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Fiddleyard and traverser help for a beginner


TomJ

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First an admission!! My woodworking skills are not good, and I don't really have a workshop/many tools. As a result I have brought a baseboard kit in the hope that this time it might perhaps be square and straight!

But I am wondering about fiddleyards. In the past I have just used a fan of small radius points. This time I'd like to do something a bit different as they take up a lot of 'train' space. Also I have two roads leading into the fiddleyard, and need to use the fiddleyard to complete the runround.

 

The idea of a traverser appeals and I want the simplest operation but I need a complete numpty guide as to how to go about making one as simply as possible. As my baseboards come with a flat top, and the fiddleyard will only be a part of one board anyway, I guess the scenic tracks need to be raised up above the board to allow room for the actual base of the traverser. And how do I align the tracks smoothly? I model in N gauge and DCC if that helps

 

Any advice gratefully received

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Yes you will have to raise the scenic tracks to the height of the tracks on the traverser.

To get even spacing of the tracks I suggest you use the Peco track spacing tool  (available in 00 and I think N) for the tracks coming into the traverser and for all of the tracks on the traverser itself.  The only really critical bit is the transition from the main layout onto the traverser and the ends of the traverser itself.

 

And now perhaps to burst the idea, having considered such an arrangement myself.  A traverser on a double track layout is very tricky to manage.  If you line one track up to dispatch a train, the track next door has to be vacant so that what is on the other track can run onto it.  This can be managed with some very good planning but if this is going to be a one man layout, you will find yourself spending more time managing the traverser than enjoying and running the scenic part of the layout. 

 

I have opted for a single track running onto the traverser for that reason.

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I've used sliding drawer runners for my traverser, bought from Station Road Baseboards. They're screwed to the bottom of a piece of chipboard, and then to the baseboard. You just need to make sure that everything is square enough that it runs smoothly. Track alignment is just done by eye, except for the end tracks where there are simple wood block stops.

 

It's a bit of an unusual one, as each track is a different gauge, and it has to line up with three tracks on the scenic section. The big handle at the front is there because the runners are longer than I needed, but it's also very useful. Mine is on a separate baseboard, so it's attached to the main board at a lower level. If you have more than one baseboard, maybe you can put the one with the traverser on lower, with raised track in the scenic area, and lay the track straight onto the other boards. That's what I'm planning for my next O gauge layout. Mine is 7mm scale, with a mix of O and O-16.5 track, so yours may be smaller, or you'll get a lot more track on it.

 

post-7091-0-21284500-1450275961.jpg

 

post-7091-0-67265800-1450275973.jpg

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This is blindingly obvious when you think about, but may still be worth saying - don't forget you've got to have enough lateral movement on the traverser to enable every traverser road to align with every approach track - so you don't want an approach track on the back edge hard up against a wall, meaning you have to make a hole in the wall to push the traverser through to align the front traverser road - or so close to the front edge that you have to breathe in to get the back traverser road lined up with it ...... I've never made one that suffers like this, but I did design one which would have, once.  

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I would suggest, having tried both traverser and sector plate in 2mm, that the latter is far easier to make and get working properly in this scale than the former, with which I have had no real success, being difficult to get moving smoothly whatever design I tried using. The smallest jitter causes problems in the smaller size which normally doesn't in larger ones. Drawer runners are great for 4/7mm size but rather big for 2mm unless you have a very large fiddle yard size/space.

 

The advantage of DCC is that you can connect all the roads electrically and don't need to use switches to isolated them when not needed.

 

Izzy

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