So, after a lot of time spent planning, we reorganised few things in our home and as a result of that the space for my layout was also moved elsewhere. And it seems that all my work I have written about a little in my last article was all for naught.
My layout plan was pretty straight forward – split in two tables (for easier portability) and size of 230x50cm. The “main” part of the layout was the scene of a industrial zone producing spirits and bioethanol. filled with silos, pipelines and factory buildings. I had a plan for a side “shelf” which would be used for staging and storage purposes with a single track leading to the main part. The whole setup would create an L shape and had bit tight radii, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make due to space constraints of the room.
Now, I think it’s good to mention that my intention with this layout are mostly to create a fun track to run with believable scenery, but not to necessarily model a real track and or place. I made a complete 180 turn on my previous layout plan that was solely oriented about replicating a real spur in an industrial area.
And I think it will prove to be the best choice here as what I seem to enjoy the most is to model the rolling stock rather than the terrain and I just really would love to be able to run a wide variety of rolling stock with it still looking at least semi-believable to be going through such place.
This is in no way a guide on how I think you should be doing layout and how you should be enjoying your hobby.
Do your own thing! Do what you find fun and that’s where the joy lies! I’m just writing here about my journey in the meantime between writing about actual tips and also want to show my own layout and share my own piece of the proverbial cake.
Choices, choices, choices
With the relocation came two choices. Leave it as it was or design a new layout as the new space is a lot more giving.
Though I felt a bit defeated, having just spent weeks of planning the previous plan, I came to a conclusion that I will not get a good chance to do some sizeable layout anytime soon and it looked like a fun challenge. I chose a wall with an unused fire place with a blocked off chimney. There is a decent space from both sides of the chimney and about 140cm for a connection between the two sides. I still plan to use some tables for staging/storage when I will be running trains and not just do some shunting. But I want them to be easily disassembled and stashed when not in use.
Forgive the awkward track work, with a bit of imagination – the big white hole is the chimney, to the right is a bit more extra space and a bay window and to the left is some furniture. All of this glorious real estate I’ve acquired is ready for some nice train action.
Trying out what would work in my new space
The shape reminded me of a somewhat similarly laid out layout made named “Malá Paka”. The layout is split into three sections around a structural column between two windows. And as you might have noticed, that awkward track work upstairs is coping the layout’s idea for the right side’s track.
I tried it out because it was alluring to have some storage for trains that’s hidden. I wanted to have least amount of hassle with setting up each sessions and even if just a short one. Such storage would allow me to store one or two locomotives with few cars and the whole layout was constrained similarly to Malá Paka – 1-2 cars (at the absolute maximum 3).
However, somehow I didn’t like any setup I made on the left side and ultimately scrapped this idea in favour of shunting-only operations when I don’t have the staging tables attached.
So, I decided to look for inspiration.
After I’ve read an amazing series on spur lines found in Czech Republic, I got a lot of inspiration and started to try things out. I knew that I wanted some at spur on right side of the chimney with at least two tracks and in my head it was using a small engine to move cars around all day and a train would bring/collect cars on the spare storage track it would have. At that point I also knew I wanted the scenery be somewhere in hills. Main contestants were a mill and a quarry.
Aaaaand the winner iiiiis….. quarry!
Now, that I know that the main spur is a quarry, kinds of rolling stock will I be running and that it was in a hilly area, I gave a good thinking about a good place for the setting. My mind immediately went into Záhorie. The area is located around the borders of Austria and Czech Republic, full of very small train stations and is also a “host” of many quarries – sand, lime, etc.
Despite the area having many good options for modeling real places, I decided that I will be making completely fictional track and used hill names and other things for my station names.
The reason for this is the fact that I want to build a fun layout where I can run my kit built rolling stock. I will try to keep it with the spirit of the area using some of my childhood memories while visiting distant family, but I’m more interested in operations rather than recreating a diorama for this one.
Since the quarry will be on the righ side (which is about 115cm wide), the siding size limitation is considerable. But I decided that it should be able to fit at least 2-3 (even if using multiple sidings) 14.5m cars. (I might use smaller but in larger quantity just for the effect, but I haven’t really decided yet. Might also use a mix based on the customer it’s heading for)
This also dictates what kind of trains in terms of length should the left side be able to accommodate.
What about the left?
This, admittedly took the most amount of refinement. I just couldn’t find a good mix of track length, amount of sidings and a theme for at least one stub track I could use to bring some more cargo action to that side as well. Just as I was almost ready to give up, let it be for a week or two and come back with a fresh view would it not be for a completely random moment while playing Train Simulator World. I’ve been hauling cargo on the Mittenwald bahn and the little station “Innsbruck Hötting” was very attractive.
Today the station has 2 pass through tracks and two stubs, where one leads down a slope to a warehouse area. The other stub track is level and curves up behind the station building, where a small pump station for tank cars is located. Further down is a loading area that is kind of part of a parking lot. There is no ramp but ways of loading/unloading all sorts of cars could be improvised.
With the train size constraints I could now draw up a heavily inspired plan using Hötting as a template – there is really not much apart from compressing the track that I want to change for my layout, somehow it’s almost perfect for what I envisioned for my layout’s station, a small station with not much traffic and some small spur that would allow me to have a variety of cargo for bringing a decent amount of diversity on my layout.
As a footnote:
I plan to add some signalling here and there. The station will have 5-light arrival and simple 2-light (in group configuration for both of my pass-through tracks) departure AŽD signals and one signal for protecting my quarry spur from the wide track. (I might write about my reason for choosing these specific signals in another post)
I would love to use dwarf shunting signals somewhere, but it’s simply not making sense in such small stations or spurs. With such a small station as this, it’s basically just lights for in/out trains and everything else is done through radio comms with the signaller.
Now, how to bring it together
I have some work-in-progress of the layout so far. Track laying is almost done (I might need to tweak some distancing, shaping here and there but schema of it is set at this point and won’t change). Terrain is an absolute question mark and i will need to spend some time finding inspiration yet before I get back to it and finalise the whole idea.
I’ve got the spur, I’ve got the station and a rough location for the setting of the whole layout.
I want the layout to be set in around 2000-2005’s, so it will be V. epoch, though for a fictional layout this doesn’t matter as much in my opinion, but if you go too wild you might be facing some issues – like pretending it’s 1950’s and it’s okay for steamers to drive right past modern signals and stuff like that. If that’s fine by you, it’s totally fine, but personally it’s breaking the immersion.
As already mentioned, it’s somewhere in the area of Záhorie and has a quarry nearby (1-2km from the station, however due to my space constraints this distance is obviously heavily compressed). I envision it to be somewhere close by some hills, but there are still some agriculture present. I might represent this as maybe some field nearby the track, dunno yet, options are open.
The station has a capability of holding quite a bit of cars due to the design of sidings, but I never want to just stuff it all up as that would make it look quite comical. The constraints are 2-3 car at the warehouse, 2-3 cars at the loading track and 1 (max 2 perhaps) at the pump which is on the same track as the loading area, but is situated closer to the switch.
If you’re thinking that I’m just ripping off Innsbruck Hötting… yes, yes I do. I just love the layout and it is very fitting for the size and my wish to have at least some amount of operations at the station.
As the station is quite small, shunting operations are going to be done by the same locomotive that is part of a cargo train. In the quarry area, as mentioned, there will be a small residential locomotive doing the work. They will use their own private locomotive for loading cargo all day and then store the loaded cars on a free siding where a locomotive from freight train would come for it the next day. The locomotive is permitted to operate only within the spur and because of the size of that spur there is no interchange yard.
I think that for now it’s enough and I still have a lot to finish on the plan so I will leave some details for the next time. It has been just a wall of text so far, but I just wanted to get the layout idea out and I will come back with some reference photos later, and, hopefully then, a finished layout plan.
See ya later !!
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