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| ST. MEWAN - TRENARREN BRANCH PLATFORM Recently on the RMWeb forum a discussion arose about modelling SLT's or single line terminii. That is; where the passenger station is a single track. No run round loop or passing siding or whatever you call it. A single track. Nothing else. They are pretty much a product of the modern age where modernisation and rationalisation has lead to passenger services being operated by railcars and DMU's.You would probably think that such a station could be quite boring to model. Nothing could be further from the truth. Pictures began appearing of SLT's in all kinds of locations and situations and all over the world at that. The SLT is worldwide. Operationally they may well be limited with just a railcar shuttling back and forth wit the occasional engineers train visiting. But for someone space starved who likes railcars and prefers to model scenery there are things to be said for them. |
The Inspiration Box - Some sites to pique your interest about SLT's Liskeard - Photographs of Liskeard station and if you follow the links you can follow the Looe Branch all the way to its end. Some good ideas here Disused Railway Stations - Not strictly devoted to SLT's but may stations before they became disused were SLT's. Its still a good (if somewhat sad) site The Railway Station Gallery - More pictures of British Railway stations than you'll know what to do with. Some SLT"S in there as well. |
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| When
I read the discussion on RMweb, one of the first situations I
remembered was Liskeard's Looe branch platform. Where the branch
platform is actually at right angles to the main line. I'd seen
an article in the British magazine, Railway Modeller more years
ago than I care to recall and the situation always stayed with
me. The layout plan was a big room sized affair that didn't appeal
to me but the branch platform arrangement nestled itself in my
brain for 20 odd years waiting for the right moment... As we have established. Operationally the SLT can leave something to be desired, so with my mind running at 100 mph I decided more was needed than the SLT itself to lift the concept. Railway stations need goods yards perhaps the goods yard could be alongside the SLT platform. This is Cornwall perhaps the yard could be a China Clay transfer point. What does it matter? Its a reason for more operation. Within minutes I sketched the above arrangement, an SLT with an Inglenook goods yard alongside. I even considered that the principal viewpoint was to be looking down the platform rather than the more usual across the platform. Just to make things different. |
"Not a bad idea" I remember thinking to myself. "But its not a true SLT is it" This trivial point really bugged me. How to get back to the SLT without loosing the extra operational promise. So the way I would go about it is to build the SLT on one baseboard and then when you've got bored with shuttling the railcar in and out of the platform build the yard baseboard. Clever location of the off baseboard fiddle yard and careful arrangement of the tracks should make this quite possible. | ||
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