Layout Designs

Kickback Quarry © Iain Climie

A popular small space subject in GB and Europe is the small branch line, light railway or narrow gauge terminus, serving a small town or large village. A typical example is shown above (ignoring the heavy broken line). Entry from the hidden area is often under a road over-bridge, with a scenic block along the long siding to the left e.g. a bank, trees, buildings.

Traffic is light, with domestic and rail coal in, agricultural produce and livestock out, passengers, parcels and occasional other items going both ways. The Western end of the run-round loop is within the hidden area itself, allowing a sector plate or similar to be used. It’s very quaint, but could easily reach limits of operation and interest quite quickly, for builder, exhibition operator and audiences at exhibitions. So consider the effects of a quarry (or possibly factory or other plant) opening somewhere to the NW after the station has been built. An extension now comes in as shown by the broken line, and operating potential could increase significantly.

Firstly, the separate line may use its own stock, including workmen’s carriages as well as mineral wagons.

Secondly, there will be significant extra traffic to a quarry, including explosives, occasional coal wagons and other supplies.

Thirdly, unravelling a fairly long loaded train from the quarry (to allow it to proceed back along the branch line) could take some time, particularly if other sidings are occupied.

Fourthly, there will be far more scope for mixed trains of carriages (including main company and workmen’s coaches) and wagons.

Lastly, additional equipment such as signals, would now become a requirement, not just an optional extra.

To be fair, I don’t know whether this set up is prototypically realistic, and it is only intended to be a starting point for thought; considerations of scale and size are left to the reader. The layout itself could be very compact (e.g. in H09) or stretched considerably if space permitted.

The junction of the mineral extension is a little contrived (for space reasons), so would need some sort of geographical justification e.g. a hill or river. Yet it does seem to allow much more varied operation, perhaps in a little more space. My hope is that such a scheme could increase public interest in small layouts at exhibitions, and bring new recruits (especially younger ones) into the hobby.

Possible train movements on this layout include:

• normal passenger services in and out,
• empty stone wagons to quarry,
• full stone wagons from quarry,
• workmen’s carriages between quarry and station (some in place at start),
• workmen’s carriage(s) to and from main station,
• empty quarry wagons to station from rest of world,
• full quarry wagons to rest of world,
• van or similar to and from quarry,
• livestock in and out,
• other agri-produce (including wood) in and out,
• coal in for domestic and railway use,
• empty coal wagons out and
• explosives and other supplies to quarry with empty van(s) in return – specialist wagon may be needed for explosives.

Plenty there to keep an operator or two busy!

© Ian Holmes

This plan was devised for the first layout design competition on the small layout design forum on Yahoo! for a layout in 3′ x 1′. This is a slightly larger version, proving that you can benefit from adding a couple of inches to any plan!

The main feature of the plan is the hidden rotating turntable. This can be lined up with all exit roads and rotated through 360 degrees. This removes the need for any complicated pointwork for sidings and run round loop. In addition by having interchangeable cassettes on the traintable you remove the need for a fiddle yard too.

The traintable will take a 12″ (305mm) cassette that is long enough for a loco and 3 skip wagons in the chosen scale of Gn15.

Gn15 is LGB scale 1:22.5 using 00/H0 track and mechanisms to represent a 15″ prototype, though this plan would work in any narrow gauge combination.

Ian spent his early railway modelling years pouring over the plans of Roy Link in Railway Modeller. Years of living in small bedrooms in houses, student dorms, bedsits and flats ingrained the practice of small layout design in him.

Ian now lives in America and has a large basement, but still only designs small layouts.

© Ian Holmes

This plan was devised for the first layout design competition on the small layout design forum on Yahoo! for a layout in 3′ x 1′.

The main feature of the plan is the hidden rotating turntable. This can be lined up with all exit roads and rotated through 360 degrees. This removes the need for any complicated pointwork for sidings and run round loop. In addition by having interchangeable cassettes on the traintable you remove the need for a fiddle yard too.

The traintable will take a 12″ (305mm) cassette that is long enough for a loco and 3 skip wagons in the chosen scale of Gn15.

Gn15 is LGB scale 1:22.5 using 00/H0 track and mechanisms to represent a 15″ prototype, though this plan would work in any narrow gauge combination.

Ian spent his early railway modelling years pouring over the plans of Roy Link in Railway Modeller. Years of living in small bedrooms in houses, student dorms, bedsits and flats ingrained the practice of small layout design in him.

Ian now lives in America and has a large basement, but still only designs small layouts.

© Geren W Mortensen

Geren W. Mortensen is planning (and building) a series of modules that go together to create a larger layout but that work perfectly well on their own - a great way to build up to a large layout of your own.

Geren models in On30 scale and so can plan for 9″ radius curves with O scale scenery.

Geren wrote: “Attached is a version of the ‘transition module’ meant to be used between the “Salisbury Loop” and the “Crisfield Industrial” plans. In addition to making a transition, this module can stand on it’s own as a small shunting layout. This is the town of Berlin.

“Some changes are made to the “Crisfield Industrial” track plan to accomodate this module. First, the entire plan is pushed “back” on the module so that the lead track (which enters from the upper right of the “Crisfield” plan) is 3 inches on center from the back of the layout. A meandering branch is added to the front of the “Crisfield” module, 3 inches from the front, which may join another module at a later date.”

© Geren W Mortensen

Geren W. Mortensen is planning (and building) a series of modules that go together to create a larger layout but that work perfectly well on their own - a great way to build up to a large layout of your own.

Geren models in On30 scale and so can plan for 9″ radius curves with O scale scenery.

Geren wrote: “Here’s a design I whipped up for a shelf layout, which I’ve called the Crisfield Industrial Park. It incorporates an Inglenook section, among other things.

“Basically, a train of one engine, one passenger car, 5 freight cars and a caboose roll into town from the upper right. The caboose is cut off, and the five freights are spotted on the upper side of the run-around track, and the passenger car is spotted on the lower side of the run-around track. The engine then inserts itself into the tail track on the upper left, and the Inglenook scenerio is run, leaving five cars to depart town. Some additional gyrations are performed to get the caboose and passenger car where they belong, the engine couples to the outbound end of the train, and the train heads back off the module to the upper right.”

Eventually, this module will be joined to Salisbury Loop via a transition module .