Saturday 4 February 2012

Extending Combwich

Back of an envelope sketch of possible extension
Since the last show, and whilst the layout has been set up at home I've been pondering on extending Combwich by around 4 feet.

The idea is to extend the little 15 inch board which has the level crossing, pub and crossing keeper's cottage on to around 4 feet. The little board was originally built to allow Combwich to become a long wall hugging layout from its original 'L' shape to suit the then domestic environment of 10 years ago after the layout was res-erected from 15 years storage.

Currently the fiddle yard is where the new scenic extension will be. The current angled entrance to the fiddle yard has never been ideal, this will allow access to the new fiddle yard at a better angle. I want to replace the fiddle yard with a 360 degree rotating one as with Catcott - but somewhat longer to accommodate 4 coach trains with a loco. This will speed up operation and reduce loco handling.

The existing scenics will be kept, but the backscene will be removed which is currently to the left of the crossing keeper's cottage. Thoughts for the next section are a dairy, this would be typical of such an area and maybe a works halt a little like Polbrock, but more SR in style with a concrete edged platform. Extending the current Rhyne to run along the front could give it a Bason Bridge feel with the dairy and railway next to the river Brue. 'Exit left' will be under a bridge - and will utilize the other half of the portal used for Polbrock.
The whole of Combwich as it currently is - 13'6" including staging/fiddle yard





5 comments:

  1. Chris, dairy siding behind the halt makes sense to me. Not sure about the siding 'this side of the line.' What's it for?

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  2. I'm quite short of siding space generally. The real railway has sidings all over the place that make no obvious sense. This will be used when shunting the dairy, a refuge siding and somewhere to store the occasional passenger coach, PW vehicle. Anything to make operation more interesting.

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  3. It looks like a good plan, but if I may ...

    1) You have a trap on the dairy siding, but don't indicate one on the other siding - is that a mistake?

    2) Looking at the plan, is it really a good idea including the halt as it will still be very close to the main station. It may look odd if a 4 carriage train has barely travelled its own length before coming to another stopping point?

    I don't mean to sound too critical, the above are more in the way of observations.

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    Replies
    1. There is a catch point on the lower siding, though not very obvious. The one on the dairy line is a short headshunt, it will probably be longer. This is only a very rough sketch. For a start the points are far too tight.

      The halt is only a works halt for the dairy, normal services will only occasionally stop there, and be very short branch trains. Works halts could be very very close to other stations. Wimbledon has one just a couple of hundred yard from the station.

      It my trainset;-)

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  4. I thought it was law that all planning had to be done on the back of a fag packet or beer mat? or is that just rock n roll music

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