When I first planned Addleford Green I didn't really plan for a fiddle yard or any kind of out-of-view area. "I'll just figure that out later," I said to myself. I realise now how foolish that was. In future projects I would definitely consider the fiddle yard an essential part of the plan. Not being able to reliably have a train remove itself from the immediate viewing area really limits operational potential.

A while ago I started looking at options for my fiddle yard. I had planned a very small off scene area which would be bordered by backscene panels (shown in red below) but this area is really only about 12 inches long maximum. As my vision for this layout became clearer I started making a list of what I really wanted vs. what was realistic to achieve. My layout resides in a garden shed, albeit a reasonably large one. I'm always aware of the fact that it may need moving and am wary of adding more permanent length to the board. Plus I have little space to actually store and operate even a small layout. My better half claims that some of the shed is hers too, apparently...

I know that Addleford Green will only run small locos and small lengths of wagons/carriages; this is the kind of compromise you make peace with early on with such a small layout! The biggest train would be an H class and two pull-push carriages, measuring a total of 26 inches. That means that my tiny off-scene area is already 14 inches too small!

Initially I tried a single track hinged panel which would hang off the end of the board when extended. This actually worked really well and supported itself better than I thought but ultimately I wasn't satisfied. I wanted removable cassettes on which I could store my assembled trains, simply swapping them when needed. That meant more of a permanent extension.

I cut a piece of the board away so that cassettes could be slotted in and would match the current height of the rails. I tested the idea of using aluminium angle as runners to guide the cassettes.

Initially, I prepared a kind of "interface" piece, which was a combination of track and aluminium angle. The idea was the cassette could be slid up to this point and I didn't have to worry too much about alignment. In the end, this was too fiddly and ultimately wasn't necessary; the aluminium angle guide rails would actually provide enough accuracy if laid properly.

The cassettes themselves were assembled from a strip of plywood and two aluminium angles were screwed to each. The correct gauge was achieved by using a straight Tracksetta tool from Peco. The whole aluminium angle would have power fed through it and the wheels of the loco and wagons would sit quite nicely on the angle edges just like track. I've seen this idea used before so it's far from revolutionary or original on my part!

Some more angle was used to create runners of the correct length. This inevitably extended beyond the board, but was light and strong enough to not really require extra support. Getting these in exactly the right place using the cassettes themselves was vital to achieve the correct alignment. Testing and more testing before securing!

It worked! With some crocodile clips clamped either side, power applied to the loco made it move and also traverse the join. It's not particularly neat but it serves my purposes. Now I can make more cassettes as required.

I had planned to make some sort of interface which would apply power automatically when the cassette was inserted. However the space available for any kind of extra contacts or wiring was very limited. I tried a few things but sadly nothing really worked. It doesn't look too crowded here, but take a look at the blog posts before this and you'll see the backscene and scenic elements of the layout really give me very little space.

I'm convinced it's possible so I'll keep thinking. If I stumble upon a clever idea, I'll be sure to share!

All for now,

Jonathan