Staging and fiddle yard.

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Can someone tell me what staging is? and What is a fiddle yard?

Newbie:)

Thanks,

-RC

2

staging is american term, fiddle yard is british term. they both mean the same thing.

Essentially, your staging yard (or fiddle yard), and you can have more than one, is basically, as most poeple call it “off-stage”, basically, when your trains are finished running on the layout, they go into staging, where they are supposedly going to far points at other ends of the line.

Also, you “park” your traisn here when they aren’t running, so you can have them ready to roll.

Anything I missed guys?

3

Read the write-up at this location:

http://macrodyn.com/ldsig/wiki/index.php?title=Staging_track_design

Mark

4

I consider a staging yard to be switching and moving cars around to build trains by using a locomotive. Has two or more tracks.

I consider a “fiddle yard” tp use your hands to remove and add cars physically to to your layout to make up trains. Can only be a single track.

I consider my shelf layout to have 2 “fiddle tracks”. One of them is part of the main line. There’s no yard lead, no ladder, etc.

5

RC,

These other fellas haven’t got it right. Use the link provided.

Mark

6

While indeed similar in ultimate purpose, my understanding is that the specific terms do usually indicate somewhat differing situations.

In the U.S., a “staging yard” refers to a space (often hidden from general view and perhaps more than one) with trackage for the storing of trains previously assembled for use in a layout’s operating session to enter the layout from, or a place to send operating trains to from the layout, in representation of them coming from and going off to distant, unmodeled, destinations. More often than not, the trains in the staging yard are not made up and broken down during the operating session in the case of a home layout (this may not prove to be the case for some larger club layout operating sessions).

“Fiddle yards” is a British term most often applied to a section off one end of a small public display layout (much like a single train show module here in the U.S.) hidden from public view by some form of view block, where the layout’s operator(s) is frequently assembling, re-arranging, or removing cars and trains that are going on and off the small visible portion of the layout all during the show. Once again, the ultimate function is to represent all destinations beyond the visible portion of the module/layout section.

In recent years, the difference between the two situations seems to have become increasing blurred, especially in the U.S. model railroading magazines.

CNJ831