|
Traverser/Transfer Table
Lines
(Page 1 of 2)
|
|
|
A traverser (transfer table) is
a series of parallel tracks on a table that can slide from side to side, providing
access to several approach lines. It's a very useful way to insert a muilti-track
fiddle yard into a very short space. These micro layout plans use the device to make
possible a dellightful variety of operating patterns.
|
|
|
The Foggier Bottom Railway
Jack Trollope noticed that by adding a little width
to the Foggy
Bottom layout, he could include a spur at
the front right to conceal the traverser (transfer table) -- thus producing the Foggier
Bottom Railway. This plan is slightly larger than micro layout size, but we present
it to demonstrate that expanding any plan's area -- by even a small amount -- can
generally allow increased operating possibilities as well as improved scenic potential.
Foggier Bottom Rwy is 56.5"x12" (143x30 cm) in 16.5 mm gauge. Can anyone
spot where the inevitable bottleneck will occur in shunting this complex layout?
|
|
Pier 39 Yard takes its inspiration from many
small yards up and down the east coast of the United States, where railroads brought
freight cars across a river or bay by ferry and left them to be unloaded into wagons
and trucks. Often, these yards were not otherwise connected to the rail network ...
the only access was by the ferry (offstage in this design).
The transfer table (traverser) fiddle yard provides a runaround capability and is
hidden inside a waterfront warehouse building that is the source of an endless variety
of frieght cars. The paved team yard provides an open air venue to transfer goods
from rail to horse cart, delivery van, or 18-wheeler -- depending on the era you're
modeling! Very small switch engines, either steam or diesel, work the yard.
As drawn, the layout is designed for railroad cars that are no longer than 40 feet.
With its prototypical space-saving double-slip switch this tiny yard can hold a total
of 16 cars! Scenery should show waterfront scenes, and modeling challenges might
include a working gantry crane on the team track in the front, and locomotive servicing
facilities alongside one of the spurs. All in all, Pier 39 Yard provides a large
amount of operating fun in a very tiny space.
|
|
 Smithfield
Street Yard is a smaller version of my Foggy Bottom plan,
and it's a layout that has actually been built by Jack Trollope (photo at left).
It's one of the smallest multi-turnout layouts in this collection, but it offers
excellent operating capability.
The transfer table (traverser) does double duty as a runaround loop and as access
to the long siding at the rear, which functions as the Smithfield industrial switching
district. Basically, freight cars are received and sorted in the little yard in front,
then delivered to the industrial customers at the rear via the transfer table.
Scenically the traverser can be concealed within a building shell as in Pier 39 (above),
disguised as a car ferry (paint the baseboard dark greenish brown in this area),
or simply left out in the open to represent a prototype table often used to access
locomotive and car repair shops.
Switch lists can be generated in a number of ways to direct the placement of cars,
and shunting challenges can become very complex on this tiny layout, less than a
meter long!
|
|
Shortover Yard -- a Seriously Compact Layout!
 Jack Trollope was triggered to design Shortover
Yard as a result of hearing about a design competition for layouts that fit on
an A3 piece of paper -- 11.7"x16.5". Intrigued, he cut the sheet down the
middle, joined the ends, and built an HO layout measuring 5.8"x33" (14.8
x 84 cm). It's one of the smallest layouts in this Gallery!
It's designed as a Transfer Yard in a generic American City, transferring cars between
several railroads -- though with a change of rolling stock it could be anywhere in
the world. A single-track traverser joins three spurs in the yard -- there are no
track switches. Challenging operations can be programmed by randomly selecting cars
to be moved and their destinations, perhaps by drawing tokens or cards from a hat.
The layout is arranged for front viewing and operation from the rear, as it's intended
for use at exhibitions. Jack is still in the process of building it, as the work-in-progress
photos show. Though there are many details still to be added, the layout is starting
to look good and to run well. A marvelous design -- and more proof that everyone
has room for a layout! In N scale, Jack reckons this layout would occupy about
4"x24"!
 
|
|
Deep in the Georgia woods...
Julian Andrews lives in southwestern England, and
he has produced a micro layout called Rachel, Georgia that is straight out
of Lucius Beebe's "Mixed Train Daily." You can smell the piney woods at
this little rural terminus of the Georgia Western, a fictitious shortline operating
in 1959.
Julian uses a three-track traverser or transfer table as a staging yard and to complete
the runaround facilities. Short mixed trains enter through the trees and reach the
station almost immediately. The passenger coach can be cut off at the platform while
the freight, piloted by the line's two-truck Shay or GE 70-tonner, is switched in
the spurs. A siding ducks off into the woods -- its mission is your call, perhaps
to serve a paper mill, or a logging landing for loblolly pine, or even a rural cannery.
A feed store and team track each have a spur that requires shunting. So things are
busy at Rachel until the loco ties down for the night in the loco shed.
Julian has created an evocative, beautifully detailed micro layout -- set in a country
2,000 miles from home! To whet your appetitie, here are a few photographs, taken
by Steve Bennett at the layout's first public appearance in early October 2002.
 
|
|
Continue
to Page 2 of 'Traverser/Transfer Table Lines''
|