Modular "fiddle yards" - your opinions

[cromptonnut]

Simple question really.

 

Should fiddle yards be considered "off scene storage" and left plain, or should there be an attempt to scenic them?

 

Looking at how others have done it, some are plain, some attempt to look like a large (if perhaps unrealistic at times) yard.

 

What's your opinion?  Does it matter?  Would 8ft (or whatever) of "non scenic module" as a designated fiddle yard look odd or not?

 

From my point of view, the need to get in as much track as possible to maximise the amount of storage overrides the desire for realistic trackwork formations and using tighter points than you might normally use on the main line (in the past I've used Setrack points but realise that will not necessarily work on modules).  Hence any attempt to "scenic it" would be in vain as it would still look prototypically wrong.

 

I suppose if there is room one could attempt to build a depot/carriage shed ... but that's a different thing altogether.

 

 

[Glorious NSE]

From a layout designers perspective, flexibility is a great thing - if something can be used as staging, or fiddle, or a "live" working yard that's the ideal scenario in my book...if you do ever go down some kind of route of trying to "do operations" then a yard to originate and connect between your freight trains does become important, at least to my mind.

 

That said - having something that's *just* staging/fiddle isn't "wrong"..

 

I know it's bigger than what you've envisaged, but something like?

 

 

(Edit - thought after drawing, if anyone does build something similar then arranging it as 4x 3' boards may make it easier to transport)

[cromptonnut]

An interesting take on the question - and one I hadn't really thought about.  I quite like that "offset" idea.

 

I suppose there is the question of what "operations" may mean.  Obviously to American based modules, freight is a large part of the railway scene whereas over here it's much more balanced and on some lines there's no freight at all and just the occasional "non passenger" working of ECS or maintenance trains.

 

I'll go and have a play with XTrackCAD... the depot type design might just be a good compromise and I like the idea of it being double ended as that will definitely give more possibilities.  I guess the key thing is if it's scenic you need to remove the need for 'the great hand from the sky'.

[Glorious NSE]

An interesting take on the question - and one I hadn't really thought about.  I quite like that "offset" idea.

 

I suppose there is the question of what "operations" may mean.  Obviously to American based modules, freight is a large part of the railway scene whereas over here it's much more balanced and on some lines there's no freight at all and just the occasional "non passenger" working of ECS or maintenance trains.

 

I'll go and have a play with XTrackCAD... the depot type design might just be a good compromise and I like the idea of it being double ended as that will definitely give more possibilities.  I guess the key thing is if it's scenic you need to remove the need for 'the great hand from the sky'.

 

Not sure anyone in our little genre has used this particular approach yet, (not sure anyone has needed to) - but some of the American users have used it when building a yard (and in one case an intermodal terminal!) on one side of the main line and I always thought it was a useful idea. Much prettier than arbitrary S bends on the main line to acheive the same thing anyhow!

 

I think something like that could be very flexible, as a staging/fiddle yard it's got a capacity up to 8 trains depending on how you work it, which isn't bad for starters, and whilst for "live" use my minds eye see that as a freight yard, it could also be used I guess as carriage sidings (or MU stabling) to support a terminus, or as engineers sidings, just decide it's role when you plan the layout for the day... 

 

To my mind that's the key also, I wouldn't worry about "great hand from the sky" if it's being a fiddle yard. The important thing would be that folk know it's a fiddle yard on that day so they are free to "use the 0-5-0 shunter" - whereas the next time if it's in the middle of the layout working as carriage sidings (say) then hand shunting is maybe more frowned upon.

[cromptonnut]

That definitely has shades of Liverpool Street's "Jazz System" about it...

[Kenton]

 

What's your opinion?  Does it matter?  Would 8ft (or whatever) of "non scenic module" as a designated fiddle yard look odd or not?

 

Once again I really do not think it matters at this stage of development - I think we may be just happy to get a module or two to start with and if it is very plain (but more useful as a yard than a straight length of track module) then it doesn't matter. Operation is all about track, OK it is nice to have scenery but I'd rather someone built a loco shed, or carriage shed as full scenic modules rather than attempting to disguise an obvious FY. I am not saying a FY is not useful - just I do not understand the desire to scenic one.

 

A more interesting question might be should FY be placed as 'terminus' or might it be good to have one as through FY? Remembering that when we build FY for our own layouts they are not usually placed 'beyond' a terminus station they are the "rest of the world" ... which in modular terms is taken by the next module down the line.

 

Is there even any requirement for a FY?

[cromptonnut]

In theory you don't "need" a fiddle yard but if you just have terminus to terminus then that does limit the amount of trains you can actually run on the modular layout simply due to capacity of the sidings and platforms within the setup.  Of course you can have a massive depot in the middle with a double track terminus at either end, and some branch stations giving single branches to head off elsewhere.

 

Many of the continental and American modular systems do have big 'staging yards' (which I guess is what we'd call a fiddle yard) but many of them do seem to be scenic but that could be more due to the prototype having big yards all over the place.  I've also seen one that has a 360 degree Y into return loop which is purely "to send the trains back to from whence they came" but it does of course take up a lot of space.

 

As this has never been a problem before in RMWeb's UK modular standards (by the nature of it simply not having happened!) I think what I'll do for now is make a simple, non-scenic, single track in "train storage area" and then as things develop it would be relatively easy to lift the track and relay it to make a more realistic module as a depot or, if several people have already got suitable "staging boards" then develop them into something else.

[Glorious NSE]

Is there even any requirement for a FY?

 

Requirement? No.

 

But, if you're talking about it being a "self contained" railway, that supposes that every piece of rolling stock on it has at least two places on the layout it can go, else there's not much point in having that item of stock on the layout. If somebody builds a station with a goods yard and a cattle dock, where do the loaded cattle wagons go to, where do your 16t mins of coal come from?

 

Staging/Fiddle yards give you a potential to provide all the features of the rest of the unmodelled world, just like they do on a small self contained layout.

 

I think what I'll do for now is make a simple, non-scenic, single track in "train storage area" and then as things develop it would be relatively easy to lift the track and relay it to make a more realistic module as a depot or, if several people have already got suitable "staging boards" then develop them into something else.

 

At Armitage, our "fiddle yard" was actually a longish stub end of single track, where we stored the (one) train that dealt with all off-layout traffic, so not such a different idea - one thought - if what you're making is a plain board with a single track, then no need to re-track it later on, just add some scenery and it's a useful bit of plain track in countryside...

[Joseph_Pestell]

Here's something I've been thinking about. The throat will fit (I hope? rough guestimate) on a single 2' by 4' "lite" baseboard from Tim Holt and you can add storage capacity by adding as many boards with plain track as you want. Obviously, if you want to have it as a through module, add another throat on the other end

 

yard-design.jpeg

It's not cheap, due to the amount of points, but highly flexible. Two trains can arrive/depart at the same time with simultaneous movement to/from the programming track and loco stabling tracks. No less then 5 tracks can be used to terminate and reverse a train, while each set of 2 outer tracks can be utilised to set up or remove trains from the layout, or store them for a longer period of time. With track centres at 50 mm, 9 tracks only take 50 cm space. The remaining 11 cm are intended to have a safety buffer for the outer tracks: if someone manages to topple a train stabled there, it's not gonna get acquainted with the floor

 

Should you want to use it as a through-yard (with another throat on the other end) one could designate tracks 2 and 8 as through-tracks while 3-7 remain terminus tracks and 1+9 as sidings.

 

Points: Peco, Code 100, small radius. If you must, use the medium or large radius Code 75 Y-points, but I guess know for sure it won't fit a single board then.

 

HTH!

 

Medium radius points should just fit on a 4' long board, I think.

[Joseph_Pestell]

I'm not that sure that fiddleyards are necessary in a modular set-up. If one does need something to represent the "rest of the world" cassettes might be a better option although they can get a bit difficult to handle in 4mm scale.

[Doc Robin]

I'm looking to railfan the sort of trains that go past close to home, so that includes steel flows, containers, scrap and aggregate which tend to be a little, OK a lot, longer than the DMUs, so the ability to set them up on a fiddle yard would be a great advantage without interrupting the mainline workings.  I'm expecting to have to build one for use at home to enable this.

 

Robin

[Joseph_Pestell]

I'm looking to railfan the sort of trains that go past close to home, so that includes steel flows, containers, scrap and aggregate which tend to be a little, OK a lot, longer than the DMUs, so the ability to set them up on a fiddle yard would be a great advantage without interrupting the mainline workings.  I'm expecting to have to build one for use at home to enable this.

 

Robin

 

I can see the advantage for long trains like this. But it is also possible to have cassettes that join together for longer trains.

[Glorious NSE]

Assuming that somebody would have to build and transport some kind of flat supporting structure to support the cassettes, and presumably provide a reasonable supply of cassettes also, what do you see as the big advantage of them over a conventional yard-style staging/fiddle area?

[Joseph_Pestell]

Assuming that somebody would have to build and transport some kind of flat supporting structure to support the cassettes, and presumably provide a reasonable supply of cassettes also, what do you see as the big advantage of them over a conventional yard-style staging/fiddle area?

 

Agreed about the need for some sort of sub-structure.

 

The advantage as I see it is to use the cassettes to transport the stock (trains or part-rakes) to and from the venue and simply "plug-and-play" the trains straight onto the layout without a lot of time putting them onto the fiddleyard tracks. Obviously this needs some sort of "standard" for the cassettes.  Kenton will not approve.

[Joseph_Pestell]

All the cassettes that I have seen were very simple systems - no more difficult to replicate than a consistent perpendicular track interface at each module end.