On the fiddle again!

The fiddle yard for my new layout "Smestow" is just about finished.

I decided to build a 360 degree rotating turntable type fiddle yard but with some design changes learned from mistakes and errors made when I built the two similar fiddle yards for my old layout "Steam on the Cambrian"

 Why a 360 deg turntable type?
I had to choose between a parallel traverser, cassettes, a fan of sidings or the turntable type.
Apart from the turntable type all the others require manual handling of stock.
A fan of sidings takes up too much room,
I've used cassettes in the past and found them to be a pain in the backside, especially if they are over 600mm long, With the turntable type manual handling of stock is kept to a minimum.

Construction.
The base frame is conventional 2x1 (Actually 44 x 18) timber with the centre stretcher being 34mm thick. The deck is made from 12mm plywood and the centre pin turns on small roller bearings.
I did try a "Lazy Susan" type bearing but there was too much rocking and play so that idea was abandoned.

The deck is 3ft long and 1ft wide and accommodates 5 tracks. Alignment is by a home made door bolt made from brass tubes. I tried a conventional small door bolt but there is far too much play in it to be reliable. Rather than rely on mechanical bolts for electrical continuity I hard wired a jumper cable with jack plugs between the fixed and moving sections. This then feeds into switches to control the electrical supply to each track as required.                                                                                         

There is a swing up barrier at each end to prevent any locos or stock from running off the turntable as it is rotated.  As the tracks are soldered to copper clad boards at each end and can not move 

I cut expansion joints in all the rails along the table centre line.  Short jumper wires are soldered across these joints to allow electrical continuity.                                                                                       I also soldered check rails at the ends of each track and on the fixed track to help alignment and hopefully prevent any tendency for stock to derail. Track used is just normal Peco 00/H0 code 75 which is OK for this job. On the scenic sections I shall be using Peco code 75 turnouts and a mixture of both the new Peco code 75 bullhead track and some C&L track that I have left over from a previous project.                                                                                                                                         Well that's progress up to date and is how things stand at the moment. I'll post updates as and when it happens                                                                                                                                                        

Cheers for now    Frank