Fiddle Yard

=>Can someone please tell me what a "Fiddle Yard" is please =>

=>William Rendell =>

A group of tracks outside the scenicked part of the layout on which you arrange and rearrange the trains that appear on the layout. It's called a fiddle yyard 'cuz you fiddle with the trains. :-)

Here in N.America, we call 'em staging tracks - it's where the trains wait to go on stage. Etc.

Fiddle yards are attached at one or both ends of a layout, or are hidden behind or below the scenery.

"Staging" and "fiddle" are subtly different in that one needn't fiddle with one's trains in a staging yard. One can of course "stage" in one's fiddle yard.

Regards, Greg.P.

I guess a fiddle yard can contain non-prototypical operations such as sliding or swivelling sections of trackbed, to save space and pointwork.

Anything you like, from a train length of track on a piece of 50x25mm timber, on up! (now watch someone come up with a lesser fiddle yard ;-)

Regards, Greg.P.

'Fiddle Bin' The track leaves the scenic area of the layout through a tunnel portal, the track then ends at the edge of a precipice. Departing trains simply fall into a waiting receptacle where the operator can take a 'lucky dip' when forming the next consist. :-)

Governor of Waldovia

=>There certainly must be some difference between them, or Model =>Railroader wouldn't differentiate between them. See the September issue, =>page 61: => Fiddle yard: In model railroading, offstage tracks where trains, =>locomotives, and cars may be turned and rearranged to keep traffic =>flowing _during_ an operating session. Manual handling or "fiddling" of =>rolling stock, usually avoided on the onstage portion of a layout, is =>acceptable in a fiddle yard. => Staging yard: In model railroading, offstage storage tracks where =>trains wait to appear as if coming from a distant terminal or a junction =>with another railroad, and where trains can go to give the appearance of =>going to a distant terminal or a junction.

IMO MR is splitting hairs. Creatinly, "staging ( yard, tracks)" is the older term in NorAm, and it's only since MR imported "fiddle yard" that they've started to try to make a distinction. My reading of older UK model mags indicates that "fiddle yard" included both meanings too.

Anyhow, we'll see if the distinction catches on. My bet is it won't, since in practice it makes no difference whether you have whole trains lined up, or whether you rebuild trains -- you need the variety for prototytpical operations.

My model railway has staging yards, four of them (Well, two are only a single track but still classify as staging).

The trains in these yards are not "fiddled" with during an operating session. They sit there until required or die there when they arrive. Well, except in one, where the trains change identity and reappear from staging later in the operating session as another train and at another station. It's a double track, double ended staging yard.

-- Cheers Roger T.

of the Great Eastern Railway

Sheesh - the average office waste paper rubbish bin has a larger volume than my

2"x1"x 10" long white pine baseboard! (total volume 20 cubic inches plus 10" Peco track = 21 cu.in)