Fiddle Yards

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Penrhos1920
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Fiddle Yards

Postby Penrhos1920 » Thu Apr 01, 2010 5:41 pm

Serious thread now having hijacked Rod's Balcombe thread this morning.

Originally the Awrhyllgwami team started with 4' long cassettes, but they were too short for some trains. So we then tried longer cassettes, but they are too awkward to turn and resulted in at least one train that fell to the floor :cry: The conclusion is that anything over 4' can't be turned easily by one person and is a risky business. Spital uses wooden cassettes which are about 6' long and require two people to turn, but they also have well over 6' space in the middle of the layout. Awrhyllgwami usually only has a couple of foot behind the layout and 2' of layout width to play with.

We have also 'experimented' with different aluminium sections, 12 x 12 and 25 x 25 were the first two tried. Rob had built some cassettes with 25mm aluminium angle for his own layout, but that is a single track branch line. Awrhyllgwami is double track and we soon realised that 25mm would not work without a hugely unrealistic gap between the running lines. 12mm angle almost works, the track spacing has been increased by about 3mm as they come off board into the fiddle yard, PLUS we have to be careful not to get shorts between the cassettes.

However, sometimes stock comes off in the cassette (it's easy to bump it and off come the lightest vehicles) and will not re-rail by itself, even with the right bits between the tracks to drag wheels back into line. 12 x 12 is too tight for even small fingers to gain access to the offending wheels, bigger would be better but see above. So what we now have is a short section which can be put between the train cassette and end connector to re-rail errant stock as is slowly driven through. This has its side filed down so you can get your finger onto the axleboxes.

End stops, you'll probably find that any sponged pad with a scourer section will work. However, the Awrhyllgwami crew did have to call in at a certain discount shop with underground car-park near the Scaleforum venue when we discovered that we didn't have any when we set the layout up for the first time at the DEMU challenge. A warning. They are not infallible and many a powerful loco can propel itself through them and head ground-ward, as we nearly found out.

I'm really taken by the upside down fiddle yard concept of one of the layouts at Houten that is appears perfect for end fiddle yards or even to return stock to the other end of the layout. Yes, honestly trains appear to fall off the end of the layout, they don't crash to the floor, but line up orderly under the layout, UPSIDE DOWN. :o :shock: Can anyone tell me how this works? Or was the Jim Summers photo another spoof that I fell for?

A poor fiddle yard can cripple an otherwise excellent layout. On the other hand a good fiddle yard goes unnoticed and makes a layout a pleasure to operate and view.

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Tim V
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Tim V » Thu Apr 01, 2010 5:47 pm

It is unfortunate that the one part of the layout on which everything else depends, has so little thought and effort put into it. The pretty bits have lots of effort expended on them, the poor staging roads have very little.

I personally think that cassettes are a liability, but then it's easy for me to say that! Some of my trains are 9' long.

Why does the whole train have to be turned?
Tim V
(Not all railways in Somerset went to Dorset)

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Penrhos1920
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Penrhos1920 » Thu Apr 01, 2010 5:59 pm

Tim V wrote:
Why does the whole train have to be turned?


Class 37s don't usually propel trains and scale screw couplings under gangways are so difficult to couple up.

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Tim V
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Tim V » Thu Apr 01, 2010 6:44 pm

I could say something about the couplings, but I won't......
Tim V
(Not all railways in Somerset went to Dorset)

Brinkly
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Brinkly » Thu Apr 01, 2010 10:26 pm

Tim V wrote:I could say something about the couplings, but I won't......


:D I can now just about manage to uncouple screw and 3-link couplings, but they look really good, but I do like to see hands-free operation in the form of AJs, for me St. Merryn and Bodmin sealed the deal so to speak.

Regards,

Nick

Terry Bendall
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Terry Bendall » Sat Apr 03, 2010 7:35 am

I suspect there are probably as many ideas for fiddle yards as there are layouts in existance. On the Mid-Sussex group's first layout - West Chiltington, which no longer exists we used a 4ft turntable with four tracks and this worked quite well with short trains. I have sometimes watched with some concern when I have seen people turn a four foot long cassette.

On Pulborough, Staverton and Ravenscroft sidings traversers have been used with loco cassetts. The train comes in, the loco is uncoupled and run into the cassette, moved to the other end of the traverser and run onto the traverser road and recoupled. A local controller is used to move the loco. The only handling needed is if a brake van needs to be moved. No handing of locos at all. This is with three link or scale screw couplings. You need to be slick and the fiddle yard needs its own operator but it does work. On Pulborough the traverser is 7 feet long and runs on aluminium V pulley wheels. The ones on Staverton are 9 feet long and use the same system. At one end there is one 8 road traverser and at the other end there are two 6 road ones serving different entrabces to the fiddle yard. On Ravenscroft the moving section is 5 ft long and we have used filing cabinet drawer runners on their sides. Loco casettes are 15mm aluminium angle screed to a plywood base.

If anyone wants more details contact me off list using the address on the blue sheet.

Terry Bendall

Tim Horn
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Tim Horn » Sat Apr 03, 2010 10:52 am

Myself, Jim Smith-Wright, Phil Eames and Simon Stevens have been working on my "storage yard" for a few years now. I took the decision that the fiddle yard was going to be at least as important as the layout out the front, if not more. The idea being to use the storage yard for at least 3 different layouts, thus reducing the cost to our small group, and also getting something built as an incentive for my layout which is still under the planning stage :)

At 52 foot by 9 foot, its designed to house full length coaching stock and freight stock for the 3 diesel and electric layouts being built. With testing due next year its gonna be nice to see it all up and working!

Image

Cheers
Tim

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Tim V
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Tim V » Sat Apr 03, 2010 11:56 am

That's an impressive set of staging roads.

I am reluctant to call such areas "fiddle yards", there is very little fiddling. I wouldn't like to reach the middle of that yard to remove/put in stock. Such yards depend on the trains all running in and out without being changed.

Staging roads on Clutton, picture taken at York.
fiddle yard 1.jpg


A mere nine roads.
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Tim V
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Brinkly
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Brinkly » Sun May 23, 2010 1:43 pm

Do you find Tim that 9 roads are enough for you Tim?

Regards,

Nick.

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Tim V
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Tim V » Sun May 23, 2010 6:00 pm

Yes.

With DCC, some of the roads have three trains in them. So the capacity of the yard is OK. Any new trains would be for spare.

Middlesbrough exhibition now over, no failures.
Tim V
(Not all railways in Somerset went to Dorset)

martin goodall
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby martin goodall » Sun May 23, 2010 9:32 pm

Another thread I seem to have missed previously.

On my own (home) layout I use the same cassettes as other members of the EMGS North-West Somerset Area Group. Mine consist of 20mm x 20mm L-section aluminium screwed to 6mm MDF. They are very convenient, and small bulldog clips are used both to align the cassettes and transfer electrical current, which does away with bolts, spring contacts and other contrivances.

However, I definitely would not use cassettes if trains had to be turned end-for-end. This really is asking for trouble. If you do need to turn trains in the fiddle yard, then a 'Denny' style turntable is probably the answer.

I would also suggest that if you have a large number of trains to handle, even if you don't need to turn them, cassettes then become cumbersome and inconvenient, and in those circumstances fixed sidings of the type previously illustrated on this thread are probably the only practicable answer.

Tim Horn
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Tim Horn » Thu May 27, 2010 4:14 pm

I've managed to squeeze in 32 B7's (based on Jim S-W's track plan) in 10 foot. These two boards will sit in the centre of the storage yard, with 21 foot either side. This goes some way to ensure that we can have 4 x nine roads available to run full length freight and passenger stock on our 3 respective layouts. I think it looks quite nice, which was part of the planning too :)

Image

Cheers
Tim

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Penrhos1920
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Penrhos1920 » Thu May 27, 2010 6:12 pm

I prefer to arrange my turnouts differently in the fiddle yard throat (only one side is shown) :

fiddle yard entrance.JPG


There is also a trailing cross over so that trains can be reversed from some tracks, this then results in a double slip.
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Mike Garwood
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Mike Garwood » Fri May 28, 2010 6:01 pm

Jim

Some of your point work appears to be split along the joints of the baseboards...any chance of a piccy to see how you did this. I've always had fear and trepidation over point work running on a split, but with a big layout planned all help and advice is useful.

regards

Mike

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grovenor-2685
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby grovenor-2685 » Fri May 28, 2010 6:11 pm

So long as you keep the joint in the closure rails between the switches and the crossing its really no different from any other two tracks crossing a board joint. I've seen it done quite a few times although I don't have any examples on my layout.
Keith
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Keith
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Alan Turner
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Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby Alan Turner » Fri May 28, 2010 9:06 pm

That's not joints - it's the TEMPLOT grid. Looks like it's set at 1ft.

Alan

ClikC

Re: Fiddle Yards

Postby ClikC » Fri May 28, 2010 10:12 pm

Mike Garwood wrote:Jim

Some of your point work appears to be split along the joints of the baseboards...any chance of a piccy to see how you did this. I've always had fear and trepidation over point work running on a split, but with a big layout planned all help and advice is useful.

regards

Mike


Mike, I asked the same question over on RMweb (for similar reasons too), and both Jim and Tim responded.

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/2486-p4-new-street/page__view__findpost__p__143841

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/2486-p4-new-street/page__view__findpost__p__143876

Regards

Matt


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