Fiddle circuits
Short on space and operational interest? PAUL A. LUNN presents a new concept to make your baseboard real estate work much harder.
Short on space and operational interest? Paul A Lunn presents a new concept to make your baseboard real estate work much harder.
Off-stage train storage is always an issue. Sector plates, cassettes, sidings; how do you make best use of the space available? The above are fine for branch line terminus layouts, where you don’t have a lot of trains to store. Where it gets difficult is when you have a tail-chasing main line layout and lots of main line trains to find space for. Large, marshalling yard-like fiddleyards will consume huge amounts of space, and require baseboards several feet deep. Scenic fiddleyards - quite literally fiddleyards with scenery on and in public view - are not new. But what if you merge the scenic area and the fiddleyard together? That’s what I did with this plan based on Halifax that appeared in MR231. I was able to keep all six through platform faces because you can store six trains here. As a result, the hidden area, where the fiddleyard would traditionally be, is just 1ft deep with only four tracks on it. It’s a rather new concept that I call the ‘Fiddle Circuit’. Here’s how it works: A train, travelling in the direction indicated by A, moves over onto circuit B and travels all the way round to C. The locomotive is uncoupled and removed via Peco Loco Lift 1 or Loco Lift 2 - whichever is available - on the innermost circuit. The coaches remain at point C. The next train, hauled by Locomotive 2, repeats the process but couples up to the coaches at C and propels the whole lot to D. A third and final train, hauled by Locomotive 3, follows the same process, but the locomotive is removed at Loco Lift 3. Locomotive 2, sandwiched between two rakes of coaches, reverses to collect coaches from the third train to make one long train. Obviously the trains can’t be very long, but as the layout’s width is just 10ft, they won’t be that long anyway. You could have four coaches from the first train, five from the second and three from the last to make (including the locomotive), a total of 13 vehicles.
FULL RAKE PICK-UP
The locomotive can now push or pull the accumulated train around the circuit in either direction, until the coaches from the first or third train pass exit point E. Here the rake can be uncoupled and a new locomotive added, via Loco Lift 2. This train is ready for the return journey, via curved points in the top right hand corner, to Halifax or North Bridge, depending on destination. Analogue users will need to isolate sections so that Locomotive 2 remains stationary, while incoming or outgoing trains still have the freedom to move in and out of the scenic section. Naturally, DCC simplifies this process no end. And this process doesn’t just apply to trains moving in one direction. It can apply to trains travelling in the opposite direction, moving from F onto circuit G and using Loco Lifts LL4 and LL5. Note that LL4 is situated under the high open-backed Mackintosh building for easy access. Additionally, trains can be ‘stacked’ in the circuits so, for example, the first of three will (depending on its length) be the last out, but all travelling on a circular route, rather than end-to-end. Finally, you have the option of just watching trains going round and round on the main line using station platform tracks and goods sidings as scenic fiddleyards. Just make sure that inward-bound and outward-bound ‘Fiddle Circuit’ trains are not left standing with coaches blocking the main line, particularly in the area around all diamond crossings! There are numerous benefits to ‘Fiddle Circuits’ in terms of speed of operation, focusing most operation onto the scenic rather than non-scenic section and thereby providing greater interest for spectators. Plus it’s more cost-effective in using minimum pointwork and it consumes less baseboard space.