Fiddle Yard Expansion

With more than a month to spare before our appearance at Model Rail Scotland the great news is that Himself has completed the project to expand the capacity of our OO Cambrian line fiddle yards on Minffordd.

During our first test exhibitions at the end of 2025 we discovered the limitations of the original design which showed how you can sometimes get 'railroaded' by sticking to your first concept and not seeing new opportunities as a project develops.

Initially I had imagined the Cambrian part of the layout would have a very limited range of rolling stock, perhaps just a couple of DMUs and a Class 24 with some goods wagons, in which case three or four short storage loops behind the backscene would be sufficient, because space was definitely at a premium.

As so often happens there was 'mission creep' during the build and we found ourselves acquiring more OO stock.  A Collett Goods here, a Standard Class 2 there, and, ooh, a Manor would be very Cambrian!

Soon enough we found ourselves wanting to run loco-hauled passenger trains and exhibitions became an exercise in juggling space and very careful parking of trains so they didn't foul the points at either end of the loops.

Over a few pints at night while were were away exhibiting Bron Hebog in Manchester just before Christmas one of our operating crew floated an idea of simple genius, inspired by the way he uses sidings on his layout as a surrogate fiddle yard to run trains effectively end-to-end on a loop-the-loop transit.

It dawned on us it was maybe possible to do something similar on Minffordd and more than double our capacity to store longer, loco-hauled trains.

I dubbed this project the 'Thompson Undertaking' in his honour!

As ever, it was up to Himself to work out how to turn these alcohol-induced brainwaves into practical solutions.

He identified there was space in front of the existing narrow gauge fiddle yards to add a thinner shelf below, and support it on a bracket fixed on the existing legs.

The big question was whether we were going to need to relay a lot of the existing fiddle yard loops in order to add some junction points.

We were in luck!  There was just enough space to squeeze in a Y-point, and the radius of the curves were a perfect match.

One compromise is that these extra points are hand-operated by switches and brass connecting rods, rather than being added into the rotary switch diode matrix which routes trains into the four main loops - that would just be too much extra work and head-scratching!

Something very similar was done at the other side and each line divides into two sidings which can each hold a loco and four carriages, or perhaps a long freight train, as you can see in the photo at the top of this post.

We can have three long trains on the layout with a spare road for one to terminate in after a trip around the circle.

We've also added an extra dead end storage road behind the loops which will give us even more options and hopefully mean we can keep nearly all our rolling stock on track and not have to keep lifting stuff on and off the rails to switch up the train formations.

Glasgow, next month, will be the big test!  Details in the Exhibition Diary.