Shadow yard

A shadow station is an element of a model railroad system.

This is a group of siding for complete trains , which is located under the actual landscape slab (in the shade) of the layout, in large layouts such as model railway clubs, sometimes in a separate room, whereby the access can be camouflaged as a tunnel in the mountains, for example which partly leads to the station with the help of a spiral track. There, several trains can be parked invisibly for the viewer by means of a track harp, in order to make the train operation more varied by temporarily parking and exchanging trains.

For example, an unloaded freight train can enter a mine , from which it leaves again with a load. In fact, these are two different trains that separate in the shadow station. Since a shadow station is usually not visible, the handling of the train operation should be automated. Relay technology was used for this in the past, but now electronic circuits ensure standardized operation. If the model railroad is controlled by a PC, the regulation of the train journeys in the shadow station is included there. An alternative is the installation of a simple surveillance camera , which transmits the image of the shadow station to a small monitor. Like a normal train station, the shadow station can be controlled via a track diagram interlocking.

A slightly different concept for moving and exchanging trains is the fiddle yard , which is deliberately built for manual intervention by the operator and is therefore also open and visible. Here, the order of the wagons in the train can be changed with minimal effort in order to make train operations more varied.