My next layout will be anapproximately 45 foot long, 2 foot-wide shelf depicting the Tonopah and Goldfield RR in Goldfield. One end will be the T&G’s stub-ended yard. The other end will be staging that represents the rest of the world (specifically Tonopah and Mina). I have two ideas for the staging. One is an open 5 track fiddle yard 6 feet in length made of Atlas code 100 track and rerailers where trains could be made up and broken down by hand during an operations session. The other is to have a 3-4 track yard pushed to the back of the shelf hidden by a hillside and a ore mill. Trains would be made up before a session and backed into the hidden staging. No new trains could be made up once the session started. A track would come off the main to the front of the shelf as a short branch to service the mill. I like the convenience of an open fiddle yard but hate idea of giving up 13% of the linear length of the layout to no scenery. I could dress it up, but why would the T&G have a big yard out in the middle of the desert? Thoughts and opinions? - Nevin
Well, you need to ask yourself…How much volume/variety do I want to generate during operations?
If it’s significant then go with the fiddle yard, it’ll give you a great many more options.
How about having a junction or two that goes to the edge of the benchwork where you can “roll up” a run around fiddle yard on a cart and bring trains onboard that way?
The railroad I am planning for a 24 x 44 foot space is essentially a folded dogbone. If you take a circle and compress it in the middle you get a double track railroad with return loops at each end. A stub terminal, if you want one, can be be built inside the loop at either or both ends. You can neck it down to single track if that is what you are planning and have passing sidings where you need them.
In my case, the New Haven Union Station is in the center, the Shore Line to Boston will be double tracked and the Boston end will disappear into hidden multitrack staging. The West electrified zone has two tracks added, two West Bound and two Eastbound. They also will terminate in a hidden multitrack staging area representing New York and Maybrook.
When the timetable, or your operating plan, calls for a train to arrive in view, it is called forth from the staging and proceeds to do whatever is needed enroute to the opposite end staging, stub terminal or freight yard for classification. Local turns handle the sidings along the way as needed to service trackside industries.
There is no need for “fiddling”. Every train is operated as it would be in actual practice. It originates at one end and proceeds to the other. It can be broken up and reassembled in the classification yard. Passenger trains are usually turned or have cars added or removed at terminals. Why use your hand, the real railroads did not employ giant hands from the sky, why should you.
The next operating session continues where the last one ended. The cars that have been delivered, need to be picked up and loaded ones delivered. The passenger consists are already turned in the staging loop and ready to depart on schedule. Those that have pulled into the stub tracks can be backed out and run around the loop ready to go.
If you mentally run the trains that you plan to operate around your layout, you will soon discover the flaws in it. Facing point sidings to industries, dead end spur
I agree with what you have said overall, but I do not have room for a loop for staging. This is strictly a shelf no more than 2 feet wide or the autos get in the way. The basic schematic plan for the layout is “two dinner forks held by the handles with the tines pointing in opposite directions” One of the forks is staging, the other is Goldfield. - Nevin
Nevin,
If you go with the “half open/half hidden” traverser, you can have your cake and eat it, too. The sneaky trick is to use the one hidden traverser track that extends past the fascia when you’re working the rearmost track as a ferry slip for cassettes.
You can make up as many trains as you want, each in its own cassette. Then back a train which has just terminated on the “exchange” track into an empty cassette and replace it with a train that’s faced properly, ready to start its run. All the “fiddling” is done among the cassettes, which aren’t on the layout.
An alternative would be to use a drop-in cassette in place of that track, thereby eliminating the backing movements.
I’ve arranged one such ferry slip as part of the hidden staging complex I’m working on. Even with an entire double garage to work with, I’m not going to have enough track to handle my entire roster at one time.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with cassette storage)
I don’t have the benefit of a track diagram other than the two forks. It seems to me that you have the possibility of operating 5 trains out of staging and 3 back and then your operating session is over. UNLESS – you go to the fiddle yard and then the stub tracks and “fiddle” with them some more? If you have a way to turn or reverse the engines to head back, the staging yard is full up and they have no place to go.
Before I ever drew a track plan I did a schematic. A simple line drawing like the one seen on many dispatcher’s panels. Now, mentally operate trains over it. You will quickly see where the problems are that need to be remedied before you lay the first piece of track.
The obvious solution is a reverse loop around the staging, or at least a wye, but you have ruled that out. Sticking to the 2 foot width means you are stuck with what you have got.