009 Society Members Forum

This isn't particularly a OO9 question but I definitely want to ask the OO9 community.

I'm gradually (glacially) planning a fictional 'tea railway' somewhere in India.  (I'm no longer planning to model the Eritrean railway which I mentioned here (http://www.009society.com/forum/index.php?topic=1157.0 (http://www.009society.com/forum/index.php?topic=1157.0)).

The railway will convey goods (tea) down from a hill station to a port and passengers in both directions.  I will enjoy the luxury of a fairly good sized attic with fairly decent space for a terminus at both ends of a point to point layout.

Here is a rough plan for the upper terminus:


Anyway, my question is - will this configuration work?  The goal is to have four sidings for loading tea into goods vans (at annotation '11') from sheds and a separate passenger station ('10') with a headshunt (is that the right word?) and a passing loop.  I worked out that I'll need a passing loop for the goods yard so the arriving locos don't get stranded.  ['13' marks the location for the tea factory and '12' marks the location for a hotel.]

How can this be improved?

Well some 'tea estates' were connected to the DHR with aerial ropeways. There's one thought to ponder over a cup of tea.

Roger

Shame about the Eritrean plans (though I admit a lot of scratch building would have been involved) but perhaps that's something to re-visit in the future?

Anyhow on to the Indian hills.  The plan looks OK, but there are a couple of things to mention.  I suspect that the railway would not just carry tea as exported goods, and that there would also be goods coming in.  With this in mind it might be worth having a pair of sidings for tea, with their own warehouse that could have some form of cableway coming into it from the plantations as per Roger's post (these could all be in a fenced compound) and the other sidings for general goods (with a goods shed).  You also seem to be missing any loco servicing facilities - loco shed, coal stage and water tank would be the minimum and some of the longer runs into the hills would have bigger facilities as it could take a day to get from the bottom to the top so locos (and train crew) would sleep overnight before taking their charges back down.

There are a couple of Indian experts on the forum so if you added "Indian" to your "Hill Terminus" thread title (should be able to if you edit your first post) you might draw them in to get some first hand prototype info.

Thanks for both responses! 

Aerial tramways sound very tricky - I love a challenge...  I've visited one tea plantation (but it was in Sri Lanka) and quite a lot of value-added processing happened in their factory on-site.  So now I envision the cableway terminating on one side of the factory and tea being shipped out of the other. 

And I love the idea of accommodating incoming goods.

I had imagined that loco servicing would only need to be catered for a the other end of the line.  I'm delighted to be corrected.

So in interim conclusion I am sure I will very soon stop boasting about having lots of space.

I do hope more people including the 'Indian Experts' chip in.

As for the Eritrean railway, we have a notion that we might move house in five years.  At which point this railway should be about 25% finished....  That might or might not be the time to switch continents.

Quote from: Tom Haythornthwaite on October 08, 2013, 16:54
...As for the Eritrean railway, we have a notion that we might move house in five years.  At which point this railway should be about 25% finished....  That might or might not be the time to switch continents.

My own model railway survived 3 house moves by being built modular, stage by stage, and holding on to the theme. I have been attracted by various other themes over the years, but decided not to give in. I know there are members who managed to build several successful medium size layouts over the years, but they are a minority.

An Indian hill railway is an interesting theme (there are about 6 to choose from) and the need for scratchbuilding will be slightly less than for the Eritrean theme. I'm not sure where your main interest lies, but I'd say make a choice now and go for it.