Got my baseboard built,measures 4' x 1'. I'm having a bit of a mental block regarding a track plan(old age thing!)
I intend to run one loco at a time with lots of shunting and maybe a small two siding fiddle yard in the back corner? Any ideas would be very appreciated.
I'd say terminus to fiddle yard with the fiddle yard separate. 4 feet is enough to get a loop and two sidings in.
Mal.
I agree that a separate fiddle yard is a good idea. It could start off as a simple cassette and be replaced in future if wanted. If there is a fiddle yard on the baseboard it is likely to take up half the area. A traverser will make more efficient use of the space, but you can think of that as just conjoined cassettes and it will still take up a fair bit of the baseboard.
If you want to fit it all on one board then a sector plate in one corner is a possibility, with the storage road(s) as a switchback behind the scenic part. There was an interesting standard gauge layout in Railway Modeller some time back like this and the sector plate was only partly obscured ("hidden in plain sight") behind a fence or wall. If the layout is being operated from the front at home then the fiddle yard needs to be visible and accessible (you can duck down and pretend it isn't there / take photos and sit up to control what is going on behind the scenes).
From another angle and depending on the size of stock you are using, it may be possible to get a simple terminus AND the storage yard onto the one board. The inspiration you may need for this in recent years is James Hilton's Creech Bottom which if memory serves did this on a slightly smaller footprint. If you are using the Peco L&B coaches then your luck's out, but 'Small Welsh' such as Tal-y-llyn or Corris stock would probably be fine.
There was a plan for a N gauge layout in the last Rly Modeller.
It was 3ft 6 inches x 12inches.
Would make a nice NG terminus.
Stan.