Scenic fiddle yard for a BLT

[AndyB]

Over the last few weeks I've had the time to build a steam era N gauge BLT with west country overtones.

 

There's nothing radical about it, but to give the trains room to stretch their legs, I've allowed some 16 feet of track between the fiddle yard and the station throat. I was aiming for a railway in a landscape and a chance to develop scenic skills.

Open top baseboards were new to me, too. And something of a revelation!

 

The track plan is below - as I say all fairly traditional! 

 

The line runs out of the fiddle yard across a valley and winds it's way eventually to a small seaside station.

 

 

 

The trains I'm planning on running are early and late crest BR and at present include a pannier tank with autocoach, a B set, a 5MT with a rake of southern region coaches plus CCT for a "Seaside Special", and a 4f with up to 8 assorted wagons. The upcoming Sonic 56xx is also calling to me. 

 

This is still a work in progress with lots of fun to come working on the scenery.

 

But my thoughts turned a while back to the fiddle yard design. 

 

Now, having enjoyed the initial build, it occurred to me that the fiddle yard needn't be a fan of parallel tracks. 

 

Why not think of it as another terminus - perhaps a junction - with the scenic break representing several miles of the branch line? 

 

This is where I'd really appreciate some help and inspiration. Can anyone help design "the other end" of my BLT. 

 

The area is 5'3" x 18", flat baseboard already built.

I'd like to include:

a turntable to turn the tender locos;

perhaps a ramped coaling stage; 

the implication of a junction from which the Seaside Special "comes" from other parts of the network;

some storage for a variety of goods wagons, e.g. cattle, coal, vans;

nothing too urban - no Minories (got the T-shirt).

Peco Code 55

Programming track - I recently invested in a Prodigy dcc controller which needs the prog track to be electrically isolated; could this perhaps be a dummy scenic track that hints at the network beyond?

 

Any ideas would be most welcome, and thanks to anyone who read this far! 

 

Andy

Edited June 1, 2020 by AndyB
Remembered the unpowered programming track

[AndyB]

Just for completeness a photo of the baseboard in question....

 

[mdvle]

2 hours ago, AndyB said:

Now, having enjoyed the initial build, it occurred to me that the fiddle yard needn't be a fan of parallel tracks. 

 

Why not think of it as another terminus - perhaps a junction - with the scenic break representing several miles of the branch line? 

 

This is where I'd really appreciate some help and inspiration. Can anyone help design "the other end" of my BLT.

 

The area is 5'3" x 18", flat baseboard already built.

 

Would require modifications to what you have built, but my immediate thought would be to have both.

 

Thinking in HO/OO your 5' is approximately equivalent to 10' - a generous space.

 

So think a fiddle yard, but perhaps implemented as a traverser (which means getting the main tracks closer to the front of the layout) for the bottom half of your extra space.

 

Then put a more "urban/busy" (not necessarily lots of buildings, but more built up than your end of line in terms of business immediately off scene) station between the bridge and fiddle yard.  Perhaps it is a double track station that immediately narrows to single track at the bridge so you can have a train waiting "on scene" in the station for a train from your existing terminus to vacate the line (you could even fudge it a bit if necessary and have part of the station continuing off scene onto the fiddle yard under the traditional road bridge).

 

Then put a goods yard between the station and the backdrop to suit the type of goods wagons you want around -perhaps the geography necessitates the only access from the bridge so a goods train arrives from the fiddle yard, proceeds through the station onto the bridge, and then backs into the goods yard - maybe more believable if your entire passenger station fits on layout and trains from the fiddle yard are exiting a tunnel.

 

 

 

 

 

[PMP]

Perhaps a terminus to terminus might work with the new station being more important. If you adapted Kingswear you already have a turntable in the plan. One of the turntable roads might be the program track. Does the program track need to be on the layout at all? You wouldn’t need to do it riverside either just adapt the overall plan.

[AndyB]

Ideally, yes. The programming track would be on the board. I can see locos getting damaged if it's elsewhere in my garage. 

 

Kingswear is interesting, although losing the riverside element would detract the from it?

Perhaps a  sort of Swanage with beefed up mpd and goods?

[PMP]

Swanage would fit the bill, and there’s plenty of info on it if you wanted to replicate any of the buildings.

[t-b-g]

I always liked what Jas Milham did on his S Scale layout Yaxbury, when he modelled both ends of his branch line. The far end was modelled as a bay platform at a rural junction, with the "main lines" just being glimpsed behind the platform. There was an exchange siding at the junction and any wagons in there were deemed to have been dropped off for the branch goods. At the end of the sequence, the wagons at the junction were deemed to have been left there ready to be picked up by a non existing main line goods. There are plenty of photos online which can be found with a Google search on "Yaxbury layout"

[Nearholmer]

I’ve long thought that too many people waste space on FYs that could be put to better use, so more power to you elbow!

 

I’ve no idea about dimensions in N, but one option might be to create something vaguely like an extract of Seaton Junction in Devon, which was a real FY for a real branch-line with through trains from cities to seaside.

 

Cutting the station in half longitudinally, we get something like this:

 

In reality, down through trains from London pulled beyond the down main platform, locos (likely two tank engines) attached to the rear, then the set off down the branch. There were also through coaches, from the ACE, as well as entire trains, so they had to be detached from a down train at the platform, then shunted forward and tacked onto the branch train.

 

The loop and siding acted as a FY in that a whole rake could be left in the siding from Saturday to Saturday, ready to be taken down the branch to become an up through train, and on Saturdays it could be used to store goods wagons which got in the way at the terminus. The branch passenger train could run round in the loop, and keep out of the way of the through train.

 

My longitudinal cut is to the left of the ACE in this picture, which on on the Down Main (the ACE ran in portions on busy days, and this isn’t the portion that detached coaches here!).

 

There are threads on RMWeb about modelling the whole of the Seaton branch in N, so you might want to hunt those out. Seaton had a lot going for it as a terminus, and could fit in your space, if you get properly into how it was operated in the 1950s, and it had a loco shed. Very Southern, of course (see drawing of station building in Railway Modeller May 2020), so if you prefer the Olde Worlde charm of the GWR to the neat efficiency of a proper railway, it might not be for you.

 

 

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by Nearholmer

[t-b-g]

47 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I’ve long thought that too many people waste space on FYs that could be put to better use, so more power to you elbow!

 

I’ve no idea about dimensions in N, but one option might be to create something vaguely like an extract of Seaton Junction in Devon, which was a real FY for a real branch-line with through trains from cities to seaside.

 

Cutting the station in half longitudinally, we get something like this:

 

In reality, down through trains from London pulled beyond the down main platform, locos (likely two tank engines) attached to the rear, then the set off down the branch. There were also through coaches, from the ACE, as well as entire trains, so they had to be detached from a down train at the platform, then shunted forward and tacked onto the branch train.

 

The loop and siding acted as a FY in that a whole rake could be left in the siding from Saturday to Saturday, ready to be taken down the branch to become an up through train, and on Saturdays it could be used to store goods wagons which got in the way at the terminus. The branch passenger train could run round in the loop, and keep out of the way of the through train.

 

My longitudinal cut is to the left of the ACE in this picture, which on on the Down Main (the ACE ran in portions on busy days, and this isn’t the portion that detached coaches here!).

 

There are threads on RMWeb about modelling the whole of the Seaton branch in N, so you might want to hunt those out. Seaton had a lot going for it as a terminus, and could fit in your space, if you get properly into how it was operated in the 1950s, and it had a loco shed. Very Southern, of course (see drawing of station building in Railway Modeller May 2020), so if you prefer the Olde Worlde charm of the GWR to the neat efficiency of a proper railway, it might not be for you.

 

 

 

 

I agree entirely and I think that is a super example of what I have in mind from "real life". If you don't call it Seaton Junction but use the track plan and add a couple of scenic break overbridges, you really have everything covered.

 

I am presently involved with helping Ken Hill develop "Narrow Road" into a system with 5 stations. There are 4 on the "Main line" including one which is a scenic fiddle yard, which gives the impression that the lines go on further under the station building on an overbridge but which actually end in loco cassettes. One is a junction with the branch terminus making up the 5. All the stock is out on view all the time and we have added a couple of loco sheds and some carriage sidings as we don't have enough platform capacity for all our stock.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Another "fiddle yard junction" that is worth looking at is Liskeard in Cornwall, where the branch station is at right angles to the main platforms and entirely separate, with a set of exchange sidings and a linking line through the goods yard. It wasn't used for through passenger moves so far as I know, but still interesting.

 

There were others too, but Seaton is the best one I know of from the perspective of this thread.

[AndyB]

First of all thanks to all who have read and spent time responding. Lots of good suggestions. 

 

The space available is actually quite generous so I've taken the idea of a cosmetic junction and turned it into an actual one, albeit one that would only work for the B set and autocoach, not the 3/4 coach 5mt train.

 

I've done a quick sketch by way of a straw man. Perhaps others can improve on it. 

 

 

I left space to the side of the goods shed, have an unspecified siding (bottom) and a "spare" platform face. Not sure about the engine shed, or the tracks being parallel to the edge of the baseboard and a jelly mould hill hiding the "junction". Programming track left off for now.

Plenty of room for improvement! 

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by AndyB
Typo

[Zomboid]

Does the junction work for freight too?

I would humbly suggest that the Seaton Junction style design would be the way to go. Though the Southern obviously did it best, the GWR was awash with BLTs, which means that it was also awash with junctions at which the branch met the main line. Lostwithiel for the Fowey line might have something to offer, or St Erth. Even Totnes...

 

Programming track wise, if you include the down main from the Seaton example on the baseboard, you can use that as the programming track, since you can't run the Atlantic Coast Express.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Zomboid

[AndyB]

Hi Zomboid. I guess it could provided it was OK to propel the wagons in one direction - perhaps not very prototypical.

Equslly not sure that B sets would have been propelled. But did I see that sometimes a pannier tank would sit between the two coaches? Think I may be in danger of going OT!

[mdvle]

1 hour ago, AndyB said:

The space available is actually quite generous so I've taken the idea of a cosmetic junction and turned it into an actual one

 

It all depends on what you want out of the layout, but to me this looks more like a terminus and the hillside, while okay on this module, would (again, to me) clash with the valley you have just off to the left on the rest of the layout.

 

That said, there is a way to do this as a terminus - I can't recall the name at the moment but somewhere in the northern parts of England there is a "junction" between 2 lines that is really a terminus where the 2 lines approach like a wishbone/capital Y.

 

If that interestests you, then there is no reason the other line can just disappear of the front edge of the layout...

[Zomboid]

Exmouth (there's the Southern again) is an example of sorts. Cromer Beach and Great Yarmouth Vauxhall come to mind as well. Fort William...

 

In a slightly more GWR example, Aberystwyth. I doubt it's alone, but I'm no expert on that particular company's routes.

[AndyB]

@mdvle I'm not familiar with the northern station you mention, but what you described sort of rang a bell.

Boscarne Junction illustrated in Peco's "Track plans for layouts to suit all locations".

 

I see what you mean about the clash between a hill on the new module and the adjacent valley scene. The way I look at it is that the two scenes are separate and there'll be a decent sized backscene between them. 

 

@Zomboid if my memory recalls correctly Railway Modeller featured Cromer as Plan of the Month in the mid 1970s? My only memory of Aberystwyth was a trip on the VoR about 45 years ago! 

But sticking to the south Bodmin General?

 

As for the programming track I noticed that on a plan of Swanage there was a coach being used as a buffet? Perhaps I could do something similar with a bit of disconnected track.

 

Plenty of food for thought. 

[Flying Pig]

37 minutes ago, AndyB said:

But sticking to the south Bodmin General?

 

Bodmin General would work and is not a million miles away from your straw man sketch, though the differences are important for operation.  Track diagram here: 

 

https://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/gwf/S1091.htm

 

Btw - coaches on isolated track used as a cafe are a preservation thing.  If you can work with a programming track at the terminus end, perhaps a siding for camping coaches?  It wouldn't need to be shunted so it could be electrically isolated. Just remove the camping coaches when you need to use it.

 

I still think a variation on Seaton Junction would be more interesting, but at the end of the day rule 1 applies.

[t-b-g]

1 hour ago, mdvle said:

 

It all depends on what you want out of the layout, but to me this looks more like a terminus and the hillside, while okay on this module, would (again, to me) clash with the valley you have just off to the left on the rest of the layout.

 

That said, there is a way to do this as a terminus - I can't recall the name at the moment but somewhere in the northern parts of England there is a "junction" between 2 lines that is really a terminus where the 2 lines approach like a wishbone/capital Y.

 

If that interestests you, then there is no reason the other line can just disappear of the front edge of the layout...

 

Possibly Battersby Junction where trains reverse from Middlesborough to Whitby. It used to be a conventional junction but the line beyond Battersby closed, leaving the two lines both coming in at one end.

[Zomboid]

10 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

Bodmin General would work and is not a million miles away from your straw man sketch, though the differences are important for operation.  Track diagram here: 

 

https://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/gwf/S1091.htm

A couple of neighbouring signal box diagrams offer a bit of GWR flavoured Seaton Junction style track layouts, at Bodmin Road and Lostwithiel Crossing, and would be worth considering if a larger station is desired.

 

I think I'd do something like Lostwithiel from those two as it has the running junction from the main line so the Sunshine special can go to and from the up/down main, whilst branch trains have their own platform and a set of exchange sidings. The up/down main past the junction could be electrically separate and used as the programming track.

 

Not sure how acceptable a tender first 5MT on passenger trains would be on the main line, but I guess it could run up/down the branch ECS or as a superpowered local train to turn at the junction.

 

Sounds like a fun layout to me

[Nearholmer]

They’re both good aren’t they.

 

Bodmin Road has a particularly useful ‘kickback fiddleyard’, although it lacks the through-running facility.

 

Definitely two to store in the brain-bank.

[Flying Pig]

Here's a quick sketch of a possible layout with features of both Seaton Junction and Bodmin Road.   It's very much a starting point for development, intended to provide a full set of on-scene fiddling operations for branch goods and passenger trains  as well as some options for through portions as at Seaton and possibly loco storage. 

 

The main line is of course a dummy, except for access to the loco sidings. The line X-X shows the extent of the layout, so the final crossover at the right is offscene.  Critical lengths are the runround in the branch platform and A-X which determines the carriage siding and goods headshunt.

 

Drawing the junction as trailing onto the main line as at both prototypes places the main at the front, which isn't ideal, but I think the plan could be flipped to put the branch at the front with only a few crossovers needing to be reversed and I'll have a go at that.

 

Note that the goods sidings are intended for exchanging traffic with main line stopping goods trains rather than for loading and unloading.  Having the branch goods as a separate train working to and from these sidings avoids the need for anything to go offstage.  You'll have to imagine the main line trains of course.

 

The goods sidings are easily accessible only to main line trains working left to right, which is not an uncommon situation.  However, if you want you could add a siding or two behind the carriage siding to exchange traffic with main line trains heading right to left, which would make shunting quite a lot more interesting.  You don't need too many sidings as goods facilities on the branch itself are rather sparse (perhaps a bit too sparse).

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Having a small fan of goods marshalling sidings at a branch junction was very common, and Seaton Junction actually had a set, but “off stage” from the extract that I suggested.

 

One of the all time great layouts, The Buckingham Branch, has precisely this feature at Grandborough Road and I always think it makes that station look particularly believable.

[The Stationmaster]

Andy you might find some inspiration here -

 

https://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/srq/S3498.htm

 

Or here

 

https://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/gwe/S780.htm

[AndyB]

Interesting ideas and inspiration hope that the various contributors are finding this thread as interesting as I am.  Perhaps it might inspire others to turn their FYs into a further modelling opportunity?!

 

I seem to remember that Battersby Junction was featured in a book about designing layouts for operational use. I'll dig out the reference later.

 

The Seaton Junction idea @Nearholmer and the sketch developed by @Flying Pig seem to be reminiscent of the idea behind Little Muddle - an exquisite piece of modelling.

 

I guess my own preference is more aligned with the Bodmin concept- or the examples proposed by Mike @The Stationmaster that popped up whilst I was typing this in my lunch break.  Perhaps I have an inclination to self-contained things! Mike the invite still stands to come round and play once lockdown permits! 

 

 

[t-b-g]

38 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Having a small fan of goods marshalling sidings at a branch junction was very common, and Seaton Junction actually had a set, but “off stage” from the extract that I suggested.

 

One of the all time great layouts, The Buckingham Branch, has precisely this feature at Grandborough Road and I always think it makes that station look particularly believable.

 

The yard at Grandborough is also one of the most interesting parts of the railway to operate. A simple system for deciding which wagons stay there and which go up the branch would really add a nice "shunting puzzle" element to the operation, if that is what the person running the layout is interested in.

 

You see many model layouts which have a siding for the goods shed, a siding for the cattle dock etc. but you rarely see sidings just for storing or marshalling trains, although hey were a big part of the real railway, who had to manage without cassettes or fiddle yards.

 

I have often thought that a layout based on the sidings at Warsop on the LD&ECR would make an interesting layout. Various rip workings from local collieries brought wagons in, they were made up into longer distance coal trains and sent away, with the empties doing the same. Yet there were no unloading or loading facilities there at all, just sidings. Just running coal wagons might be a bit limiting but you can add vans of stores, gunpowder, pit props etc. You would need other facilities for passenger and general goods trains too.

 

Such sidings would make a nice scenic fiddle yard.