with the fire out during the winter (so the boiler didn't freeze).  But if the engine was just being held overnight, they would probably just keep a fire in it over night, with a hostler or watchman to keep a banked fire going, then have a head of steam in the morning.  That would be done in the open.

Having said all that, the engine house is an opportunity for a lot of superdetailing and making little highly detailed vignettes.  If this is a small layout that is intended to be used for years and years, then including an engine house purely for the opportunity to do a lot of modeling would be a good reason to include one.

Another good reason to have an engine house

An engine house is another element of play when operating.  You can have doors that open and close, and putting the engine to bed at the end of the operating session is an additional element of fun.

Variation on the plan

A couple of orders are starting to arrive here, including track

Meanwhile, I've been working on a few variations based on all your suggestions. I'm currently liking this one that dispenses with the river, gives the terminal a little more space to the west and has a barn to maybe show some more typical Ontario-ness.

I like it

Small change, but it feels more spacious.

David

Any news Marten?

Any news Marten?