Friday, June 25, 2010

Now with Added Salt...

Am_Fet writes:

This whole idea came about due to a joke really....unfortunately it has now crossed over into the realms of being "A Great Idea" and I feel compelled to carry on with it. Magikan and I were chuckling about the ongoing HOn3½ discussion on the Railchat Yahoo group on the morning train, and i suggested with all the things we were developing quietly it wouldnt be that much harder to build a complete layout in HO and frighten everyone with it (lets face it, we only need to increase the scale of the CAD drawings).

In discussions for layouts, I thought a small shunting layout would be all youd want to "dip your toes" so to speak, and suggested Lake Grassmere from an earlier Blog post. Anyway, somehow by the end of the day the whole thing had been turned around, and the plan is now for a model of the inner working's of the Dominion Salt Works at Lake Grassmere.....I still have no idea how we got there.

First of all, I was inspired by the work of Chris Nevard in England. He has built a set of exquisite layouts, all built in a kind of "shadow box" that I really like, as it sets the layout up as a "stage", as well as closing up for security while transporting the thing:



So working on this general design idea with an eye on the photos previously published, I started scribbling down some ideas on how I could see the concept fitting into an enclosed space and came up with this quick scribble, which was quickly sent around the troops for comment:



And here is the area modeled on the ground...



So the question on everyones lips is, Why didnt I include the main line interchange siding? And although I advocated it in the original blog post, in reality it would be very difficult to keep the "fully contained" layout idea while having to support either a loop or two sets of hidden sidings for the mainline trains to work from. In reality, it is so much easier to focus on a cameo scene within the plant; luckily, this area has enough points and track to make a fully self contained shunting layout, but designing this had made me realise these areas are few and far between. Most often they are independent private sidings that interchange with KiwiRail; KR's answer to a lot of these situations now seems to be just a single siding and a crossing loop if you're lucky as they already have access to the rest of the network to get onto the right ends of wagons, or at least make sure they are blocked correctly before being set out for loading/unloading.

Anyway, enough waffle....the next step was to work on drawing it out full size and consulting with the Tracklaying Contractors (Druff and Co. of Nelson). After much heated debate (with peoples parentage being called into question) and van interior measurements being taken, it was decided to increase the overall size of the baseboard to 1500 x 500. This would support a nice curve in the sidings heading to the right.

This all sounds very linear, but in reality the plan changed every hour as new data was found. Firstly, Google Streeview threw up the chestnut that the outer sidings eventually met and terminated at a weighbridge:



The Head Druff suggested this could be a good opportunity to provide a small sector plate as a run around, and I may still look into adding it. I was also able to get a rough overview of the whole area...and I really need a bus to sit on the level crossing:



In the end, the final plan came out looking something like this after I had played around and shunted it on 3rd Planit:



I've even had a go at mocking up heights and pelmets in the junk room with bits of leftover kitchen:



So, all in all, I'm happy enough with the concept to keep on it. I'll probably shunt it with a DC (I have a weird feeling its all done by tractor though) and the wagons are readily available....or will be once the ZH finally makes an appearance. Pity my job changed 180 degrees and I'm now spending 12 hour days on the new IP based radios and the refit of Train Control...sigh...

6 comments:

Southern Rails said...

HOn3 1/2?! Nothing surprises me on this blog anymore.
HO has always seemed a good scale to go with because there is so much easily avaliable including buildings, vehicles and figures.
BUT what about the two very important things - track and rolling stock.
Track can be scratch built but what about loco chassis and bogies?
Very interested to see what you guys can come up with.

EF30163 said...

Michael, 12mm track is ready available from several manufacturer (H0m), chassis and bogies from Bemo (H0m) for 'an arm and a leg' or in TT scale from Piko, Tillig and some other once 'east german companies'...

cheers...
steve w.

Magikan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Magikan said...

Quite a bit in the way of HOn3 1/2loco chassis' is/was available out of Australia as well, some of it is even directly applicable such as the QR 1500 class for a DQ or QR.

EF30163 said...

curious as I am I found some more info about Arne Wharf http://www.nevardmedia5.fotopic.net/c112122.html
nice... !

steve w.

Motorised Dandruff said...

Micheal, I think you have hit the nail on the head. Its something that i wasn't going to point out during the recent debate on teh merits of Ho scale. When building a model the last thing I do is check out whats available in the way of trucks, people and buildings. maybe I should?
I think that the main reason Ho has not either taken off or indeed gone anywhere is that you need to know what you are doing to make the undergubbins. We have it easy as if we so desire we can buy a mech/bogie off the shelf which does the job approximately dimension wise. The rest is relatively pretty easy.