New house new plan

[Sjay]

Hello all,

So I moved into my current house 5 years ago next month. But I have only now booked in the builder for the garage conversion.

So my winter project 2019-2020 will be to build this. 15x8 looped 8 with a top station in blue (the two lines nearest the bottom are an industrial setting) the over all setting is roughly modern 2005 onward, North Wales. Rough WTT has trains running anti-clockwise running from London/Chester/Manchester to Holyhead (Or Holyport as I will call it) with the blue station (highest point on the layout) being a holiday town/small port. There are green carriage sidings for the storage of Arriva Trains Wales DMU's etc. Also passing loops on up and down lines for operational interest. The full WTT I will go into over the next few months and years.

The plan:



Important note the red and yellow lines DO NOT join up under the grey top board but drop to an under station fiddle yard. I have two plans for the fiddle yard either Fiddle yard A:



Or Fiddle yard B:



A flows better but there is limited space for longer trains (I'll be running 8+2 HST, 10+container and 10+ Tanker trains) Fiddle yard b has more storage for longer trains but does not flow in the same way. B is also cheaper to build.

Thoughts?

P.S I have just noticed that I have got the colours for the mainlines flipped over in the fiddle yards. That's just operator error

p.p.s construction will be the same method I have used b4. print out 1:1 scale, paste down (carefully) glue track into position.

[Mountain]

Thoughts... Impressive. A little costly as far as track is concerned... Nice.

[minipix]

Personally, I like aspects of both fiddle yard plans.

On plan A I like that each storage track has access at both ends. It does mean more points, but it makes it much easier to get trains out and going in the direction you want. You could probably push the top corners back a little more, which would give you more length to the sidings.

Plan B is simpler, but you'll likely be forever reversing trains out so you can get them going where you want. However, I do like the idea of a bypass so that through trains don't have to go through the fiddle yard. If you really wanted to separate the fiddle yards for the up and down lines, you could always have them either side of the through lines rather than both on the same side, which would allow you to get new trains onto the inner line without affecting the outer line.

So I think I'd be tempted to look at something between those two designs, combining the best bits of each. For me, that would mean double-ended fiddle yards and a bypass. Excellent work so far though, well done!

[Sjay]

Thanks for the feedback

I do prefer option A so I think I'll play with that.

And yes the track is about £400-450 for the fiddle yard and £1000 for the visible sections. Plus the cost of wood, point motors and wiring and not forgetting my time!

But this is a layout that I'm hoping will last for 10-20 years