Now I’ve taken delivery of another shipment of Kato Unitrack, all the track in the main line fiddle yard is down. It it’s current incarnation there are six roads using Kato #6 points and some 282mm radius curves to keep the track spacing tight. The tracks are in excess of ten feet in length, meaning there’s space for two trains in each road at least when running in British-outline mode.
Experience will tell if this formation will work; it’s accepable for a parade-of-trains approach but won’t allow realistic timetabled operation because it lacks the ability to reverse trains. I’ve drawn up an alternative scheme with eight roads and trailing crossovers at each end which will allow end-to-end style operation as well. That may end up reducing capacity slightly because all the additional pointwork at each end will take up more space, but will gain a lot in operational flexibility.
The three locomotives are again CJM models acquired during the 1990s, repainted and detailed Farish shells on CJM Saturn chassis. The trains are three iconic (for me at any rate) late-80s Cornish trains, the “Night Riviera”, the West of England TPO and the afternoon St.Blazey to Gloucester Speedlink.
