Hamdden Railway Co. 00 7'x6'

[Journeyman]

Hello, I’ve been working on various deigns for my first layout, this one seams to be the most likely to get approval from the management for the spare bedroom.

I drew the plans out to inch and a half to the foot, that means one eighth on the rule is an inch on the layout.
The layout is 7 foot by 6 foot with a 2'x3' cutout. I’ve drawn the track in with ink and the rest in pencil.

Features.
Tunnel top left.
The Siding marked 1 is for a stone quarry cut into the hill in the top left.
Siding 2 is for the engine shed.
The station is in the lower left with two platforms.
In the centre are two adjacent bridges the upper track will rise 2" and the lower track will drop 1"
Siding 3 is for the coal mine set on the hill side which forms a deep cutting for the track.
Siding 3a is for the brick works and clay diggings.

As this is my first layout I’m hoping the more experienced members will give an opinion on how it will work and if they can see any glaring problems. Also any suggestions for improvement.

Thanks, Dave.

[ChrisGreaves]

The Siding marked 1 is for a stone quarry cut into the hill in the top left ...As this is my first layout I’m hoping the more experienced members will give an opinion

Hi Dave.
Well, first off, you are completely out of luck. I haven't designed a layout in 60 years. And I may not start again, even now.

However, I have a keen analytic mind (a couple of members here are ready to use the word "pedantic"), and as well I am curious. So ...

I understand that siding "1" is for a stone quarry, but am puzzled about the three regular-as-clockwork tracks.

If the rock quarry is just there for the sake of building scenery, and if the three tracks are there so you (or someone near you) has a place to play shunting wagons, well, I can understand that.
Never having worked in a rock quarry, I did not know that they had sidings, but I could suppose a little light line running in to the quarry, even with movable sections of track that can be directed to "this month's quarry face".

So I will post this and wait to hear from you!
Cheers and best wishes
Chris

[End2end]

I'd be tempted to try and recreate the plan in Scarm or Anyrail software to see if it is plausible.
Scarm - http://www.scarm.info/index.php
Anyrail - https://www.anyrail.com/en
Thanks
End2end

[Journeyman]

Hi Chris,
Well I wouldn’t call your post pedantic more like Socratic, what great questions to make me think.
The quarries history is that they started at the siding level then moved up to a second level and then a third. At the moment the second level is working cut stone from the third level. Above the siding is a crusher plant feeding into the wagons, they are also loading cut stone with a derrick. The comment on the regular siding is spot on and I must try and make that more haphazard to show how it might have grown with out planning. Thanks a lot Chris:).

Thank’s End2end I did download Xtrkcad but it did not want to run on my computer, that’s why I drew it out. I’ll give your two suggestions a try.

Thanks to you both for the great replies, Dave.

[Mountain]

I love the plan. Something I would do though is to add narrow gauge lines (009) with little Roco tub type waggons or something like that because both coal mines and quarries relied on narrow gauge railway systems to feed rheir standard gauge wagons. The reason why they did this was for convenience as narrow gauge waggons were light enough (Usually two ton waggons)to be pushed by hand by a single person and also the track was easily moved from place to place within the quarry. They would just lift it and move it or add a section or two of track etc. It was made for this. Quarry railway lines were often being shifted from place to place to meet the needs of those who worked there. Standard gauge railway lines were not a practical proposition. Today offroad diggers and things like that take the place of the narrow gauge railways as they can scoop up the material from the quarry and drive and tip it in standard gauge wagons, so the actual quarrying method has not changed a lot but the methods to move the ore and the waste material have.
However, if the materials being obtained are on boggy ground, narrow gauge railways still have an advantage as even caterpiller tracked vehicles can get issues if they have to constantly be used from point A to point B following the same route. It is however fascinating to find out about the various ways to get ores from the mines or the quarries to be seperated from the spoil and then taken on to their customers who then would further process the materials and sell them on or use them for their own needs etc...

With your plan as it is, you may find that some of the sidings for the quarries and maybe the engine shed may need to be reduced from three sidings to two so you can make more room for the buildings and scenery. There also will be a bit of gradient involved but rhis can add to the character. Don't forget checkrails for the sharp curves will look good, and trap points/headshunts etc., will all add to the realism and character of the railway.

The narrow gauge suggestions do not need a loco. They just need a few pieces of track and a few small waggons for visual effect.

[Ironduke]

In the centre are two adjacent bridges the upper track will rise 2" and the lower track will drop 1"

I think you will have trouble with the grades.

I did download Xtrkcad but it did not want to run on my computer

Was there an error message? What version of operating system is running on your computer?

[Journeyman]

Thanks Mountain the idea of narrow gauge is very appealing will look into it, am I right in thinking that the early tramways worked on “L” shaped rails bit like uneven angle iron, the wheels could be plane without a flange as they ran inside the flange on the rail?
The layout will be back in the steam days with most of the work done by labourers so no modern diggers available but posibly some sort of drag line for the clay digging.

So with the sidings I will take your advise and reduce the number, it will also reduce the cost .
Will have to look into what checkrails and trap points/headshunts are thanks for going to so much trouble.

Hi Rob, we have a pub alongside the local railway station called the Iron Duke!
With the grades I drew out a scale grade and to obtain 3" clearance I need 10 foot to get 1 in 40 and 7' 6" for 1 in 30. Splitting those by dropping the lower rails and siding 3 will I hope work.
Windows 10 on the computer, it decided it could not find two different files and put up flags.
I did uninstall and reinstall a couple of times but same thing, I don’t remember what files it said. I would like to use a program so will try again.

Thanks for all the help much appreciated, Dave.

[heda]

Do you have access all around the board ? You will probably find it quite a stretch to the back of the board from the 3' x 2' opening and sods law says 'if a train derails or stalls it will be at the furthest point from you'.
Dave

[Bufferstop]

It's a great plan for a fixed layout, it's not impossible to create all the required levels in a portable format, but it would demand a high level of carpentry skill to build the baseboards. An open top framework would probably be the best way to tackle it, the level of joinery required wouldn't need more than the ability to put screws into overlapping pieces of timber. You start with some serious timber beams on wooden or blockwork supports. Then you put in vertical risers screwed to the sides of the beams going up to the level of the lowest areas of the design. Th risers each have a small wooden block ready drilled with vertical holes screwed to the top of each riser. A flat board is laid for the area of the station/quarry/dockside/whatever. Longer risers support the rising grades up to the next level area. When track is down and working the spaces in between are spanned by chicken wire as a support for the scenery.
Trying to build it with conventional flat boards leads to a lot of unnecessary woodwork. A portable version would need to be built from plywood shells sitting on a knock down framework, which calls for some expert carpentry.

[ChrisGreaves]

Hi Dave.
Journeyman> The quarries history is that they started at the siding level then moved up to a second level and then a third.

AhHah! Now I see. Those three tracks are more of a schematic than an actual layout. Along the lines of “I will have some track snaking around in this area”. Also I now see that the tracks will be at varying levels. I spent some time as a child in the goldfields so I am accustomed to open-pit mines and the snaking roadways that use the terraces in the side of the open pit mines.

Mountain >… Today offroad diggers and things like that take the place of the narrow gauge railways as they can scoop up the material from the quarry and drive and tip it in standard gauge wagons, …

Or conveyor belts. TWO! One conveyor belt runs from a terrace to a chute where standard gauge wagons are loaded (any old coaling tower should do) and (TaDa!) a second conveyor belt sous-board taking the material back to a sous-board elevator to provide a continuous-flow of material.

Chance there to use an old loco motor with a few extra worm/pinion gearings ….

(I’m glad that I’m just an ideas-guy and don't have to implement all the ideas G&DR!)
Cheers
Chris

[Journeyman]

Hi Dave (heda) yes it will be on casters when not in use it will be pushed back into the corner but pulled out to use giving 18" all round. Thanks for making a good point.

Thanks Bufferstop lots of important points there. It will be a fixed layout e.g. I don’t intend taking it out of the room but with your thoughts in mind I will make it possible to dismantle or at least take the legs off and take it elsewhere in the house, if need be.
The idea is to build a sub frame with legs bolted on beneath. Above the sub frame would be shadow moulds giving the various heights.
e.g. siding 1 would be up siding 3 down and siding 2 ground level.
Chicken wire to join up the different levels is a great idea.
Carpentry is no problem, I’m a boat builder and at one time cut roofs for a local builder when the truss makers could not come up with solutions.

Hi Chris, would that be the South African Goldfields, a lot of my working life was in Africa.
Came across a working traction engine one day, it was steamed up and they ware using the steam in a cheese factory when I asked to have a look they set it running, smooth as butter.
Perhaps the quarry are using an old engine complete to drive the crusher and other things!!

Thanks for all the help, Dave.

[Mountain]

In the early days of steam power, many locomotives were more useful to the owners as mine pumping engines then being used to haul waggons, as horses were good at that. Speed was not essential as long as the minerals reached their destination and the flow of minerals had no major interuptions...

[ChrisGreaves]

Hi Chris, would that be the South African Goldfields, ... Perhaps the quarry are using an old engine complete to drive the crusher and other things!!

Yilgarn goldfields and wheat-belt, Western Australia.

The Traction engine concept is superb!. The (stationary) traction engine can be driven by the sous-board old loco motor (worm/pinion to scale down the speed of rotation and cope with the load of tea-leaves-masquerading-as-rock-chips), to power the fake traction engine which then drives the conveyor belt wheels.
If I were you I would abandon the model railway altogether, and make the working quarry my, er, quarry!

Now I really have to stop checking in here, and attack today's list of tasks-around-the-house. Or "The Rock-Pile" as I now call it.
Cheers
Chris

[Journeyman]

Cheers Chris. I’m in and out of the garden digging and planting potatoes between posts, we all have are rocks to push up the hill! Perhaps you need a traction engine to deal with the rock-pile.

Dave.

[Bufferstop]

Carpentry is no problem, I’m a boat builder and at one time cut roofs for a local builder when the truss makers could not come up with solutions.

Come on! withholding vital info like that , a set of spaceframes from various thicknesses of ply on a sub-base, think old style glider wings (before they started making them from carbon fibre and foam.) Light but rigid with locating dowels and case style fasteners to hold them together. Wish I had the skill to make something like that. Fortunately my design didn't call for much more than a couple of embankments and a single dropped board with a canal cutting spanned by a stone arch viaduct.