The Fiddle Yard

Prior to building St Petrock, most of my railway layout plans had been centred on through stations, with a fan of partially hidden sidings for off-scene storage of trains. This configuration had the dubious advantage that trains could be round round-and-round the room, though such operation is hardly prototypical.  The only examples I can think of are the 'merry-go-round' coal trains supplying power stations, and London's circle line.

Operationally, a terminus-to-fiddle yard configuration has a lot more potential than a simple through station. "The great thing about a terminus," as the ticket inspector told the old lady, "is that everything stops... or else there's a very big bang."

Early posts on this blog have described the terminus end, as it takes shape. Until this week, though, the track from St Petrock ended beneath a road bridge on the estuary section.  I had toyed with building a cross between a Peter Denny-style rotating storage unit a sliding traverser, but in the end decided to keep things simple and have storage cassettes.  These have been well described in the model railway press and mine are nothing special... but they do work.  A train arriving from St Petrock runs onto a cassette, which is then unplugged from the approach track, rotated by hand, then either set aside so that another cassette can be inserted, or reconnected for the return journey. Simple!

Now, for the first time since commencing St Petrock, I can run trains properly and thoughts are turning to developing a timetable.  However, there's still an enormous amount of modelling to undertake, so for my next post I'll return to the houses on Station Road.