Electric Nose has completed his upper level return loop. Now continous running is possible thanks to the dumbell layout.
The layout is an end-to-end design, but with return loops at either end any train left to it’s own devices will eventually end up back where it started if nothing is in it’s way. Once I obtain the required track-circuit modules, this upper level loop will effectively become a linear fiddle-yard, enabling through traffic to be more convincingly portrayed. But for the last couple of hours I’ve sat back with a glass of wine and just watched a couple of trains circling the loft, something I’ve not been able to do before. I was suprised to find that a train moving at a typical freight speed will take 20 minutes to return to it’s starting point in the fiddle-yard. Nice!
Last time I had space for a decent-sized layout (a 12′x8′ outbuilding at my parents’ place in Slough), I had a layout with a dumbell formation. It certainly gives the best operating potential compared with the more traditional end-to-end or train set oval formations; trains appear to go somewhere and come back, but without needing to be remarshalled first. Unlike an oval layout you don’t need two of everything to make up a realistic operating sequence.
The trouble with this formation is the twin return loops take up quite a bit of space, so it’s not such a viable option for a layout that’s got to fit in a spare room or along one wall of a room used for other purposes.
Too right those loops aren’t always viable options – in a whole lifetime of layout (half)building this is the first time I’ve managed to squeeze any in. Three cheers for the dead space in the water tank area! Eventually there will be another dumbell fiddle yard in this area, but realistically that’ll be years away…
I reckon a mixture would be best in some cases, return loops for most things and a set of long stub end tracks for reversing intercity workings where the train formation doesn’t reverse, just the train direction.
A couple of ’roundy’ tracks would let you do loads/empties with something like a coal train (Walsall isn’t that representative, with the same loaded and empty trains running through in both directions!)
Would depend where you were modelling I guess.