Fiddle yard

A fiddle yard or staging yard is a collection of model railway tracks that are hidden from view and allow trains to be stored and manipulated by the operators. These tracks are used to allow most model railways to be operated in a realistic manner. Whilst it is possible to have a realistic shunting yard in view, its operation is generally unreliable with models.

Trains can be rearranged by lifting them off the track and replacing them.

Fiddle yards were first built by British modellers so that they could build small layouts and operate them in a realistic manner. The first well-known model railway to use them was 'Maybank', which was exhibited at the 1939 Model Railway Club exhibition in London. This was an urban passenger terminus that led directly into a fiddle yard, hidden beneath a locomotive depot above it. It had an influence on C. J. Freezer, who as editor of Railway Modeller, would later go on to popularise them. In the 1950s he described the "Fiddle Yard to Terminus" layout, and used it for his influential 'Minories' design.

The fiddle yard is part of a layout, and as such varies with the type layout design, particularly whether it is of the "end-to-end" or "continuous run" type. There may be more than one yard per layout. The design also varies by how much the operator wishes to handle the stock—they can be completely manual, completely automatic, or somewhere in between. Each design has different space requirements which must be factored into consideration at the design stage.

Broadly designs can be into categories:

Combinations of the two above are also possible; for example a sector plate may be combined with a turntable for turning locomotives separately from their trains and allowing for them to be run round.

Fiddle yards can also contain a balloon loop for turning entire trains, usually in conjunction with a fan or traverser design.

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