Ive mentioned before that enlarging Brettell Road would mean I need to build new fiddleyards.  The reason for this is the way the cassette system worked was to have a recess in the board which given that the layout is now 2 tracks meant the old ones couldn’t really be made to fit.  I also took the opportunity to make some improvements and the result can be seen above.

The boards are 6 inches longer and this time I’ve included a little barrier on the near side edge to stop anything falling off It never did but it was something that bothered me. View from the front.  I decided that the Round Oak industrials running on the mainline was a no-no, so now they will appear from the right of the layout behind the warehouse.  As the mainline drops away this means that i needed a different level for this bit.

With the cassettes I have also made some improvements. The originals use 9mm ply which as it was unsupported did bend somewhat.  I now have 3 sizes instead of the original 2.  A short one for locos, A medium one for units and a long one for coaches/wagons. I have made the long and loco ones reversible but I only expect to reverse some of the locos.

Pictured are the loco and unit versions. The base is 9mm MDF this time.

The little bits on the inner ends are for rudimentary buffer stops.  This stops the trains running off the end but also adds a little security when lifting the cassettes so that nothing rolls off.

The way they connect is a tweak on my original design of using a bit of flat bottom rail on its side – positioned in the web of the running rail for alignment and electrical connection. Originally these were both sides and the rails on the cassettes were angled outwards a little for a good fit.  Making the loco cassettes reversible main this wouldn’t work and so a small bit of 0.6 straight wire is soldered to the inside of the web to help with alignment.

You may be wondering what the little blocks are for in the first 2 pictures.

Taking a hint from Amlwch (a layout i used to help out with) I decided to make the storage of the cassettes integrated with the fiddleyards.  This one will store the locos and units, the other one the long cassettes.  Most of the braces slot in place meaning I can lock in place 8 unit cassettes with just 3 bolts and 16 loco cassettes with just 2.  The less time spent faffing about at an exhibition the better!

Thanks as always to Tim for allowing me to hijack his laser cutters.