Plank Proposals

As Toto suggested, this thread will feature some of my ideas and designs for plank-style layouts, and the thinking behind them.

I've been a railwayman all of my working life, with 43 years service so far. That experience has definitely influenced my approach to designing model railways. As a general rule, most railways tend to only provide enough track to do the job without frills or extras, and they also try to make yards simple and easy to work where possible. Yes, there are always exceptions, but I prefer to look at the commonplace rather than the unusual.

So I'm not a fan of things like "Timesavers" or artificially complicated shunting puzzles, as they don't generally don't reflect my real-life experiences. Most of what I've designed over the years has either been a straight copy of a real station or yard, or based on the type of track layout that a specific railway uses.

The first design I'm posting is a very simple one based on a station on a narrow gauge railway in the Belgian Congo, the Chemin de Fer au Kivu or CEFAKI. This 1067mm gauge line ran from Kalundu on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika to Kamaniola, 94 km to the north. It was opened in 1931, and as far as I or anyone else knows closed sometime during the 1960s. It was meant to continue on to Bukavu on the shores of Lake Kivu, but the mountainous terrain between the two towns put paid to that idea.

The station at Luvungi was the last before the terminus at Kamaniola. It's one of the places in the Congo I've seen where the railway skirts along the edge of a waterway on a mixture of natural landforms and man-made embankments, which I think is both visually interesting and a bit different to the usual layout subjects.
 
Luvungi is a simple crossing loop with an additional siding. That arrangement of track seems to be typical for lines in the Belgian Congo. There's a water column and ashpit at the departure end of each loop, and a pumphouse and water treatment plant supplying water to the tank that feeds the columns. The siding is for wagonloads of cordwood for the stationary boiler that powers the pump.
 
There's no station as such, only a small building that houses the signalman and the staff instruments. The line was controlled by electric staff, or as it was known in the Congo, "systeme baton-pilote". The signals and points are operated from a ground frame in front of the building. The small culvert at the right hand end and the two-span bridge at the left are typical ferroconcrete structures.
 
Scenically there's fairly dense vegetation on the river bank behind the staff hut, with less dense vegetation on the embankment that carries the track to distinguish the built landscape from the natural one.

Operation of the layout is simple and straightforward. Two trains can cross here, single trains stop briefly to exchange the staffs then continue, or they can stand for a while if their engines need to take water or have their fires cleaned. Bank engines can run light from Kamaniola to attach to trains requiring assistance on the last leg up the grade to the terminus.

The plank itself would be made from a single sheet of 12mm plywood so that it would be light, rigid and easy to move if needed. A simple one or two track fiddle yard at either end would complete the layout and allow through running. The top surface of the ply would be finished as the river, with the track being raised above it on embankments made from WS foam risers for ease of construction and light weight.

So that's my first plank proposal. More to follow...

All the best,

Mark.

Attached files

 

I should add that the reason I researched an obscure railway like the CEFAKI is that I was keen on the idea of doing some narrow gauge modelling with a colonial theme, but I wanted to do something that wasn't obviously British or American influenced.

Then I remembered the chapter about CEFAKI in Charles Small's wonderful book "Far Wheels", and I had my railway. A bit of searching on the internet and I found a massive 3-volume book on the railways of the Belgian Congo, which gave me more than enough information to be getting on with. I've actually built some locos and stock for this proposal, so there's a good chance it will eventually get built.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that this design, and the locos and cars already built, are for HOe, or if you prefer HOn30 - HO scale running on 9mm gauge track. That allows me to use N scale loco mechanisms and running gear. I did consider going for HOm using Peco 12mm gauge track, but that would mean using TT scale mechanisms, and they're by no means as common or as easy to get as N scale models.

Cheers,

Mark.

 

My other proposal for an African-themed narrow gauge plank is based on the station at Songololo on the Chemin de Fer Matadi-Leopoldville. This railway was built to 765mm gauge, and converted to 1067mm gauge in the 1930s, so it's ideal to model it using 9mm gauge.

Songololo was a relief point and base for bank engines as well, but it has more facilities than my previous design for Luvungi. There's two loops, a goods shed with it's own loop, a small loco shed and and turntable to service and turn the bank engines, a proper station building and a barracks to accomodate traincrew.

The scenery is similar to Luvungi. The yard is on a heavily forested riverbank with the ground rising sharply towards the rear of the plank to provide a natural backdrop for the railway facilities.

Operation would be varied and interesting. Apart for trains crossing, you could feature adding the bank engines to trains heading up the grade to the right, then returning light to be turned and serviced. You could also attach and detach loads and empties from passing freight trains for the goods shed, or make up a freight train to originate from the yard.

Cheers,

Mark.

 

Thanks Toto. The three modelling subjects that interest me most are - in no particular order - narrow gauge colonial railways, US electric interurban lines, and the railways and tramways of Japan. So you can expect to see some other plank proposals that are a bit different.

As for bank engine running on this plan, it would be very easy to achieve with DCC. It's something we've experimented with on our club DCC layout, and had a lot of fun with.

All the best,

Mark.

 

Please do,Ron.

But be sure to post some photos if you build anything based on it!

All the best,

Mark.

 

My next proposal is a world away from an African narrow gauge line. It dates back to when my main modelling interest was in US railroads. As I researched the railroads that served the city of Peoria in Illinois, I learned more and more about the Illinois Terminal RR. It was an electrified interurban line that served many towns and cities in central and southern Illinois:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Terminal_Railroad

I thought it would be a good basis for a "protolanced" interurban model, so I came up with a design for a simple plank built out of plywood in my favoured size of 8' by 18". I called the interurban the Illinois Traction Company, and the layout's name is "State Line Siding".

It features a crossing loop and a spur serving a fruit packing house. Other structures are a substation, a waiting shelter, a telephone booth and the two-span deck girder bridge across the river. All three tracks have overhead wire, the two running tracks have catenary, while the packing house spur has simple trolley wire. The line is signalled using three-aspect colour light signals working under APB rules.

Scenically the layout features the post-glacial landscape typical of northern Illinois - small undulating hills with a shallow river and plenty of deciduous trees. As a change from the usual bright green foliage and blue sky that most layouts portray, I though it would be interesting to portray a late winter or early spring scene, with leafless trees, dead grass and an overcast sky. Like my previous Congo idea, I'd use the plywood surface of the baseboard as the surface of the river, and build up the landforms and roadbed with extruded foam and WS risers.

The structures would need to be scratchbuilt - brick substation, timber waiting shed and phone booth - although you could use the C.C. Crow packing house kit instead. The bridge could be built using the Micro Engineering 50' deck girder kits. Or if you were after something more spectacular, you could use the beautiful Central Valley truss bridge kit. US style signals are available from a number of sources, and the overhead could be adapted from Sommerfeldt or Viessman components.

Operationally the layout would be simple to run. Opposing trains would cross here, and the packing house would be switched to place empty reefers and pick up loaded cars. The switching could be done by either a way freight that continues in the same direction it entered the layout in, or a turn - a freight that goes back the way it came once it's done it work.

Rolling stock for this layout would be a challenge. There are no easily obtained, ready-to-run US outline electric locos or interurban cars available in 2018. The closest thing to a suitable electric loco on the market is a GE boxcab in 1/80th scale made by a Japanese company called Tramway. Similar locos were used by the Piedmont Northern and the London & Port Stanley in Canada. Otherwise it's kitbuilding or finishing a 3D printed model.

The same goes for models of classic interurban cars. Your choices are old wooden kits from LaBelle or some more recent 3D prints. The LaBelle kits can be made up to look very good, but they not for the novice or the faint hearted. There are also some very old brass interurban cars and locos around, but they're scarce, expensive and need a lot of work to make them run well.

But if you were prepared to put in the work a layout like this would need, you'd have something very distinctive and different.

Cheers,

Mark.

 

Some sources for interurban models and structures. I have no connection with any of these suppliers other than as a satisfied customer.

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/interurban

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10386089

https://www.labellemodels.com/scale-traction-c-21_27.html?osCsid=pcr2ggv33gpmvh2k3q4abaah82

http://www.cccrow.com/pages/ash-pg.html

Cheers,

Mark.