CandO wrote:What am I hoping the trains will do???? What CAN I do??!! I think I have stated elsewhere I've never had trains before.....all this is totally new to me and I'm gonna take it one step at a time. Looking at the main plan the station coal-yard is mainly one way in and out the same way apart from the through 'third' line. I thought if I got it built in the main part then the running order could be thought of later (maybe I'm wrong on this?). My Idea for a turntable was to maybe turn an engine so it could run both directions but if that makes things really complicated then I'll ditch the idea. If there are eventually to be six trains each way then I suppose a turntable isn't needed!!
Once again I bow to your knowledge of these things Chris
I have some knowledge...
I like to think of myself as a guide, but mainly in the sense of "Don't come this way it's quickssaaannn..."
My first three model railway projects never really got to operational, never mind completion. I had bitten off more than **I** could chew.
Subsequently I'be better learned to judge what I might actually finish, and budget for the loss of enthusiasm that hits a bit over half-way, when the initial spurt and sparl has faded and the encouraging finishing post ss not really in sight. This may be just me.
On the fiddle yard I'd suggest the simpler approach. At least until the front is finished.
Operating the coal yard is interesting. Are you sure the track runs right through those goods buildings? I can't tell from the picture but it seems unlikely that whole trains would trundle through them. I suspect the left end siding or sidings was a separate, unconnrected entity but, short of solid information, I can't be sure.
There is no run-round in the goods yard, so trains will almost certainly arrive at it in reverse, brake van first, along the inner, "headshunt" track and then leave in the same direction, the train loco having done the principal shunting.
I used Google to go further along the track to see if there was any sign of a former facing junction which would allow the goods train to arrive engine first.
(This would then need a yard engine to remove the train so that the arriving engine could escape and make ready to take the departing train... possible,, just, but I don't know the location or period at all well enough to know how this size of goods yard would have operated. (Horses? Last BR shunting horse: 1967)
Yes, there is/was one, as there are a pair of both facing and trailing crossovers just west of Accrington.
But C&O is too small a yard to have had it's own loco? I'm out of my depth and my comfort zone on that.
You'll have to appeal here to those who knows real railway working of the period better than I.
Chris
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