Right, an attempt to start writing semi regular Saturday morning posts that requires me to A) haul my ass out of bed early and B) evade brunch making duties (this morning at La Casa Dandruf its pancakes and maple syryp) untill 11am.
Even since Paekakariki has had a full completement of mainline track, I've pondered just how to get the trains back onstage once they head off North or South. Now mostly I'd just say a return loup with storage sidings but then I got to thinking, why not something better? I had kicked around in my head (theres plenty of free space) modeling more of the area south to Pukerua bay to let the electrics stretch their legs but I could not figure out how to do it.
My initial thought was just to use the outer storage loop as a sceniced mainline section. The immediate issues are that you can't park a train on the bank (well, not quite true but I don't think they have signal failures/derailments that regularly on the real thing). I then hopped out of the box and came up with a separate mainline and storage setup.
Now this has 3 storage loops plus a couple of lines for the EE units to sit between jobs. Its all rather complex though. The other issue is that trains leave Paekakariki and immediately head north along the Pukerua bank. Not overly ideal (though its just occured to me that if it was reversed it would work fine). the whole thing folds in 1/2 for transport and storage. Theres an access hole in the middle as well.
I then considered having a diamond crossing that swaped the north and south mains so that it would work and trains would run into the storage yards and then out onto the main line.
Trains head into the storage yard then do a circuit of the mainline before arriving at Paekakariki. Aagin if I simply reversed the first plan we wouldn't need to be here. Mr Bond then pointed out that the rail crossings of the baseboard joins were not square, and the track was awfully complex and what about maintanance.
A couple of minutes of looking/thinking last night and I realised I could strip 1/2 the points out and it would still work and I would only have square track crossings of edges.
I think its a bit more elegant, you don't loss anything by simplifiying the points layout, and its also easy to operate and maintain.
The only real issue (damn you prototypical modeler in my head) is that the electric locos will reverse on every trip. Not an issue for the Ew's but it is for the Ed's and Dm's. The only alternative to fix this involves a lot of loco handeling/shunting off stage which I don't think is a good idea at all (unless someone can convincement me otherwise).
5 comments:
Turntable built into the tunnelled area ?
I'm really not sure it's worth the faf quite honestly.
Adding to this (don't try to comment on the blog while you are waiting at a Kebab shop), I can't see where you would fit one in. The D/Dm/D set is 450mm long on its own and theres not the space for a turntable that big.
Personally I cant see the problem with the Ed's and Units reversing? Only a charlatan would sit there heckling the layouts owner with the ubiquitous "Ah, Excuse Me, I think youve got that wrong...."
And if they can honestly remember which side of the Ed's was always facing the sea than I think they have bigger problems than remembering to wash their anorak....
For the 3-car unit, could it go straight ahead into the middle, and then come back out on the other track? The it wouldn't turn around and the pantograph would "stay put" at the right end of the middle car.
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