Last week I had a marathon session to build the second fiddle yard in under a week, before taking Sweethome to an exhibition at the weekend.
Not only did I have to build the yard and cassettes, I also had to make some legs for it and modify the trackwork and bridge on the board adjacent to the new yard.
I started by dismantling parts of the road bridge and cutting a hole in the backscene
Next job was to build the platform for the fiddle yard cassettes and remove some of the trackwork.
The supervisor was also on hand to check progress
Jon
I had to re-lay the trackwork in such a way to enable three fiddle yard cassettes to line up next to each other. This meant that the tracks had to splay out instead of running parallel to each other. I also had to realign the bridge sides and piers.
I also added alignment bolts by soldering brass tube onto copperclad sheet and ballasted the new tracks - including those tracks in the fiddle yard, as they can be seen from the scenic side of the backscene.
Lastly a couple of shots of the new yard at the exhibition last weekend.
Jon
Nice work as always, Jon. Those cassettes really make staging more flexible. Do you have extra cassettes to store entire trains, or do you just have enough for the yard?
That is the HAIRIEST track boss I’ve ever seen! [:O] I hope that fur tornado doesn’t clog up the machinery.
In practice, the only train that needed to be turned was the passenger train. I acted as despatcher and removed the freight cars from the cassette and replaced them with new cars - and carcards.
I have another show in a couple of weeks which gives me time to build another few cassettes, allowing for more operating potential, so we may see whole trains held on the cassettes.
It also helped greatly having a table under each fiddle yard for sorting out trains.
Jon
You could die the cat green and train it to lay real still. It would make a nice grassy mountain feature! [:D]
Looks good! I always wondered how big your layout was. I think that’s the first overall picture you’ve posted of it.
Here’s another, showing the lighting array a bit better.
Jon