13 ft of fiddle yard in 4ft x 2ft

Thank you for your appreciation, Les, did I mention that the smaller loco sector plate length is designed to take the combination of the longest locomotive PLUS a break van so that you can put it at the right end of each train….?

You simply tug in the train, uncouple the van and leave it off the sector plate and pull the rest of the train onto the big plate. Then uncouple the locomotive, nip back to the other end of the big plate, couple the van then back to the small sector plate and push it onto the end of the next goods train, uncouple, run round to the front and pull out the train.

I haven't got the answer to a GWR van travelling veranda first though, I wonder if they ever did that, does anyone know?

Doug

Les, I thought you were going to say "You can sit and study it while SWMBO does the carpentry" !!!:roll:

DD,
    I have at least one prototype picture somewhere of a GWR toad travelling verandah-first,so…..yes you CAN do it,even though usually the verandah is to the rear of the train.
:doublethumb
Cheers,John.B.:thumbs

[user=312]dooferdog[/user] wrote:

….

I haven't got the answer to a GWR van travelling veranda first though, I wonder if they ever did that, does anyone know?

Doug

I have a photo of onbe departing Ashburton 1949 with the verandah at the end so it has to come into the station with the verandah facing the train & there was no turntable.

John and Sol,

Thank you both for that, now I won't have to shut my eyes for 50% of the operation..:thumbs

Relieved Doofer

Hi Doug.    Excellent idea.  but you got me scratching my head, and asking myself “ How can I make a semi permanent connection “ to add your idea to extend my “ Mobie Shunting Puzzle. plank “ I have fitted the “ female halves of the pattern makers dowels “ , in readiness to add a temporary Sector Plate when I am not Shunting ?Come to think of it I could have one at each end? Best wishes. Kevin :hmm

Really neat Doug - good storage is the key to all good layouts I believe.  I once made a double traverser (as you mention) and it really was a PITA to line up.  It worked but I could have finished Pendon in the time it took to make it work well!!!

Thanks for sharing this.  I can see this fiddle yard becoming part of our folklore like the efforts of Maurice Deane and Peter Denny.

Barry

Hi Doug,
Just came across this, I shall use the principles for a small (and I do mean small) Inglenook plank with fiddle yard. Neat idea.

Nigel

This clever sector plate still resides in south west France - at my house to be precise.

It will be used to great advantage in a plank I'm planning - to keep my spirits up until I can locate a permanent home for Maxmill 2.

Cor!!!

Eight years form post to post on a thread! Must be a record………….

Progress slow/non-existant at this end, but re-vamped bathroom done, three laurel bushes with 6" trunks dug out and a 30 ft sycamore cut down, chopped up and all taken to the tip.

S.D.R. training going ahead, beer-ex on the 26th [not drinking] but 22 movements throughthe crossing gates forecast…aaagh!

Doug

[user=6] Petermac[/user] wrote:

This clever sector plate still resides in south west France - at my house to be precise.
….
It will be used to great advantage in a plank I'm planning - to keep my spirits up until I can locate a permanent home for Maxmill 2.

 :off topic……my apologies…….but that is excellent news Peter……I do hope you will shortly start a thread about Maxplank

 :cheers

Thanks John.

More of a "puzzle" than a proper plank.

New thread will start very soon.

Sorry Doug - back to you …………… :cheers :cheers

Hi Doug.   As much as I like your Sector Plate, alas it will be too wide for my four foot by fourteen inch Shunting Puzzle . I have been trying to “pare it down” to fit, the only solution I can see is to either only have two roads, or have a regular fiddle yard, and bite the bullet, even with points. Best wishes. Kevin

Kevin, have just three tracks. A central entry/escape track and one each side of it. Allow 2 1/2" inches between each to allow for the inevitable 'fingers from the sky', curve the outer two inwards at the throat and at the 'loco' end and long enough to do 'x' number of wagons, the little plate at the end long enough for the loco alone. Still not working?

Good luck, Doug.

Hi Doug Thank you for your reply. I will give it a go, and report back.  Best wishes. Kevin

Hi Doug. The Southern couldn’t work out that one either, so they built the Queen Mary Brakevan , an each way bet.I don’t know what went  wrong with the “Road Van “ though.  Best wishes. Kevin

Hi Doug.  I am back again? And I don’t want to sound repetitive , really , I have been studying your “ self explanatory “ photos, and I think that the penny has dropped ? Following your advice to a “potential exhibitor “. I am not a carpenter and I don’t have a jig saw. This revelation , you cut out the triangular ish shape, but does it then swing from â€œNumber one road fight through to Number five road” ? Using the same Pivot as the smaller single road?
It looks like you have cut it out, and then reduce the width to allow for movement ?   Best wishes Kevin 

Yup, Kev,
 That's it, one pivot point for both the big swinging table and the little table. You don't need a jigsaw, careful work with
any saw and a file/surform will give you the curved end that changes the track you go in/out on.
 
Doug

Hi Doug , and all interested parties. Not knowing where there is a “Village Hall “ being knocked down in Peckham, and even if I did ? I haven’t got any transport , I set about building my “ version “ of Doug ‘s idea, off to the local Timber Merchant , and a right merchant he was I asked for 6m ply, nothing like the 1/2 inch ply admittedly, okay said he and off he went and cut it , I paid for it and went home ( but for three bits of ply I thought £6.70 was a bit steep) and the Ply? looks like an Ice Cream Wafer with a soft bit in the middle. It will need more than bracing?
Nothing like ply used to be.   Best wishes. Kevin

Hi Kevin,

That sounds like surface finish ply, not construction ply. It should have 5-7 layers if it's Baltic.

You can get small sheets of Baltic birch ply (various thicknesses) from many suppliers in the UK for about what you paid, getting it cut to size would probably be up to you.


Nigel