Fiddle yards
Fiddle yards are the most important ingredient of minimum
space layouts. They convert our small model scenes into work-
ing railways by representing the “rest of the world” beyond the
boundaries of the layout. Trains enter the visible part of the
model and leave it, bound for distant places — but they actu-
ally move to and from the fiddle yard, where cars, locos and
even whole trains can be swapped out, rearranged and gener-
ally juggled by hand, to get ready for their next entrance.
The most basic fiddle yard is just a couple of hidden tracks
where a backstage operator can work on the trains. In this
simple example the fiddle yard is hidden behind a row of in-
dustrial buildings. Trains make their entrance in the middle of
the modeled scene (a good space-saving trick) and proceed
to the town and station at the right. They exit by disappearing
behind the industrial buildings,
into the yard.
There are several ingenious de-
sign methods for persuading a
fiddle yard to furnish more op-
eration in less space (and often
with less handling required).
Here are the three most com-
monly used fiddle yard designs.
A sector plate
(or swing table)
is a length of track that is piv-
Minimum space layouts - 3
oted near one end, so it can switch from one approach track to
another, in a much smaller space than turnouts would need. In
this well-known plan, the sector plate is used to make possible
a G scale, 15-inch gauge layout in one square foot of area!
The transfer table
(traverser in
Britain) is a track or tracks on
a bridge that slides from side
to side to move between ap-
proach tracks.
Shortover Yard uses a transfer
table to eliminate a ladder of
switches and successfully mod-
el a busy HO switching yard in
just 33 by 6 inches.
A cassette
is a length of track
mounted on a movable base
with a small spring wire sol-
dered at the end of each rail to
transfer electricity. Clip it onto
any track at the edge of the vis-
ible layout.
Steve Bennett uses several cas-
settes to swap, reverse, and re-
arrange stock on his tiny 12 by
4 inches G9 industrial pike.
Lack of space need not stop
you from having a layout!
MRH-Sep 2014
