Sunday, January 28, 2018

Planning for the tramway

Today has seen some minor adjustments to the bridge ready for the future tramway extension. There will need to be a board extension which will be above the back-scene storage siding. I've been testing it out with some of my ancient Hornby OO track though i'll probably buy new track for the tram line.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

An anniversary approaches

At the end of this month will be the 5th anniversary of our return to the world of model railways when Falcon, the two Zillertalbahn coaches and some track arrived. We've come a long way since. The Birches Green Light Railway is the third generation layout which was "born" in the Spring of 2017.

Rotation policy

The railway has been a bit quiet at the start of 2018 though there has been some extended running for Ruby which is settling in pretty well though does have the pulling power of a light breeze. Falcon is running well after its six months rest. We thought it would be a good idea to explain our rotation policy.

The railway is only really big enough to host four locos "on rail" at any one time. There are enough sidings for six though it would make operation ridiculously complicated - a bit too much like sokoban. Therefore we have four locos in operation, the engineering trolly is kept on isolated rails in the back scene apart from when its running and one loco is kept in reserve. Falcon was the first to be put in reserve and currently Jam is having a rest. In 6 months Jam will return and one of the other locos (probably Growler) will take its leave.

Now as we get more locos it may be that the rotation policy will have to be amended with it happening more frequently, more locos being put into storage and rest periods being shorter but we will address that when needed.

Friday, January 12, 2018

Isolation

We use a catchpoint as a cheap and easy way of isolating the end of a siding. Currently only the station storage siding has this, Grower is shown below after arriving with a train. We do have another catchpoint which will likely be added to one of the goods sidings when they are relaid later in the year.