Well, we’re back from Stuttgart, and I’ll be posting some pictures over the next few days.  And next Saturday, I’m visiting the Warley show at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham (a bit like the Stuttgart Messe, really), so there will be more to report.

In the meantime, I’ve made a little more progress with my N-club modules.  I’ve been going round in circles trying to decide the fiddle yard arrangement.  Another board, at right angles to the main lines would be faithful to the prototype design.  But I don’t really want another board in the middle of the room.  So a small hidden yard on one board seemed best.

But what to put on the board?  Cassettes would allow trains to reverse and give maximum storage.  But I’ve always had doubts about them after building a set for an early version of ‘Earl’s Wood’ and then dropping a very nice locomotive on the floor.  A sector plate offers as much storage space, but is non-reversible.  I built one of these, but it just didn’t seem right.  So I went back to a couple of points.  Slightly shorter trains, but easy to put together.  The pictures below show the fiddle yard, and the way the branch enters it.  The curves may look a bit tight, but they are a very reasonable 15″ radius.  The fiddle yard itself holds three trains.  Two lines will hold an SW9 (or similar) switcher, four waggons and a caboose.  Or indeed, a couple of Budd railcars.  The longer front line will hold and RS3 or similar, five waggons and a caboose.  Quite enough for a pleasant hour’s operation.

Next job is to start the scenery and get ballasting under way…