Boxcastle Bray

[Graeme Dunbar]

If you attempt to put kinks in the track it will probably need very careful laying and thorough testing before proceeding.

A couple of observations: kinked track in photographs of the real thing shows up most effectively in lengthwise shots with a lot of foreshortening and often taken with a telephoto lens. Achieving the same perspective in a model could be challenging and the temptation may be to exaggerate reality for it to show up. The mesmerizing videos of cane trains, peat trains and so waddling and swaying as they come into shot and pass the camera may take place over a quarter of a mile or more - perhaps 5 m in OO.

Another challenge will be to get the models to sway convincingly and not rock and lurch dementedly. If a loco does rock there is a chance it will lose wheel contact and power. I you do want kinks or undulations it might be an idea to make sure that the track is absolutely flat and any deviation is horizontal only. On micro layouts I have started gluing track straight onto material such as 3 mm MDF and even 009 Setrack onto 3 mm HIPS (vacuum forming polystyrene) sheet to make a sort of pre-ballasted track inspired by Iain Rice's floating track laying system.

Small models such as Quarry Hunslets can waddle without any prompting and it can be a matter of careful track laying and fettling to prevent wheels dipping, especially around points.

If it is purely a static visual effect you are after then I've achieved that inadvertently by laying a length of flexitrack that I'd been 'playing' with, bending it into various curves before straightening it out before putting it back in the mailing tube I store track in. When I laid it in what should have been a fairly straight run it wibbled and wobbled all over the place when I looked at it using the old mirror trick to check alignment at track joins.

[Hugh Norwood]

... and, of course, even small locos in the real world have springs that help compensate for rough track. I think of commercially available RTR chassis, only the new Kato chassis are compensated.

[B.Meldon]

If you use any N gauge track then the rail chairs will still be seen and they will be very obvioulsy too close together, that is unless you cover them. If you do cover the rail chairs then there will not be enough clearance for some of the wheel flanges used on 009 and N gauge locos and rolling stock.
So once again using Peco 009 track is the best option even if you intend to cover the sleepers.

Regarding kinks in the track these should be avoided.
To get good running at slow speeds 009 track has to be laid spot on with no kinks dips or steps. It is very common to get problems with kinks at rail joints. Pre-bending the rail is needed in many cases to avoid these kinks at joints.

One trick to make the rail used in Peco 009 track look a lot better is to paint the sides of the rails in a matt rust colour. I also paint the ballast matt rust as well. The eye off the observer then only sees the clean railhead and the actual oversize size of the rail is 'hidden'.
Railway modeling is all about comprimise, for me I would rather have 100% good running over exact railsize every time.

[Mike Oehlers]

Brian, Hugh and Graeme - all points well made, so thanks for the tips.

[Mike Oehlers]

(Real) work has got in the way recently, but I can now provide an update - layout will change name to Mogridge-Bray Quarry Railway. Here's the plan - 3m x 1.5m in dimensions, in Powerpoint - I will do a version using proper Peco points/track, so I see how it fits in reality. Still, I have nowhere to build/put it yet, so I am practising modelling skills and will post on that elsewhere and later this month. Comments - especially if you can see pitfalls/concerns.

[Graeme Dunbar]

That is very impressive work using PowerPoint!

If you of a mind to use a computer package to help you develop layout design ideas then it could be worth your time looking at some of the software available. It would take care of geometry issues. Two popular ones I've used offer free size-limited versions (not time-limited).

My choice is AnyRail. I find it more intuitive than other software but it may be the way I think and how it relates to other drawing software I've used. Another is SCARM. It is fairly easy to use too, but I found it a little frustrating in that I seemed to be led to drawing what it wanted rather than what I wanted. I've seen reports from people who rank them the other way round. SCARM offers more 'track sections' in the free version, but what can be done with each section is more limited. The 3D rendering is better it seems in SCARM but I find the user interface a bit old-fashioned and prefer the design tools in AnyRail. I ended up paying for an AnyRail licence as I felt it was worth it. SCARM is a bit less expensive but I'm not sure what their update policy is.

https://www.anyrail.com/

https://www.scarm.info/index.php

[Mike Oehlers]

Graeme thank you - I've looked at those two packages already - they don't support Mac OS, unfortunately, which is a shame as I liked the look of the Anyrail package. But thanks for the tips!

Powerpoint is quite good - but its hard to preconfigure set points/curves accurately; there is a tutorial by a German modeller who has used it to an even higher level - no several orders higher - but its trilingual (German, Italian and English) and many aspects are only quickly described:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGNMhc2ZfWI

Its from the BBM 1930 Youtube site:- https://www.youtube.com/@BBM1930s/videos

I'm looking at the XtrkCAD (which you recommended originally) offering at the moment, which is free and Mac OS-supported. The manual for it is the same length as my image processing software!