Fiddle yard/sidings or cartridges?

[tigerburnie]

I am in the planning stages of building a layout that will be most likely be end to end(restriction of space dictates), what I would be interested in is folks experiences on using cartridge type sidings. Here are my thoughts:-

Twin track layout feeding onto twin track removable cartridge around two metres long, the idea being that there would be one train made up on each end, to run a train in each direction, once completed, you remove the cartridge, rotate through 180 degrees and it could then run the same trains back again, or replaced with a further cartridge, so as not to be running the same trains up and down. I guess the question is would two metres be too unwieldy, how easy would it be to turn through 180 without derailing the assembled trains? A turntable would be ideal, but no room in the old summer house, I could make a single turntable away from the running layout to assist rotating the cartridges thinking about it, has anyone done this sort of thing?

The reason for the long cartridges is to accommodate a train of loco tender and 4 coaches to try and make a decent ish length of train and equivalent length freight train.

If this sounds impractical, then traditional sidings of the same length can be used, but it's the turning round of the trains will mean a lot of man handling of stock, which I would like to avoid.

[peach james]

A 2m cassette is going to be very hard to deal with.  If it was me, I would go with 2, 1m cassettes instead.  They are going to be much easier to switch ends with, and overall just a better deal and less likely to end with a splat.

 

The other option would be to measure out what your stock length will be, and make a cassette to take the stock, with one to take the loco.  This may make the whole thing a bit shorter, and reduce the handling of locos & stock.

 

James

[woodenhead]

Two metres sounds big - I had some that were four foot long and it was very difficult turning that with one train on.

 

Think, it's not only keeping it flat it is also any obstacles that might need to be cleared.

 

You'd be better off considering a sector plate or a revolving turntable type fiddlyard

[Geep7]

I presume if you are thinking 2m cassettes for a loco and 4 coaches, this is for O gauge.

 

In 4mm I have a cassette fiddle yard, and the maximum length cassette I have is just under 4 foot. These are for multiple units, coaching stock or wagons, the locomotives have 1 foot cassettes of their own.

 

At 4 foot, and although this is only in 4mm scale, the cassettes are rather unwieldy, and are only moved from the deck to the storage shelves. They never get turned.

[Regularity]

The original cassette fiddle yard, or at least the earliest published example, had separate cassettes for locos. For trains arriving in the fiddle yard, these were at the far end. Locos were detached from the train, both via uncoupling (3 link, or whatever) and decoupling (the cassettes). The loco could then be turned, and the cassette it was on was either moved into storage to be replaced with another, or put back on the train. The train itself might be re-used, or more likely put onto the storage rack.

At no time were trains “turned”, just locos. Brakevans on goods trains were manually moved to the other end of their trains, but this was the only manual handling of stock, except for maybe making up a new goods train.

The original design by Chris Pendleton was an extremely well thought out system and executed with what is approaching engineering beauty. Very few modellers have though about the system design, and have bits of the concept without thinking it through - not wishing to be rude, but it isn’t as simple as just having long cassettes.

I have seen operators turning 2m long whole-train cassettes at an exhibition. It is not an easy task, and is undertaken with the all the nervous trepidation that leads eventually to a horrible accident. You might consider have two 1m long cassettes joined together, though.

 

Besides, on may railways passenger train formations for specific services were organised with particular vehicles in certain spaces: turning the whole train removes this part of operational authenticity.

Edited March 18, 2019 by Regularity

[tigerburnie]

Thanks guys, the layout is to be in OO and the 2 metres was going to contain either one mainline express or two shorter local stopping trains, there would be storage facilities for additional ones. I am trying to plan ahead by tossing out ideas before starting the actual build of said storage areas. I wanted to minimize loco handling as much as possible, but I am maybe being over ambitious with the length of the trains, maybe a loco and 4 coaches will be the maximum to reduce the overall length , I could then revert to sidings with a run round and even a turntable to add to the running of the layout I guess, just getting away from the concept of running a prototypical railway.

[Harlequin]

You could just turn the locos for your mainline expresses (or any train, obvs.) using "loco lifts".

 

They might be a good solution because they are cheap and simple, they protect your locos from handling, your fiddle yard can use simple fixed full length storage roads, you don't waste valuable space with run round points and you don't need the complexity of a turntable.

 

Edited March 18, 2019 by Harlequin

[phixer64]

Hi, not trying to add fuel to the fire, as they say, have you thought about a small traverser?

Th pic below, is the one, I built, size was determined by a class 37, and 3 coaches, as I'm building a Scottish branch..
 

 

Regards Jeff 

[Junctionmad]

Take a 2m length of wood , try keeping it level while rotating it through 180. Now imagine it’s filled with 300-400 quids worth of stock 

 

next ..... 

[tigerburnie]

As I said when I christened the home for this project(The Old Summer House), I'm good at talking tosh lol. At least with layout I'll get all the hair brained ideas out my head before I start knocking nails into wood, unlike the last one...…………………….

[tigerburnie]

This is the planned track plan, so my thoughts are that whilst short local pick up trains will arrive from either directions, deposit and or collect a variety of wagons and disappear, the occasional main line train would pass through(I am even contemplating re-opening the station to passenger traffic). So made up trains are actually not that many, so a passenger train could pass in one direction and return pulled by a different loco in the opposite direction, repeat with a coal train and a mixed freight train. So I guess I'm answering my own question here, no need for rotating sidings, thanks for bearing with me here, but if you don't ask and all that.

[Harlequin]

Hi tigerburnie,

 

If you're not using traversers or large format sector plates in the fiddle yards then you need some crossovers so that trains that enter on the southbound line can leave on the northbound and vice versa. This might affect the usable lengths of your fiddle yards.

 

So it's really important to know exactly what will fit in the space available by drawing your plan to scale using accurate templates for the parts that you intend to use!

 

[DLT]

Just to throw another pebble in the pool, I feel that a through station with fiddle yard at each end is not very desirable from an operational point of view.  Apart from the pickup goods, most trains will just run through and and have to be turned/remarshalled each time in the fiddle yards.  So you could end up with the situation where most of your "operation" take place offstage in the yards, rather than on the scenic section.  With a "U" shape as you have sketched it, can you link the two ends and make a continuous run?  Then you only need one set of sidings, and (if this is what is planned) you can sit back and watch the trains go by, rather than having to "fiddle" after each movement.

 

Just a thought!

Cheers, Dave.

Edited March 18, 2019 by DLT

[DLT]

If you really want to go for the FY-Station-FY arrangement, the best solution is a turntable at each end.  With say, a four road turntable, you start with four trains each end pointing inwards.  Each trains then passes through the layout in turn, and you end up with four trains each end pointing outwards.  Turn the tables and start again.

An very good example of this arrangement is the excellent Treneglos layout:  https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/28781-treneglos-the-ace-on-the-north-cornwall-railway/&tab=comments#comment-302765   This was a single-track route, with a passing station, and was designed specifically as an exhibition layout.  I'm not sure how satisfying it would be as a home layout.

 

Cheers, Dave.

Edited March 18, 2019 by DLT

[south_tyne]

Very personally, I find cassettes unwieldy at the best of times, never mind ones that are 2m long. I also think they are ripe for accidents.... It just seems to be asking for a disaster! Other folk love them though, so definitely a case of 'horses for courses'

[tigerburnie]

Thanks for some excellent ideas all, the area available could support a run around circuit(possibly with a bridge or lift out section), but that means curves, which means shorter sidings was my initial thoughts. The idea of working to a proper scale drawing should have been obvious to a retired engineer who did nearly 2 years in a drawing office as part of his apprenticeship, but I never gave it a thought. So back to the drawing board, literally lol.

[Nick Holliday]

1 hour ago, tigerburnie said:

Thanks for some excellent ideas all, the area available could support a run around circuit(possibly with a bridge or lift out section), but that means curves, which means shorter sidings was my initial thoughts. The idea of working to a proper scale drawing should have been obvious to a retired engineer who did nearly 2 years in a drawing office as part of his apprenticeship, but I never gave it a thought. So back to the drawing board, literally lol.

If I were you I'd go with the full circuit idea, although your comment regarding a bridge or lift out section throws a spanner in the works.  If you follow the cassette idea, then there is less need for pointwork within the fiddle yard area, so the space available might be longer than the visible area of the station, so plenty of room to accommodate your super-train.  I would suggest you could have a continuous run for both tracks, with points off to a central cassette yard which could serve both directions, whilst leaving the outer tracks free for circulating trains, to keep things moving. I have exhibited an end to end layout, single track with cassettes at both ends, and, as has been said, you spend more time dealing with the yard than you can with the station area.  I would think that this might be worse on a double track layout, as at least on a single track line you should really allow plenty of time between trains to allow for the block sections to be cleared.

As for length of cassettes, I would agree that 3 feet or a metre (depends on how long your track lengths come in) is a reasonable maximum, and separate loco sections is the way to go.  It is possible to go a little longer, if you are trying to accommodate a particular rake, such as a Brighton Belle unit, but then you need to take even more care if turning the whole cassette - probably best just to lift and move sideways only. I suspect that anything longer is likely to involve a degree of baseboard design; a 2m long cassette, if made as per shorter designs, would probably be a bit bendy, the last thing you want if trying to turn and balance everything at the same time.

Slightly off-topic, but your goods yard is likely to be challenging to shunt, without some sort of facility to run round the trains.  The two sidings to the left can only be served by trains travelling anti-clockwise, (South to North) whilst your Inglenook on the right can only be dealt with by clockwise trains (North to South), unless you have some cunning scheme for moving wagons around the yard without using the train's loco. Not entirely unknown in the real thing, but it does mean that traffic flows are a bit lop-sided, as you can't return empty wagons directly to whence they came.

[tigerburnie]

Thanks for your comments Nick, the track plan is actually as per the prototype, which has had me scratching my head a bit(there were two other sidings on the "up line" side behind the station, but these were removed, just not yet certain on the date). I have been given a lot of detailed information on the type of goods going in and out of the yard, which helps both with rolling stock, but also how the yard may have functioned. I will attempt to mod the diagram to explain.

 

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by tigerburnie

[DLT]

With a continuous run, I think one big traverser for the storage sidings is the best bet, it does away the need for pointwork and consequently saves a huge amount of length.

I can't see how or why you would want cassettes on a continuous run.  

I use cassettes for my terminus to fiddle yard layouts, and I chose the system mainly on grounds of length.  So the FY is no longer than the longest train, and I could re-marshal without handling.  A fan of pointwork for sidings takes up a lot of length, which in layout terms is wasted space. 

The cassette system was developed for Chris Pendleton's North Shields layout due to a certain need; there are six tracks going offstage, on three levels.  See this photo:  https://www.penbits.co.uk/Images/Gallery/IMG_1403_w1000.jpg

And no other system would have allowed this.

Cheers, Dave.

[Harlequin]

I agree that a continuous run is a good idea.

 

It is possible to arrange points fans on the curves to maximise the lengths of storage roads in a fixed fiddle yard. Conversely, it's most common for a traverser to have straight parallel tracks and that means that corner curves have to have straightened out before they meet the traverser, thus limiting it's size. I know that the traverser roads could incorporate curves and the entry tracks can meet them at an angle but that is much more difficult to engineer reliably.

 

If the continuous run tracks run through the traverser then it's difficult to use it for fiddling while a train is running around the circuit. You either have to stop fiddling and re-align the traverser when a train approaches or stop the circulating trains while you use the traverser.

 

One more thing: When a traverser is pushed right back against the wall of the railway room (or summer house) the feed tracks need to connect to the traverser roads furthest from the wall and that can in turn shorten other track runs in the layout.

Edited March 20, 2019 by Harlequin

[tigerburnie]

Many minds make light work of solving a conundrum, thanks guys, need to start work on clearing the TOSH first, then I will no doubt have some daft questions about the best ways to construct the bases.

[Chimer]

On 19/03/2019 at 22:33, DLT said:

 

I can't see how or why you would want cassettes on a continuous run.  

 

 

Well, to swap out rakes of stock, if you've got more than you've got space for on the layout at the same time.  Just needs one fiddle yard loop to incorporate a cassette landing space ……...