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Fiddle Yards

I noted that you summed up the answers on "staging" by a rather strange statement that says:
In spite of the difficulty involved in backing trains into or out of stub-ended staging, this is the most popular style. Probably because it's the easiest to find room for.
I find this a strange statement - I have what we call a "Fiddle yard". The nearest description in your answers was "Stub-ended staging yard" but I don't back my trains into or out of the Fiddle yard. I drive out onto the layout - run round the train and drive back into the FY. The next time the train leaves the FY it has the loco on the front - put there by the simple expedient of lifting up and placing it at the head of the train. Perhaps you call this something different - or you don't have FYs in the States - but it was not covered in your answers.
Seems to me a stub ended staging yard and a fiddle yard are the same thing. There is no turnouts (switches) for a locomotove to run around its train. In your circumstance, you use the 0-5-0 (the hand with five fingers) to lift up and put the locomotive at the other end of the train. The same thing could be done here with the stub ended staging yard. I can understand why you call it a fiddle yard. You get to fiddle with it by moving things around. It is an old term (fiddle) which no one uses here anymore, that is, to fiddle with, mess around with, move around, change, and so on.

I know, from seeing a few articles in British magazines, that in the UK there is another style of exhibition layout, that consists of a module representing a station or terminal and its surroundings, with staging tracks at either end. It is operated more as a switching layout, with trains being run "on-stage" according to a timetable, being dealt with at the station and/or industrial sidings, and run off again. However, the articles generally deal only with the visible module, and do not show the staging, nor explain the operating logistics. ... Since there is no mainline trackage to speak of, would an operator bring his or her train out of staging, switch it on the visible module, and take it off again and go on to the next assignment, or would there be "staging" operators and "switching" operators? Etc.

There are probably as many approaches as there are layouts. However, I'll try to categorise the approaches;
1) The circle with hidden tracks. The layout is built as a circle (at least in track geometry - it may be a very odd shape really). The trains can run continuously if so desired, but for shows, the hidden tracks are used to store trains. Thus trains are run out in the appropriate direction at the correct time.
This has the advantage that a loaded freight (say coal in open wagons) always goes one direction (from pit to destination), and an empty train can go the other way.
2) The straight-through with two fiddle yards. This splits the real world into two halves - that to the left of the area modelled, and that to the right. Each has a fiddle yard where the trains are sorted and prepared for running through the area which is modelled.
3) The terminus. Like the straight through, but with track only from one end, so only one fiddle yard needed.
Fiddle yards in type 1 are usually built with either a ladders of turnouts, or with train-length sliding traversers. Types 2 and 3 may be ladder turnouts, but are more commonly sliding traversers, "train tables" or cassettes.
A train table is a turntable which can rotate a whole train (it has no prototype, its just used in the off-scene area). They are usually built with four or five tracks on them, thus enabling four or five trains to be stored. Their advantage is placing the train in the correct direction for running (loco at front) without handling fragile models.
Cassettes are train length lift out containers. Thus a whole train can be lifted on track (with sides to prevent dropping), and replaced with a different train. Trains can be turned in most cassettes.
To my knowledge, no one manufactures standard parts for these, people just make them up from bits and pieces, adapting the best ideas from others, and adding a few of their own.

Operators.
Again, it depends. Bear in mind that many UK layouts are built by one person, rather than club/team efforts, thus most of them have the capability of one person operation.
At a show, on a moderately complex layout it is usual to have a fiddle yard operator, whose job is to organise trains ready for despatch to the main layout. They may work by lifting cassettes, or the may manually lift everything into position. On some layouts, they might even have control to shunt the fiddle yard with locomotives.
Generally, the main layout operator(s) would drive a train from the fiddle yard, onto the main layout. Then, depending on the complexity, it may be handed over to another operator, or the same operator may drive it to its final destination at the other fiddle yard.
Fiddle yard operators generally have the additional tasks of: repairing damaged rolling stock, cleaning loco wheels, showing the latest loco to the watching public, expaining how it was built, making the tea, etc.... Thus leaving the layout operator to drive the layout in a prototypical manner.
N because of its small size is particularly suited to either train tables, or cassettes. Cassettes can be built from two pieces of brass angle and some ply. Fix the angle to the ply in such as way that the edges of the angle are at track gauge. Thus, the train can run on the edges of the angle. The sides of the angle act to stop wagons falling off when lifting the cassette:

       |            |   
       |__        __|   Angle
         XXXXXXXXXX     
         XXXXXXXXXX     Ply
          ^      ^
          |      |
Wheel run here & here
You will have to devise an electrical transfer to the cassette, and an alignment system to put it onto the yard. A stop at the ends of the cassette (falling gate or similar) is useful to stop trains rolling off the end.
With cassettes, you will probably be able to use fiddle yards of circa 3 to 4 feet long, unless your prototype trains were very lengthy.
Nigel.

Just moved house and am starting all over again... Doodling on paper has shown that I have enough space to do one of those Really Big Storage Areas on a big turntable thingies. Has anyone tried this? What are the pitfalls? Obviously the storage tracks have to enter on major diameters and get bent around, except for a straight one over the pivot. Can I make the entire thing on a disk (1.5 - 2m in diameter) or is this getting too big and heavy to swing? How do you get power to the sidings? How do you switch the power to the right siding?

I am also reconstructing my layout and considered the same thing but decided it was going to be more trouble than it was worth. My alternate plan (not yet built) is for a yard built on a sturdy cart (about 18" X 60") that can roll up to the edge or a layout. That will allow me to "turn" a train by turning the cart 180 degrees as well as make several carts that can hold multiple setups. You must allow for space to turn the carts as well as space to hold extra carts out of the way. Power to the "yard cart" will be via a quick disconnect plug. Also, my layout is intended to have 2 different points where a yard cart can hook up. This allows me to have yards at points where I am not able to incorporate a permanent large yard. With this approach, my yard is only limited by how many carts I want to build since I can store multiple carts in the room adjacent to my layout.
The trick will be to make an alighnment rig that will insure that any cart will line up properly with the track at the edge of the layout. I know I can do it ...just have not worked up the details yet. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has already used this approach.
Paul D

There have been a few articles lately referring to a version of this hinged at one end called a "sector plate". Uses the same length, just less width.
For the big turntable, there are pieces of furniture which have a ball-bearing arrangement in the center used for serving food, called Lazy Susans. That might be better for this load than anything you might make from scratch.
There have been a couple of articles about the movable yard cconcept; some folks dress it up as a car float barge.
Jeff

I'd suggest a series of boards four feet and about eight inches wide. Mount three tracks on the boards and use them like railroad barges. Use them to cycle car on and off your layout. A barge like the one described above will hold 18 to 24 car depending on weither you're using 40 or 50 foot cars.
Pairs of brackets on the walls of the layout room can be used to store the barges of cars. Also you want to mount a coupler to the end of the barges so the cars can be coupled on to them and thus won't roll off them.
Eric

Have a tunnel at each end that leads to a small fiddle track behind the scenery. After your guests are gone behind the scene and fiddle with the locomotive until it is turned around facing the other direction. In others words use your hands to turn it around. When someone comes to see it the locomotive comes out of tunnel into another one where it waits to be fiddled with :-)

Fiddle yards are extremely useful. You don't even need to waste space with lots of turnouts to parallel storage stracks if you make it a multi-track traverser, sector plate or turntable.

                           |==============================|
(main line)================|==============================|
                           |==============================|
                           |==============================|
                               ^                       ^
Traverser                      This bit slides backwards

A sector plate has a curved end where the sliding tracks meet the main line, and a pivot at the other end. All but one of the tracks on the plate are curved slightly otherwise they'll all meet at the pivot! Probably the easiest to build.
A turntable is like a sector plate with the pivot in the middle with both ends of the table curved and both ends of the tracks curved to line up with the main line. These need more space but if you're modelling a short line then a mogul or 4-4-0, a few 40 foot cars and a caboose will fit on a 2 foot turntable. Major advantage, you never have to handle your expensive custom-painted stuff.
Easy way to both lock the plate in position and supply power: use a small brass bolt beside the main line, with the "female" part the bolt slides into alongside eack track on the plate. Have the live feed via the bolt and a common return. Works nicely with all three types of fiddle yard mentioned.


One way of interchange with the outside world is with a car ferry. The car barge is about 18" long and the loading apron about 6" long. About 24 to 30" total. In a mountain railroad it could be on a lake that a car float dock at a different part of the lake which connects to a mail line railroad or a river docking facility. Paul Doakas (spelling) had an N scale plan a year or so ago in Model Railroader of a Canadian proto type that used a lake to lake car float in conjunction with a logging rr. GW.

I'm in the process of constructing a short traverser (18 inches long, to replace points at the fiddle yard throat only) for my exhibition layout.
What is the best thing for use as a bearing/sliding surface?
I currently have a dropped section in the 7mm plywood top, and a similarly sized ply plate to mount the track on. I need to put two layers of something between them so they slide easily. Any thoughts?
How about thin pieces of slippery plastic, like nylon, Delrin, etc?

The last thing you want on a fiddle yard traverser is a lack of friction! As long as the traverser slides smoothly - but not effortlessly - that is all you want. The friction is very useful to prevent the whole lot dissappearing off the end! Forget about Nylon, Delrin or any other forms of slippery plastic.

While it probably goes by a different brand name out your way, Abitibi paneling comes to mind. It has a hard, smooth, almost plastic-like finish on one side and a hardboard finish on the other. A custom layout-builder I know has used this as a sliding surface for traversers on several layouts, with one piece mounted to the traverser, and another to the base, with the smooth surfaces facing eahc other. I've often thought about designing a traverser that rode on drawer slides made with nylon wheels and aluminum track. ...or the filing drawer/office desk type with ball bearings.

More important than the sliding surface is to insure that the table doesn't cock in it's travel. This calls for some wires (model airplane U-control wire is good) to insure that as the table traverses along, it stays pointing in the proper direction. Second is that you will want an indexing mechanism to hold the table at any particular track and that can be a pointed rod that goes into a hole in the edge of the wall to index and hold the table in position.