Achievable Layout Plan 2 - Lalla North East Line

 I often drive past Lalla with my family or out on the road for work. It was not until I saw it listed in the 1957 working timetable (more on this documented at the wealth of information it provides later) that I realized is was a stop on the north east line and began to do some research.

From google street view there is little evidence of the sidings and spurs that once was. I had always found though the building immediately adjacent the crossing was possibly rail served at one stage. 

 

Digging through Libraries Tasmania led me to this document North East Line - Stations and Yards - Final ink drawings. The Final ink drawings appear to have been produced for most lines and are available though the archive search. It appears to be from the 1930's and contains all station siding and yard details of the line an includes survey notes.

Lalla appears on image 16 and 17 and consisted of a simple run around and 2 spurs on the southern end end. Approximately 600 ft long from road crossing to the curved point Lalla could make a simple shelf layout in the corner of a spare room with staging either end or a continuous loop. The plan below in OO 4mm scale is made up of  2 x 600 x 1500mm and a 400 x 1200 module but it could suitably be compressed as desired.

The concrete apple packing shed was owned by Frank Walker built in 1922. The below photo was taken during construction from the north east corner. Rail side loading doors are on the opposite side of the structure.

A much later image 1991 image by Margaret Tassell is taken from the rail side of the structure how ever tracks long since removed. 

 

Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery - QVM:1997:P:2605

The Final Ink Drawing referenced above shows a small station shelter 13'1" x  8'9" located on an 140ft platform. How ever the image below shows a much shorter platform.

Libraries Tasmania Archive https://stors.tas.gov.au/PH30-1-9192

Its not clear from the limited information I have uncovered to date if other produce and freight was loaded onto wagons at Lalla. The short spur at the road crossing may have had limited access for loading.

If your after a small layout with only 4 points and 2 structures to model this would make a good candidate fitting into a corner. It may even be suitable for compression into an old style  4' x 8' layout with a diagonal view break.

Achievable Layout Plan 1 - Tonganah (Forester) North East Line

In hunting for a simple layout design with some points of interest I came across Tonganah originally known as Forester.

While this wont become much more than I concept I thought I would document my plans on the compression of the station and Yard to an achievable layout.

From point to point the arrangement measures roughly 700' with a run around and single spur used for timber loading area.  A big point of interest is the Forester River crossing. The track layout and river crossing is shown in the below plan.

https://stors.tas.gov.au/P1330-1-4841

The original plan shows a 20' x 30' goods shed with a large loading area while the track survey notes later show a timber loading platform in its location. There is also mention of two proposed mill sites on the original plan.

The station building was a simple 3 room skillion weatherboard structure with waiting room, ladies and booking office. Original plans are archived at Libraries Tasmanian and reproduced below.  

https://stors.tas.gov.au/P1330-1-4525

Modeling this section of the North East Line would require 5.4m for the simple arrangement and river crossing. The siding at this location appears to be on the longer side when compared with some others on the North East Line. I decided to try and compress the layout to 3.6m or 3 x 1.2m modules.
This requires a large amount of compression and modelers license but the overall feel of the location can be achieved.

The below plan uses no6 points. Simple traversing units or a loop could be used to add operation for through traffic and simple switching.

Consulting a TGR timetable for your era would quickly determine the number of staging tracks require to represent 1 day for operating sessions.

Tonganah could make a good first layout in modular form to test the water for modeling TGR prototype and also allow expansion in either direction to model Scottsdale or Ledgerwood or any number of the small localities between the two.