Login
or
Register
Subscriber & Member Login
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Login
Register
Home
»
Model Railroader
»
Forums
»
General Discussion (Model Railroader)
»
Thinking About A British Side Layout
Edit post
Edit your reply below.
Post Body
Enter your post below.
I was going to quote but there are sevral sources... so... <br /> <br />Briti***rack DID use Bullhead as standard and several makers do excellent examples BUT modern track, which would include almsot all commuter lines, would be Flat Bottom - clipped not spiked. Most of it has concrete sleepers for plain track. Points remain timber sleepered. Curved points are not common... due to Engineering issues and cost. The reason for more (and increasing) flowing arrangements of track is increasing speeds. (Whenever any length has a speed restriction the adjacent lengths become slower as slow down and speed up zones. <br /> <br />Very British characteristic track features were far more double track, even on minor lines, the majority of crossovers by far were trailing and junctions were made as double juntions ...even going into Single Line. Three track was rare... the US form didn't exist. Four track was either paired Up Slow, Up fast, Down Fast, Down Slow OR Up Slow, Down Slow, Up Fast, Down Fast. This showed very clearly in the signalling. <br /> <br />UK Signals are placed to the left of the track to which they apply or directly over it if that isn't possible. Semaphore arms stick out to the left as you see them on approach. <br />Until recently almost all Briti***rack (except Single Lines) was uni-directional and few stations except some very large ones had bi-directional platform lines. <br /> <br />The use of facing connections has vastly increased and many former double junctions have become ladder junctions. There are far more instances of bi-directional lines including some over distance. The first time you are riding a train normal road on double track and one whizzes round you on your right is pretty scarey. <br /> <br />London without overhead would be what was Southern with 3rd rail... but you would be limited for model availability even more than train types... mostly EMU except into Waterloo (South Western)... even that is increasingly EMU. VERY little freight at all except from the tunnel. Most of that is conatiners and autos in block trains behind class 66... hey! You like them :-). <br /> <br />The other London without OH would be the Western into paddington from Reading... Very nice route... largely 4 track. Further West around Didcot could be a good place to look. <br /> <br />Away from London Birmingham is probably your best bet. <br /> <br />You say... <br />"I'm actually more interested in modeling the period after privatization purely for exactly the operations that David described. All of my layouts thusfar (all umm two in real life but a great many that never got out of the planning stages haha) were of railroads at their prime, trim, quick, clean and shiney. However one of my favorite things to read about is real-life railroads in their decline and fall or their rebuilding periods. Railroading isn't always a pretty thing, and I think it is time I built something that shows that a bit". <br /> <br />This leaves me at a bit of a loss as to whether you are seeing privatised rail as run down or revitalised. Thinking about it Mr Branson and the Government would tell us one thing and the jury is generally out for everyone else. There are improvements but there were massive improvements in the last years of BR as the system was prepared to be sold off cheap. Very few people realise that the TOUs (passenger carrying franchises) continue to get far more money from government handouts than ALL of BR ever got (Per annum that is). <br /> <br />Basically the whole rail system was worked to death during WW2 and is only now being put back to its pre 1939 condition (we started WW2 before you did... if you hadn't noticed :-)... we also won it)! [Oops a bit of historical prejudice there]. <br /> <br />Bachman do do British outline in 00... but BEWARE... their original stuff was BR H0... didn't last long for obvious reasons ... but some of it may still be about and it will be too small against 00 models. (Anyone find their Class 33 or British containers i would be interested). <br />London "metro" is a free newspaper... the Underground is ... the Underground... Tyne and Weer and Manchester have Metro systems... they are more Rapid transit systems (toy trains). <br /> <br />You could probably take out a sub to some of the many UK rail mags. Railway Magazine would be the best for real rail stuff. Railway Modeller is the best source of adverts (yards of them). MRJ is the high end of the model market but a bit clichey. British Railway Modelling is about MR level. There are loads of others. Ian Allan are the best rail publishers for wide spectrum. their book on signalling would give you a basic start on both signals and track layout. <br /> <br />Have fun.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag
Update Reply
Subscriber & Member Login
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Login
Register
Users Online
There are no community member online
Search the Community
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Model Railroader Newsletter
See all
Sign up for our FREE e-newsletter
and get model railroad news in your inbox!
Sign up