The N-C Scenic Cassette Fiddle Station

[Chimer]

Following on from the "Scenic fiddle yard for a BLT" thread, I offer you a proof of concept for the N-C (Nearholmer-Chimer) cassette system, in plan and section …. the idea is that instead of a conventional fiddle yard, cassette or traverser arrangement you have a small apparently through station at the rest-of-the-world end of the line which looks scenically OK except for the moment when cassettes are exchanged.

 

 

To operate, train arrives, loco possibly removed separately using locolift, removable scenic piece slid out, cassette slid partially out, safety box dropped onto cassette, cassette fully removed, new loaded or empty cassette slid back in, scenic piece replaced.

 

Power gets to cassette tracks via the brass locating pins and ferrules on the platform side, which should be placed symmetrically so a cassette holding a train complete with loco can be turned through 180 degrees if required.

 

The removable scenic piece could be as wide or narrow as required, or done away with if the cassette was hard up to the baseboard edge.  But I think a few inches at least would help frame the overall picture.

 

Not sure about the locolift - I suspect this might require a "mind the gap" announcement which would be unusual for a station with a straight platform.

 

And not sure about the mirror helping the illusion, an idea I've seen written about occasionally, but not in use. 

 

Thinking about the two "not sures", might actually be better if the platform stopped short of the locolift position, but don't want to redo the picture just now ….

 

Over to you, no copyright, please be kind ….

[Flying Pig]

On 05/06/2020 at 13:35, Chimer said:

Not sure about the locolift - I suspect this might require a "mind the gap" announcement which would be unusual for a station with a straight platform.

 

 

Easier to just remove the train as a whole I would have thought.  You could have some spare short cassettes on a fiddle deck for swapping locos and brake vans if desired, or just turn the train as you say.

 

Perhaps have a slide out fiddle deck on drawer runners below the station that hides away when not in use.  Also that way you can have the layout and fiddle yard at much the same comfortable operating height as only minimum vertical clearance is needed.

[Chimer]

Two reasons for liking the locolift really, it gives more room for 00 coaches on a handlable cassette, and means the coaches are free to go out behind a different loco on their next turn.  But certainly more faff ….

 

Having dreamed up the idea of the removable scenic section, it came to me after posting that the double-track cassette initially proposed by @Nearholmer could work in the same way, if said removable scenic section (which could be longer than the cassettes) carried the down platform structure.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Thanks for the explanation - I’d seen this in the originating thread but not quite understood it.
 

As for the idea, I suppose “Why not?” is my response.  I hope someone tries it.
 

Not strictly OT, but reading the OP makes me wonder if anyone has ever made a sceniced train turntable - I’m thinking a double track suburban station with platforms either side of the tracks and the pivot centrally in the six foot way - when you turn the table the train that came into platform 1 as a down train is now at Platform 2 as an up train?
 

With a GC island platform the pivot goes through the waiting room (chimney).

 

Why would anyone do this? If the fiddle yard was the first thing people saw when coming into the room, it would be nice to see a station instead, and justify passenger trains apparently stationary for long periods of time.

 

As for this idea, I’d be inclined to favour the whole length train cassette, but I favour short trains these days (3 carriages or less), and prefer to keep the number of moving parts / joins to cross to a minimum.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Keith Addenbrooke

[ColinK]

Excellent idea.  I have some of those clear plastic train tubes (sorry forgotten their name) stored on racks on my railway room wall with trains In them.  My plan was to have somewhere on my layout where I could connect them up to the track to swap lesser used trains. Makes more sense now just to have one that slides in next to a platform on my high level terminus.