Hello Graham,
Just to take a couple of points, great idea about teaching your grandson with card and simple buildings. If I could suggest, make those buildings movable and just draw in your roads etc and install them when he comes.  The change around of the buildings, cars, people etc will change the "play value"  of the railway for him as it will be different each time he uses it.

I personally think though that your mods to your layout will be something that should "grow" which is the basis of the article that I have offered to send you so if you care to send me your email, I will forward the article on to you.

A couple of questions for you.  

1.   Are you using Flex or set track?  I thought you had a length of flex in the pic of yourself. Personally I use flex track for my wide "straight" sections and a compound mixture of set track curves to replace where I had flex track curves so it is not obvious.  I switched when some of the track on my curves broke under expansion with heat.

2.  Do you want to try to operate as a railway with crosses, delivering to industries or goods sheds or as a "sighting" railway where you have a number of interesting scenes in open areas with a couple of stopping stations for passenger trains?  A combination of each?

3.  Did you have a theme or preferred prototype to pattern on?  It does not matter if grandson tears that idea to shreds when he comes but there will be times when YOU want to have a bit of fun and what YOU want to do. 

Hope this is all helping you… I'd hate to foist a design on you but I like the first option or a variation than the second but stay in your comfort zone!

Cheers from Australia

Trevor   

Thanks Trevor and others, I would like to have a mixture of each of those would be great, From my personal Point of view I prefer shuntting and the idea of making pickups and deliveries more than maybe passenger services. I am using a bit of flex track with some set track.

I like the idea of maybe having a mine or quarry of some description, or a dairy maybe having pickups from the farm on the original layout.
Good idea of having the buildings movable for the grandson, He does have a good imagination, so would be interesting to see what he can think of.

Hi Graham

Your original plan is a Cyril Freezer produce I believe.  I have built this layout a couple of times for younger modellers and must agree with the others than it is a brilliant little layout to work.  If you can set aside total adherance to prototypical working, you can run from the terminus to the continuous loop and reverse trains at the through station to get back to the terminus.

The first incarnation used an Airfix 14xx and auto coach for a shuttle, a pannier and "B set" for the main passenger train and a Collett goods for a freight which just shuffled wagons between the two stations.

The second version was bigger and included a carriage siding down the right hand side facing out of the terminus, long enough to hold a couple of main line carroaiges.  There was a "lay-bye" down the left hand side for a freight (the lad I built it for liked tanks so we had a tankers train with a 0-6-0 loco of some sort - LMS I think).

In both cases, Thomas, Annie and Clarabel both featured regularly and on the second one the regular passenger train was a Virgin multiple unit that came with his train set!!!

Rule 1 applies of course but I would think your original choice of plan would make you and your little ones an excellent starter.

Barry

Hi All,
 I have been corresponding with Graham over the last couple of weeks as I for one did not think he was going to get much joy from the modified plan in the long term.  Both he and I thought the following correspondence would be useful to some here who have not made a start or helping others over the line so with his permission here it is…

 Sept 14

 Hello Graham,
If you check  other entries in YMR made by me, you will see an article under Please help a person who Is planning their first layout with NO experience! - Layout Design, Trackwork & Operation. - Getting You Started. - Your Model Railway Club 

 and head to the 93rd post where I demonstrated how to "grow" his layout suspecting that he was of limited means etc.  Not making any suggestions about yourself but thinking of your picture looking that you aren't really sure where you are heading with it, "growing" may help you streamline your ideas and Junior can also be part of it as well, even if it is only one length of track.

 If it is not rude my asking, could you make a list of what track you actually have  and perhaps what buildings you have from the original plan  you submitted?   This is not to embarrass you but rather I can submit a series of drawings to the site doing it in short bursts which would be more achievable for you and build the skills rather than do it all at once. No one need know about this particular correspondence apart from the suggestion to grow the layout but it could help quite a few other reluctant observers of the site.

As your layout grows, like playing with "Trainz" Train Sim, you can get the hands on experience and make your alterations from that.

 Personally I like the idea of the two stations as per the original but the "big one" being a through station with a terminal siding if you have the building already.  If you do not, I have a download on my website which can do for the building made from scrap foam core and a printout from stagnesrailway21 and you could scratch a platform, also from scrap foam core which you can see on this page  Some stuff using printouts! - Scratchbuilding. - More Practical Help - Your Model Railway Club

 Anyway enough from me to sink a ship there and hope you are not overwhelmed… any hobby was never meant to be that!

 Hi Trevor 

 Thanks for the email, I will find that useful. I have attached a parts list from my Original Scarm layout, It’s in excel format (not sure if you can open it or not) The buildings I have made are Little Montford Station, a 3 bay Coal Staithe, Little Montford long platform and a double Little Montford long platform. They are all downloaded from this site: http://www.wordsworthmodelrailway.co.uk/ Oh on that picture you can see I have removed the points section between the top two rails.
 
I hope that all helps with what I have, As I replied on the site, My personal preference is for goods operations, but would like some passenger operations for grandson.  Thanks again for all your help.  Graham

 Graham sent a couple of pics of the first layout design with those buildings in place and a Spreadsheet with his track components


I have just done a translation of the Peco codes… am I correct that you have no set track curves?  Personally I would prefer the ST curves and use flex track for "straight sections" but that's me based on the following http://xdford.freeasphost.net/stag19.html  but there is no issue if you would rather the other way around.  
I will have a basic play and see how it goes,   Regards  Trevor

 Hello Graham,

 Have been distracted by watching a preliminary final in Aussie Rules and following the cricket but this is getting in the nature of what I imagined.  Although I worked out what your track references were, I felt a bit limited by the space so tried to make it interesting to operate as a point to point of sorts.

 A couple of pointers

 1.  There is what appears to be a long passing siding on the right. The outer track should be covered by a tunnel while the inner one is  a shorter tunnel with at one end a mine or quarry face and the other end a mill or processing plant.

The Rationale is that empty wagons will be pulled out of the factory and swapped with full ones which go into the factory. At the mine (far far away,,, well not really but there you go) when the train arrives at the other end (x number of laps or so)the empties will go into the mine after the full ones are pulled out of the sidings.

 2.  The passenger stations have a terminus road so point to point could be managed from that or a storage used for carriages when junior is not around to interfere with grandpa's shunting fun. 

3. General Goods services could be run with a number of different modes. The industries could be as varied as you want so .for example a milk factory or general goods shed could have tank or covered wagons delivered and sent in either direction after the trains had done a few laps etc. Or you could set up shunting puzzles on either station

 This layout could be grown so that you get the basic loop in first, then add sidings as you go … the number of points is about the same but you can vary it with different placement of sidings compared to what I have shown.

 4  The angle at the top station is to give a bit more impression of length by not being geometrically aligned with the edge of the base board. If the bottom was flexi track, you could slew a very big curve to also emulate the appearance of more length.
5  The radius I have allowed for for the mainline is about 22-24" which would mean you could run just about anything from your part of the world and it would not look ridiculous.
Hope this all helps but I can do a couple of others in any case… just not at 11pm!  Regards  Trevor


Sept 15

Hello Graham,

 A second plan for you with a different theme.
I have kept your terminal station  but faced it the other way for junior to work out of. There is a head shunt in the North West corner for the sidings for the passenger station.

 The North West Corner can serve as  an intermediate station for trains running around the main line with some wayside shunting

 The Southern Station can also serve as  an intermediate station or a terminal end for trains to go the other way.
Effectively you have three possible station combinations to work with where you can cross trains - I actually have 7 stations on my layout but only 3 effective crossing points because of the triplicate/ quadruplicate use of both stations I have physically have using my imagination to extend the mileage of train travel, but it works OK.  Most of my critics that shun the approach do not actually have a layout so at least I am one up!

 Anyway, see what you think… we may be able to spread the word and get a few others going with the ideas.    

Regards from Oz   Trevor




********************
Sept 18
Hello Graham,
Thought I would try a double track plan for you with emphasis on running with some shunting operations in  a basic form  to use up your straight track etc not knowing if your curves will be flex track etc. Plenty of passenger possibilities for junior too.  Out of interest, would you have space to put in a small fiddle yard?
Hope you have not been too overwhelmed!
Cheers from Australia,
Trevor



********************

Sept 27
Hello Trevor,    Sorry for the late reply, Work has been really hectic lately.
Thanks to all your input I have settled on a plan both me and my grandson like (even though he is only 5).
I was flicking through a PDF document I found online and when we both saw this image we both liked the idea of doing something like that in our layout.





Here is what I have come up with, The image above is depicted at the top of the layout.






I have overlaid what I think would be needed for the wiring so any help on that would be good, There are 2 ?’s on the right side as I didn’t know if power was needed there.
Anyway thank you again for all your help so far.  Graham

Sept 27
Hello Graham,
Have been busy myself but was wondering if I had managed to "turn you off" with the input.
You have got a lot of operating possibilities with what you have come up with but if I can be so bold to make a suggestion abot a slight difference here that I think should help you.
Taking rollingstock through an S curve can be difficult so I have altered the bottom points so that the points become part of the curve and incidentally lengthen the passing siding.  Also I have shown a LH point rather than a right hand one in the sidings to avoid a double S effect when pushing stock into it. 
My apologies for the first couple of plans as I do not use track drawing programs but I was probably more interested seeing what could be done in the space and I did overlook what tracks you actually have.  
Anyway mate the ball is in your court but happy railroading and feel free to discuss further if you need to,
Cheers from Australia,
Trevor


Hello Trevor,
Those suggestions do make a lot of sense, so I will be changing the layout slightly to add those in.
I am just getting together all the bits and pieces I need now to start adding the wiring and fixing track down, So once |I get started will keep you updated.
 
Thank you.
 
Graham
To the Rest of you…

That is now a fairly long thread so we both hope the rest of you get something useful out of it…

Cheers  Trevor

Hi Graham,,

Interesting thread. One thing comes through clear - once you start using prototypes, and that intermediate double track station looks typical of many single line branch lines, you have to start adapting (or rather building) the board to the layout, not the other way around. Better to do a "whoa there nelly" now rather than a rebuild down the line (pun intended). And a good reason for going with modular baseboards.

Helps to start with a list:

Terminus or intermediate branch line station?
Terminus or intermediate main line station? Or two termini? (With a very few exceptions, railways are terminus to terminus).
Town scene?
Industrial scene?
Country scene?


Intermediate or terminus main line stations generally use a platform bay for a branch line terminus.


How about starting out with one main line station, one branch line terminus, one industrial scene, and developing it from there? I think part of the problem will be accommodating model railway vs toy train set. Given that five year olds have short attention spans, KISS applies. And from experience they are not that interested in operations. If you can find some of those wagons that have a lever to open the bottom and drop coal, gravel, etc., that helps. Or an operating mail coach, an elevated working conveyor belt, the big crane…Build as a model ralway, operate as a toy train set.


Nigel

Hi Graham,

Regarding your getting in and out.
Have you considered a hinged (lift upable) section where your farm area is. Similar to the old bar access at your local pub.
I have two hinged areas on my lay out.
One for access and one for any window maintenance that may be required in the future.
easy to do before you get too far with your track laying.

Graham, access to the centre …

from inside my layout looking outwards
 
with the liftup on the right hand side

now down…

Thanks again to all,
think I will have to add in a Hinged section for getting in and out.

What I have been thinking of for the Mine head, Is to create some kind of lift system so that it brings small Bogie trucks up from mine and roll out onto a raised rail, Then tip into empty coal wagons (maybe then have a conveyor underneath the board, to route back from coal yard)

A friend sent me this as It gives me an idea of something similar. working coal stage
 thanks again

Graham

That lift-up is seamless Sol. 

I'm currently re-hashing mine but I doubt it will be anything like as good as yours ……………………

There is a layout on the exhibition circuit Graham - based on the Durham coalfields and it has a working "bucket" converyor taking the waste over the tracks and a road to a "slag" heap.  Not sure how he returns the tipped slag to the wash house for the next cycle…………………

There is similarly, a layout with working wagon lift and tip - I think that one might be "Happisburgh" but not sure …………

I'll try to find reference to them ………

"Happisburgh" is in fact, an "O" Gauge layout and it's a wagon tippler rather than a lift - here it is:



I'll have another think because I'm sure I've seen a working lift somewhere ……………………..