Non-fiddle yard storage options.

[InterCity110]

Hi all, first thread here. Was wondering if there was any way to store rolling stock like coaches without a fiddle yard. Would storage in the scenic area work?

Edited July 30, 2023 by InterCity110

[Flying Pig]

The real railway stores everything in the scenic area, so depending on the design of your layout and the space you have then it would certainly work.  What sort of layout did you have in mind?

[InterCity110]

4 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

The real railway stores everything in the scenic area, so depending on the design of your layout and the space you have then it would certainly work.  What sort of layout did you have in mind?

 A large station with a loco stabling point, plus TMD, FLT , CS and a few bay platforms.

Edited July 30, 2023 by InterCity110

[Chimer]

Carriage sidings were a regular feature of the landscape until multiple units became all-pervasive.  The problem with them in a model is they were often pretty long (minimum 8 coaches maybe) and almost always straight (stand by for lots of pictures of short curved ones).  But a couple or three sidings running into a corner of a layout behind a terminus or largish through station is a possibility - and seeing your latest post suggests you're thinking big, so why not?  A refinement would be to include the little platforms between the roads that gave access to cleaners, etc.  

[Flying Pig]

12 minutes ago, InterCity110 said:

 A large station with a loco stabling point, plus TMD, FLT , CS and a few bay platforms.

 

What about the rest of the layout?  Is it a circuit or do the trains run to a non-scenic area?

[InterCity110]

7 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

What about the rest of the layout?  Is it a circuit or do the trains run to a non-scenic area?

There’s a loop running the trains from the up to the down lines, and a short loop line to the TMD, FLT and a park and ride, but that’s it.

[Flying Pig]

1 minute ago, InterCity110 said:

There’s a loop running the trains from the up to the down lines,

 

You mean a sort of out-and-back set up with a reversing loop? 

[InterCity110]

2 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

You mean a sort of out-and-back set up with a reversing loop? 

I think so.

[RobinofLoxley]

Track plan?

 

[InterCity110]

6 minutes ago, RobinofLoxley said:

Track plan?

 

None, due to the unavailabilty of track planning software on apple iphone. I may be able to whip a very bad representation up on something like openTTD though.

Edited July 30, 2023 by InterCity110

[Keith Addenbrooke]

2 hours ago, InterCity110 said:

Hi all, first thread here. Was wondering if there was any way to store rolling stock like coaches without a fiddle yard. Would storage in the scenic area work?

 

1 hour ago, Flying Pig said:

The real railway stores everything in the scenic area, so depending on the design of your layout and the space you have then it would certainly work.  What sort of layout did you have in mind?

 

1 hour ago, Chimer said:

Carriage sidings were a regular feature of the landscape until multiple units became all-pervasive.  The problem with them in a model is they were often pretty long (minimum 8 coaches maybe) and almost always straight (stand by for lots of pictures of short curved ones).  But a couple or three sidings running into a corner of a layout behind a terminus or largish through station is a possibility - and seeing your latest post suggests you're thinking big, so why not?  A refinement would be to include the little platforms between the roads that gave access to cleaners, etc.  

 

Or combine all three ideas and have a scenic storage yard modelled to look like carriage sidings, but operationally used like a fiddle yard.

 

Another alternative could be to combine some scenic carriage sidings in front of a traditional fiddle yard to optimise use of space.

 

Just a couple of ideas - as for a track plan, a photo of a pencil and paper sketch can still be helpful, or even a photo of the layout itself (with a note of dimensions) if it’s that far advanced.  Just a thought.  Hope that’s OK, Keith.

[Dungrange]

30 minutes ago, InterCity110 said:

None, due to the unavailabilty of track planning software on apple iphone.

 

There is always old fashioned paper and a pencil.

 

To answer your original question, the answer is yes.  The purpose of the a fiddle yard is principally to provide somewhere for trains to go to and where they will return from (but not immediately).  If you can design a plan where the journey taken by a miniature passenger of your railway is always in the scenic area, then there is nothing wrong with that.  All of your coaches effectively 'live' in the carriage siding and all of the locomotives 'live' in the traction maintenance depot (TMD).  You run then round a return loop back to where they started.

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, Dungrange said:

 

The purpose of the a fiddle yard is principally to provide somewhere for trains to go to and where they will return from (but not immediately). 

Layouts represent only some small part of the railway network (eg a branch line terminus).  The trains that serve the area modelled would run to serve some business purpose - conveying passengers/goods to/from somewhere else on the network.  A fiddle yard exists to represent "the rest of the world", holding the trains while they are supposedly doing whatever they need to do outside the modelled area.

The other reason for a fiddle yard is that most of us collect more rolling stock than would prototypically be needed.  So we need storage for the surplus if we intend to ring the changes.

 

But it is possible to model accurate operation without a fiddle yard if you model a complete self-contained railway - eg the Waterloo & City Railway, or perhaps a preservation line.  A heritage line is particularly suitable if you want a layout without a fiddle yard, since the passengers generally go from one end of the line to the other and then coming back on the next service in the other direction (the same train) and the only freight consists "demonstration goods" workings, and you can justify an eclectic collection of rolling stock from diffferent parts of the country and different eras.

[DavidB-AU]

Have the storage in the open. There are plenty of prototype examples to adapt. Goodrington, for example.

 

 

[DCB]

In the old days, 1960s and 1970s  if you research contemporary magazines  it seems few modellers had surplus stock  in the way todays modellers do.   Many "Railway of the Month" articles list a dozen locos a smattering of wagons and one or two express passenger sets and a local set. Mostb ofthe early 1960s [70s C.J.Freezer 60 plans ec layouts were this type with no off scene storage  The Rev Awdrey  had 4 main line coaches and two suburbans (Anne and Clarabel) at one stage and the main liners were one colour one side and  a diferent one the other.  His layout (Tidmouth?)  had terrminus to return loop cofiguration with room for 3 trains to stack around the return loop.  Peter Denny's Buckingham only had storage for 4 or 5 trains off stage on a giant turntable with most stock kept on the visible layout.   If you can live with just a few sets of coaches etc then such a system is answer.
My now abandoned loft layout was based around a suburban station or ark and ride with a  sorting yard and MPD adjacent and storage for three long and three short trains off stage.    It was very weird and trains could go round clockwise or anticlockwise from  storage  A bad back and a bad fall from the loft ladder ended that scheme.
I don't like non scenic  visible fiddle yards.   For me they spoil the illusion of  the railway being real. 
I  had spiral and steep grade to low level fiddle or storage yard solutions but poor hill climbing and long time between levels are issues so what I want to try is a train lift like the Nelevator but used to move complete  trains between levels   /

Then again a self contained, Island based perhaps layout with no main line connection can very realistically work with all stock on view and no need for fiddling.
That said eBay is probably the best place for surplus stock, thats where I'm putting  a lot of mine.

[RobinofLoxley]

Bit of a hiatus in my layout construction but the constrained setting, a loft with many a frames has resulted in everything being on scene or will be when finished. I will have those miniplatforms etc for the carriage sidings.

[Nearholmer]

A useful trick can be to model part of a branch-main junction, because they often had a small sorting yard for goods traffic, and a couple of sidings for spare coaches/rakes …….a fiddleyard. 
 

Seaton Junction (Devon) was a cracking example, so that modelling only the branch side of the station and the sidings beyond (condensed, because they were pretty long) would provide all that is needed. It even had the branch platform on a curve to save space.
 

But, a lot depends on era, because such arrangements have gradually disappeared. There may be one or two left; Liskaerd perhaps?

Edited July 31, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Geep7]

One excellent modelled example of a station with carriage sidings that springs to mind is Ronsthorpe, in 'N' gauge. If you have Railway Modeller subscription you should be able to go to the digital archive and see the article in the April 1992 issue. Obviously it shows that you need to have plenty of room for any carriage sidings, as I think most carriage sidings were beyond the station, rather than being alongside, although there are examples with them alongside, places like Addiscombe and Seaford (although they were sidings for MU stock, rather than coaching stock).