Irish Model Railway track plans

[David Holman]

12 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

In terms of design overall, especially for a small or cramped space, the attached serves well.

Apart from Dugort Harbour, one of my long term plans is a small portable shunting layout based on one of my other interests, the South African Railways. One diesel loco, one steam, two carriages, two brake vans and seven wagons, and that's it.

It's meant represent the sort of meandering very rural line seen across the southern part of the African continent, mostly built in the 1910-25 period, and lasting until the 1990s still with mostly or entirely steam haulage. The most minimalistic train service imaginable - three mixed trains a week, with a loco, coach and a few wagons.

This same concept can be used for a Fenit, Castleisland or Ardee style operation, using an "A", a 141, a brake van and some "H" vans, or include a Loughrea-style one-coach passenger train.

When planning the South African terminus with space as an absolute premium, I opted for this design. It's actually all you need. Loco and train  arrives from fiddle yard, and one siding is all that's needed to shunt two or three trucks in and take away a similar number, while possibly also changing locos. For a portable thing, even for an exhibition, little more is strictly necessary.

This plan is actually reminiscent of a number of termini, as per many of the plans shown above; it works as well for very rural dust-road South Africa as it does rainy stone-walled west of Ireland; albeit with drastically different scenery!

 

Not a million miles from the Lydham Heath track plan on the Bishops Castle Railway in Shropshire, though that was really just a reversing point.

 Have long thought that a 'terminus junction' makes for an ideal model railway scenario because of the more intensive nature of operations. Mayner's post exemplifies it, which Richard Chown was a big fan of minimal track too. Nice though it is to have more, and it always looks impressive, you don't always need it for interesting operations. Having plenty of fiddle yard or storage siding space is another matter though, but this can be alleviated if you use cassettes.

[Northroader]

A good example of two companies meeting face to face was at Cavan, with the MGWR and the GNRI.

(Lifted from Arnold’s “Golden Years of the GNR, vol.2”) The MGWR was there first with their terminus, then the GNR arrived and added their own yard. As the plan stands, the GNR would need the MGWR turntable, and the MGWR would need the GNR runaround. (A case of “you scratch my back...”?) 

Having the two yards end to end would make for a very long model, so what if you ditched the GNR yard, and added a little bit to the MGWR station. Remove the “bridge” to island platform, and add a foot overbridge or foot crossing at the platform end, which would take care of the runaround problem, make the cattle beach line into a loop, and put an extra siding in the goods yard for mileage traffic?

[Colin R]

The wee man in green told me about this thread, he has been giving me a few shape taps over the head with his shillelagh of late to get my A*** into gear. Now while I am a Donegal fan first and foremost, this has not stopped me from looking over the fence at that other 3ft gauge railway in Donegal that is the Swilly.

As try as I might to read the book 'That Old Sinner' something comes up and stops me from getting on with it. That said what I have read so far has inspired me to think of a branch of the Swilly leaving Letterkenny heading towards Ramelton then heading North towards Milford. The line then splits into two the left hand branch head north towards Cranford and Downies, while the right hand branch head north east towards Rathmullen, The line then carries on towards Glenvar and Portsalon and finishes at Doagh Beg and the Fishing Harbour*.

The thing is most of Donegal was known as the congested district and in 1889 there was a fund set up of £600,000 pounds to build railways in that part of the country to help out.

Well Lord Leitrim had ideas to build part of this proposal anyway, anyhow in the smoke filled rooms of his London Club and over a good claret or two the Lord and he pals decided to modify the route.

As can been seen the line had very little advantage to the local people of Donegal at first, in fact if anything it just made a lot more people decide that they wanted to head to America and start a new life.

My branch line only took off after the first world war as this part of Donegal found itself as part of a tourist boom.

Following the Second World War, Doagh Beg found itself as a storage port for a whole load of ex-German war ships and submarines.

Later in the 1950 and early 60's tourism started to take off again and a small group of enthiastic railway supporters found that the Swilly wanted to lift the track to cut its loses and to concentrate on the improved road transport of the time.

The CIE not wanting to shoot a gift horse in the mouth found that a number of its 3ft gauge locos and rolling stock could be leased to the project and thus began the collection you will see one day. 

Well that's my excuse for now what do you think?

I should say that I still need to find some very simple track plans for this one.

 

 

 

* in real life I don't think there was one, but there are a number of small Harbours around Ireland that I could base it on.

 

Edited April 18, 2022 by Colin R

[jhb171achill]

55 minutes ago, Colin R said:

 

Well that's my excuse for now what do you think?

* in real life I don't think there was one, but there are a number of small Harbours around Ireland that I could base it on.

 

Excellent “back story”; I always like to hear of the rationale of a “might-have-been” layout.

It’s a very plausible one. If I had a euro for every plan made in real life to build new ports it develop others, with and without rail connection, that I’ve read about over the years I’d be a rich person. Also, had matters historical between 1959 and 1961 played out only slightly differently, you could have seen all sorts of CIE stuff in Donegal (or Donegal railcars in Lahinch….).

[David Holman]

Works for me, though guess it would really as all my Irish projects have been based on a similar premise. Would love to do the Swilly in 7mm scale, or better still 10mm on 0 gauge track. Ain't gonna happen without a lottery win though and as I don't but tickets that limits things even more!

 Ramelton, with its delightful quayside, definitely looks like it should ghost ave a railway.

[2996 Victor]

10 minutes ago, David Holman said:

Would love to do the Swilly in 7mm scale

4-8-4T, now that would be something in 7mm!!!

[Mayner]

3 hours ago, David Holman said:

Works for me, though guess it would really as all my Irish projects have been based on a similar premise. Would love to do the Swilly in 7mm scale, or better still 10mm on 0 gauge track. Ain't gonna happen without a lottery win though and as I don't but tickets that limits things even more!

 Ramelton, with its delightful quayside, definitely looks like it should ghost ave a railway.

Better still the Irish 3' gauge on  15mm on 45mm gauge track! A lot of Neil Ramsey's signal cabin is pure Lough Swilly

I think John Campbell a prolific builder of Irish live steam locos built both a Swilly 4-8-0 and 4-8-4T

 

 

[airfixfan]

Anything to do with the Swilly gets my attention.

[Irishswissernie]

On 7/4/2022 at 10:45 AM, Northroader said:

As the plan stands, the GNR would need the MGWR turntable, and the MGWR would need the GNR runaround. (A case of “you scratch my back...”?) 

The M&GWR line at the edge of the diagram shows a siding next to the running line. The siding actually formed a long run round loop  with another crossover half way along its length.

[Colin R]

8 hours ago, airfixfan said:

Anything to do with the Swilly gets my attention.

A very useful looking building

[airfixfan]

Falcarragh

[Colin R]

1 hour ago, airfixfan said:

Falcarragh

Now that is a simple layout, however for Ramelton I need something like a cross of Tooban Junction and Fahan as close as it can get.

Sadly the famous warehouses in Ramelton are on the wrong side of the in let, but lets be honest here, a big bit of modeller licence might be the way to go, also from Google maps I notices that Ramelton has a converted tannery and water mill as well. 

Falcarragh station building looks the part as well.  

[airfixfan]

Goods shed and yard still there at Falcarragh as well.

[Colin R]

9 hours ago, airfixfan said:

Goods shed and yard still there at Falcarragh as well.

Do you happen to have some photos of the good shed? Thanks in advance

Colin

 

[airfixfan]

See attached

[David Holman]

Haven't posted here in a while, but recently came across various track plans I drew while thinking about Fintonagh. Don't know about anyone else, but I find myself doodling lots of these, which can often be very useful, if only in exorcising the idea of starting yet another layout. Perhaps these plans might inspire somebody to build something similar - even it is a case of 'certainly wouldn't do it that way!'

First up, an idea for a through station. I was trying to incorporate a bit of CVR roadside tramway and the annotations alongside are typical of the thought processes I go through, aiming to justify the plan's existence, alongside the sort [and amount] of stock needed.

Here's another through line, but simpler this time, not least in there is no passing loop. The two sidings could only be shunted by trains going right to left.

 

 Next is a similar idea, but with the two sidings going off in opposite directions, means trains could shunt in either direction - though only one siding at a time. Notice how various view blockers hide where the tracks exit the scenic section. As a roadside tramway, over bridges, let alone tunnels were absent on the CVR.

 I even dabbled with a circular layout, which could have made an interesting exhibition concept, though as the left hand sketch shows, storing all the boards would have been problematic as indeed would setting it up at home.

 In the end, I devised the terminus scheme that became Fintonagh. The CVR never had a branch line, but Fintonagh is supposed to be a small town somewhere between Fintona and Armagh [hence the name]. There is a semblance of street running as the line exits to the left, while a kickback siding to the front exits to a standard gauge transfer siding. The rest of the track plan is fairly conventional, while the annotations provide insight into the planning process, most of which has actually worked out in practice.

[2996 Victor]

A series of great plans there, @David Holman, and the notes are a good way to reason out a scheme, something I ought to do when scratching out a plan! I like the minor through stations, particularly the first of the two, they have a lot of potential as cameos.

Of course, Fintonagh is a delightful layout, and the plan incorporates just the right amount of track to make for interesting manoeuvres.

I do like the way you use view blocks to disguise the holes in the sky, something I'm trying to do as well with the layouts I'm planning) building.

Great stuff, thank you for sharing.

Cheers,

Mark

[David Holman]

Thanks Mark. A few other things I've used are:

• Y points are great space savers - nothing but in the first p!an
• The fewer straight lines the better, but keep curves gentle
• Going diagonally across the baseboards is better than parallel to the sides
• If you put a frame around the scenic area, you can hide an exit at the front edge with it, as per the first plan and Fintonagh itself
• Layouts do not have to be big to be interesting. Iain Rice's rule that a train needs to be able to travel three times it's own length on a layout to look 'right' is at the heart of all my plans.

 However, the 'through' layout plans didn't get built because they need a fiddle yard at each end, which means half the total space is non scenic. Would work better as part of a continuous run. End to end layouts are not ideal at exhibitions - they need extra operators and (because trains spent less time on scene) more stock and bigger fiddle yard to keep things interesting.

[2996 Victor]

1 hour ago, David Holman said:

Thanks Mark. A few other things I've used are:

• Y points are great space savers - nothing but in the first p!an
• The fewer straight lines the better, but keep curves gentle
• Going diagonally across the baseboards is better than parallel to the sides
• If you put a frame around the scenic area, you can hide an exit at the front edge with it, as per the first plan and Fintonagh itself
• Layouts do not have to be big to be interesting. Iain Rice's rule that a train needs to be able to travel three times it's own length on a layout to look 'right' is at the heart of all my plans.

 However, the 'through' layout plans didn't get built because they need a fiddle yard at each end, which means half the total space is non scenic. Would work better as part of a continuous run. End to end layouts are not ideal at exhibitions - they need extra operators and (because trains spent less time on scene) more stock and bigger fiddle yard to keep things interesting.

Excellent points, David!

I'm a bit of an Iain Rice disciple as well - creating a framed scene helps to focus the viewer's gaze on the model rather than the surrounding activity, while gentle curves and avoiding baseboard edge parallel-ism is more pleasing to the eye. Y points are a very useful tool in shortening the overall length taken up by sidings and loops and as you say going diagonally is also a useful way to make the track layout more interesting.

[David Holman]

 Here's another selection of track plans - only one of which actually got built - though there is quite a story behind it...

  This first one was very much drawn around Peco 0n16.5 points and track and shows a small quayside station, which could almost be a precursor of Northport Quay. It was done quite a few years ago, quite probably in the last century [!]. There are a few useful view blockers employed, but the track plan looks a bit stiff and stilted now to my eyes, because the track has too many straight lines, which are also parallel to the baseboard edges.

 The next plan is very similar, but see how making the track flow better, significantly improves the overall feel of things. Any comparison with Iain Rice's drawing of Wantage Town in his Light Railways book is more than coincidental - only the train shed is missing.

 Now for something completely different. Above is Eatonswell, by some distance the largest model railway I've ever built. This comes from a time when I was very much into British Railways, 1950's East Anglia, but feel it merits inclusion because of the concepts involved and the fact that, in its original version, shown here, there are similarities to Claremorris or Athlone.

 Eatanswill, was the name invented by Charles Dickens for Sudbury, Suffolk in The Pickwick Papers. My model railway was 0 gauge and involved part of a high level passenger station, where four separate single lines formed a junction, plus a low level goods yard. The actual track plan is at the top, with a sketch map of the wider area below. The station building, an accurate model of Chapel & Wakes Colne, hid the exit at one end, while the Maltings did the same at the other. The four baseboards were each 3'10" long and 2'6" deep, with the mainline tracks set about 6" higher than the goods yard at the front. They were a challenge to make and a swine to move about and set up...

 As if this were not enough, this layout was my sole attempt to scratch the itch of an oval layout - so the front scenic section was match by storage loops the same length and the two straight bits were joined by what was [for me at least] a bit of inspiration: the 180 degree, double track curves, were actually two separate radii - one was 5'9, the other 6'3: four of each and just 7" wide. The result of all this was that these curved sections nested against each other as shown below and fitted in the same footprint as the main baseboards, so could be stored below the scenic section in the workshop.

 So far, so good - well mostly. I had built myself a portable layout 28' long and 13' wide, with a scenic section that fitted in my [integral garage] workshop. And it worked, I suppose, but such a massive undertaking was far too ambitious as a solo project in terms of taking it to exhibitions.

 For starters it needed a minimum of four operators - one for the storage loops, two for the mainline and one to shunt the goods yard. Then the was the simple fact that this 30x15 monster actually only had a 16x 2'6 scenic section - not ideal if you are an exhibition manager, trying to fit as many layouts as possible into your venue! It went to one of the Chatham Shows that we held in the No5 Covered Slip at the Historic Dockyard - a semi open space, with a very uneven floor. Not good when you have 16 baseboards to link together: some of them needed house bricks to achieve this, when beer mats are the more usual solution!

 It ran ok, but unsurprisingly didn't receive any further invites. I sold the curved sections [assembled, they looked like the Stargate] and instead built four new boards to create a two level fiddle yard at each end, creating a long thin layout, 32' in all. This went to a couple of shows, but still needed just as many operators and was still a nightmare to move around because of the awkward size and shape of all the boards. In the end, I bit the bullet, saved all the buildings and made a terminus-fiddle yard layout of the same name which was much easier to handle and operate, doing over a dozen shows before the Irish bug bit! Below are a couple of photos of the station & goods shed.

 I guess it taught me a lot about what doesn't work and the importance of reigning in your ambitions. However, the track plan could well have some merit, especially in 4mm scale or less, when baseboard size would be much more manageable for exhibitions, while as a home project, you could easily fit it into a medium sized shed or single garage.

[Galteemore]

That’s great stuff David - must have been great seeing trains running on it despite all the grief. Funnily enough I read the Dickens book during lockdown, and had been aware of your layout - I did wonder if you’d drawn inspiration from it! It was of course a place of great political division - never have that problem in an Irish setting  

Edited June 1, 2022 by Galteemore