Fiddle yards

[ianp]

Is there an accepted definition of a fiddle yard? I know what they look like and what they are for. But is there an accepted definition of what they must feature, or must not feature? Ta.

[Ray H]

Probably the nearest is "A place to (re-)marshal train outside the scenic area".

 

Otherwise I would have thought that anything goes because there isn't a generic type of fiddle yard - which I believe our American cousins tend to call "Staging"

[Harlequin]

The only technical requirement is that they must allow you to prepare trains for appearance in the model and accept trains coming from the model and at the simplest extreme that could be a single length of fixed track!

 

So, no, I don't think there is an accepted specification of what they must feature.

[Flying Pig]

I'm not sure this is an ideal state of affairs. Many modellers will be left with nagging doubt over whether what they have made is a true fiddle yard. Others will have spent hours at exhibitions, craning their necks and risking osteological damage, in order to see the trains in what turn out on analysis not to have been fiddle yards at all.

 

Surely RMweb can spare twenty or thirty pages of informed debate to settle this issue once and for all and prevent unnecessary physical and existential suffering?

[Flying Pig]

Just to add, I'm not getting at the OP.

 

Harlequin is right: practical requirements (there are several) are all that matter.

[DCB]

Probably the nearest is "A place to (re-)marshal train outside the scenic area".

 

Otherwise I would have thought that anything goes because there isn't a generic type of fiddle yard - which I believe our American cousins tend to call "Staging"

Agree.  "A place to (re-)marshal train outside the scenic area".   

 

I would suggest that "Staging" is a better description of the hidden storage sidings which many of us have in non scenic areas of the layout.

Equally I would not describe a traverser or sector plate as a Fiddle Yard

I always seem to end up with a set of sidings with the one nearest the operating well accessible for re arranging trains.

[The Johnster]

I have an idea that the American term 'staging area' came about because their tendency to have large homes with enormous basements covering the entire footprint and lots of disposable income meant that they could more easily model full length trains, even their longer ones, and needed 'offstage' areas to conceal them when they were not running/awaiting their next duty.  In the UK, we were struggling with ever smaller homes and the highest population density of any developed nation, and space was the big problem; we needed off scene areas where trains could be made up or broken down by 'crane shunting', a term which dates me that you don't hear any more; lifted off the track and stored away somewhere, and our end to end layouts needed locos to be crane shunted as opposed to run around as we never had the space for that.  So we manually fiddled with our trains, in a 'fiddle yard' which represented the rest of BR.  

 

I have always aimed to have enough fiddle yard space for all my trains in service, but have not achieved this* and some crane shunting still happens; I try to restrict it to autos which are easier to handle, literally.  Manual handling is not good for models, even if you wear kid gloves; sweat affects the finish and any material is at least slightly abrasive (as is skin).

 

As far as definitions go, I don't think it matters much; if you use the term 'fiddle yard', or 'staging', or 'hidden sidings', everyone will know that you mean the place the other side of the scenic break.  Automatic Crispin might need a bit of explanation, and, again, dates me a bit...

 

 

*the trouble is that, if I build an extra fiddle yard road, I only buy more trains to put on it...

[Harlequin]

Sorry for going off-topic but I really hope we get to see the Automatic Crispin working again one day.

 

In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest it might even deserve a place at the National Computing Museum at Bletchley Park, which very fittingly is in Buckinghamshire...

Edited May 27, 2018 by Harlequin

[DCB]

Ah the automatic Crispin, I am surprised Bachmann or Fleischman haven't produced one RTR.

 

The Johnsters point about adding trains every time he adds another fiddle yard road is thought provoking because basically its what we do, or conversely the number of FY roads limits the number of trains we can use.   Our MO is train from top station round layout (continuous run) to dead end hidden sidings.   Attach loco to back detach loco from front wait a bit, send back to top. Shunt loco and turn.   On arrival at top shunt stock wait a bit send it back sometimes with a different loco.    With this sequence each train can need 3 locos and with 6 or 7 fixed formation passenger trains it can take a while before the same loco / train combo reappears.  sequence is usually 3 /4 at the top, the rest in transit or in the H/S

For me handling stock is a no no apart from uncoupling. Ever since my first Hornby MN began disintegrating every time it was touched so the Hidden sidings have a turntable  However for stock storage we also have a six road 8ft hidden siding fan down a 1 in something ridiculous gradient from where Folkestone Harbour like exertions are required for two or three locos to extract trains where little used stock lurks, the Bromford Bridge Fawley Tanks, 8 coach Pullman etc  though strengthening stock still lurks on dusty shelves, but always get swapped on the scenic areas owing to minimal overhead clearance in the hidden sidings where only the siding next to the operating well  is accessible for removing and adding wagon loads etc

[Meglomaniac]

I regret that I also remember Automatic Crispin, crane shunting and the erstwhile Mr Freezer talking about Fiddle Yards in his many books.

 

For me, its a generic term that encompasses all areas where trains are stored, re-marshalled or removed.  I agree that hands-on is not ideal so I use cartridges.  The train consist is not changed but the area gives me the chance to remove it wholesale from the layout and replace it with another set of wagons/coaches/whatever.  I would still call that a Fiddle Yard.

 

I agree that the format does not matter - if it works for you, its right for you.  Traversers and sector plates can be beautifully made but still do the same job as a length of track nailed to a length of wood.  I would encourage newcomers to experiment with various types - we all seem to have our favourites and those decisions are made by having/using different types on layouts as we develop our skills.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Meglomaniac

[Pacific231G]

I rather like the French modellers' term "coulisse" which, in this context, comes from the theatre and means what we would call "the wings". It is the place where the actors, in other words the trains, prepare to make their entrances and then exit to after performing on stage. Whether they are prepared to go on-stage using cassettes, traversers, a Denny style train turntable, a row of sidings (where being off-stage they can be manually sorted) or even a complete off-stage shunting yard like the one that John Charman had on the original Charford, is a matter of choice.

 

Whatever form it takes, it represents the rest of the world or at least the rest of a particular railway network. Cyril Freezer reckoned that it had been invented by Bill Banwell and Frank Applegate for Maybank in the early 1930s but simple off-stage train turntables had been used for Railway Company display layouts before the First World War.

 

What is interesting is that, with one or two exceptions, pre-war modellers saw no need for an "off-stage". Even such extensive layouts as Edward Beal's West Midland or the Madder Valley formed a self-contained railway and nobody worried about express passenger trains that ran between nearby termini or goods wagons from other railways that had no logical way of being there.

[TonyMay]

The fiddle yard is the probably the most important aspect of any design because it defines what is permissible in the remaining space.

[Pacific231G]

Maurice Deane came up with an interesting variation very early, on his second published layout, the Culm Valley. This  was a model (Railway of the Month in RM Februare 1952) , suitably compressed, of the real Culm Valley Branch with its three stations. Instead of ending with a hidden yard, as his earlier Portreath had, Culm Valley incorporated a fully modelled shunting yard discretely postioned in front of one of the stations at a slightly lower level. Operationally, this yard was not meant to be real but it could sit in the modelled scene without looking out of place, Whilst this might not be appropriate for most exhibition layouts I think it might be for a home layout where you may not want an area of bare boards in the room and don't need such an intensive supply of trains. 

Where a line is fairly self contained- especially a light railway or a "short line" you could model the junction and its yard with a dummy main line.  

 

This was done very effectively way back in G.T.Porter's Potwell Mineral Light Railway (MRN July & August 1952) 

This was based on the East Kent Light Railway  between Shepherdswell and Tilmanstone and its two halves, separarated by a short tunnel, fitted into a cabinet. Remarkably for a layout with so much shunting it was powered by two locos fitted with Riemsdyk controlled clockwork mechanisms  though stud contact electric was planned.

 

A current example is Geoff Latham's Mahwah, a complete Short Line in N gauge in 68" by 6.5" with Tuxedo Junction and Mahwah in two self contained boxes connected by a short bridge and seen here at the 2016 Wealden Railway Group show in Steyning.

 

Freight cars and passengers are dropped ot picked up at Tuxedo Junction where we never actually get to see the connecting main line trains.

Geoff says that this was originally a holiday project to try out American modelling in N scale. I've seen it several times and it's  a really effective little layout. You accept Tuxedo Junction as a station when the train is shunting there but once it's returned to Mahwah the focus moves to there so it doesn't matter that the trunk route's trains never actually appear.

[Peter Crawford]

I like the idea that a fiddle yard is basically a 'train storage system' that allows more trains/variety on a layout. Plain English: an excuse to run the stock that we've all bought over the years！

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I'm not sure this is an ideal state of affairs. Many modellers will be left with nagging doubt over whether what they have made is a true fiddle yard. Others will have spent hours at exhibitions, craning their necks and risking osteological damage, in order to see the trains in what turn out on analysis not to have been fiddle yards at all.

 

Surely RMweb can spare twenty or thirty pages of informed debate to settle this issue once and for all and prevent unnecessary physical and existential suffering?

 If we accept the concept of the layout, that which is seen, on which trains are operated; then the various devices by which those trains move off the layout for any purpose, whether termed staging, fiddle yard, sector plate, &c. should all be regarded as metalayouts. In considering the application of the metalayout, it will be found helpful to maintain a strictly empiricist view, relating to the primary qualities of dimension and number for all metalayouts.

 

 

I rather like the French modellers' term "coulisse" which, in this context, comes from the theatre and means what we would call "the wings"...

 

 

...nobody worried about express passenger trains that ran between nearby termini or goods wagons from other railways that had no logical way of being there.

 Extreme hazards lurk in these quite innocent lines. If Jacques Derrida's school has or had any railway modellers among its number, you may be assured that they will have examined the inherent contradictions between the the layout and metalayout postulates, and deconstructed the whole bang shoot. Ths may account for the very small following for model railway in France...

[ponthenry]

A question on fiddle yards, if I may?  It is long established that on most baseboards, laying some form of underlay underneath your tracks reduces noise.  In terms of fiddle yards, what do people prefer - laying a single layer of cork underlay across the whole surface area; or laying it under individual roads?

 

I am currently building the fiddle yard for my layout and undecided as to how to deal with this aspect.

 

Out on the scenic section of the layout I use individual strips of cork underlay under each track. 

[Danemouth]

A question on fiddle yards, if I may?  It is long established that on most baseboards, laying some form of underlay underneath your tracks reduces noise.  In terms of fiddle yards, what do people prefer - laying a single layer of cork underlay across the whole surface area; or laying it under individual roads?

 

I am currently building the fiddle yard for my layout and undecided as to how to deal with this aspect.

 

Out on the scenic section of the layout I use individual strips of cork underlay under each track. 

 

This week I've laid the fiddleyard for Danemouth and for convenience I've laid a sheet of cork across the whole of the fiddleyard area.

 

Dave

[The Johnster]

If you are going to lay cork, which I don't because I rather like the noise, it is probably easier just to lay one sheet over the fiddle yard boards like Danemouth has done on Danemouth.  If you don't put cork under the track on the fiddle yard but do on the layout, you will have a difference in level to cope with.  

 

This has an impact on my long term plan to relay the scenic part of my layout with Peco code 75 bullhead; I will be unable to do this in the fiddle yard as there are setrack turnouts in there to save space; relaying in bullhead would be pointless appearance wise and cost me nearly half my fiddle yard roads!  I will probably use cork underlay on the scenic section if I ever do this job, to match rail heights with the fiddle yard.

[Danemouth]

If you are going to lay cork, which I don't because I rather like the noise, it is probably easier just to lay one sheet over the fiddle yard boards like Danemouth has done on Danemouth.  If you don't put cork under the track on the fiddle yard but do on the layout, you will have a difference in level to cope with.  

 

This has an impact on my long term plan to relay the scenic part of my layout with Peco code 75 bullhead; I will be unable to do this in the fiddle yard as there are setrack turnouts in there to save space; relaying in bullhead would be pointless appearance wise and cost me nearly half my fiddle yard roads!  I will probably use cork underlay on the scenic section if I ever do this job, to match rail heights with the fiddle yard.

 

My personal preference is always lay track on cork

 

The previous incarnation of Danemouth had Code 100 track and Setrack points in the fiddleyard. Just before it entered the scenic area I used the special Peco track to convert Code 100 to code 75.

 

The new version of Danemouth is Code 75 throughout with  three way and small electrofrog points in the fiddleyard - insulfrog are a real pain with sound locos.

 

I am currently laying cork in the scenic area - my local shop sells eighth of an inch cork in flat sheets  3 feet by 2 feet which is easy to cut and lay.

 

Regards,

 

Dave

[The Johnster]

Thinking about my potential relaying, if cork is needed to pack up to rail level on the Code 75 bullhead, which as well as having a lower rail profile probably has less thick sleepers as well, I will probably lay over the whole trackbed rather than fitting it to the track; I did this years ago on a layout in a deliberate attempt to get a correct 'main line' looking profile and ballast shoulder, but on a small BLT such as Cwmdimbath this would look a bit too tidy; I want a somewhat run down dishevelled 1950s look, a railway left to go to seed during the war and not caught up by the 1950s.