Talk to me about staging - Printable Version

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Talk to me about staging - nomad - 02-14-2009

This will be my first layout with staging ( maybe ). My garage layout will be point to point with staging at both ends. The staging yards will be stub ended with run around crossovers. Now, I make my first staging run, switch some industries and an interchange along the way, go to staging and run around the train. To me, that train will now be "unworkable" going back. Am I correct on this, does the whole train need to be turned? Or am I overlooking the obvious? Also, would there be a train at each staging yard, or would one run back and forth between the two? I think what I am really asking is how do you use staging?
Any info would be a big help.

Loren

Re: Talk to me about staging - BR60103 - 02-14-2009

What you have in your staging will depend on how you conceive operating the layout. Some designs look on a session as being a play -- the actors are offstage, make their entrances and exits and then go to their destinations. After the audience leaves, they are reset to their starting points.
Other people run a train through the session and leave it in the exit staging and bring it back as ts opposite number in the next session.

Re: Talk to me about staging - steinjr - 02-15-2009

nomad Wrote:This will be my first layout with staging ( maybe ). My garage layout will be point to point with staging at both ends. The staging yards will be stub ended with run around crossovers. Now, I make my first staging run, switch some industries and an interchange along the way, go to staging and run around the train. To me, that train will now be "unworkable" going back. Am I correct on this, does the whole train need to be turned? Or am I overlooking the obvious? Also, would there be a train at each staging yard, or would one run back and forth between the two? I think what I am really asking is how do you use staging? Any info would be a big help.

Loren

For whatever it is worth, there are no hard and fast rules here. You use staging In whatever way you can think of to support the illusion of trains going from your layout to "somewhere else" and/or coming from "somewhere else" onto your layout.

In some pattern that works for whatever you want to model, fitting within whatever space you have available.

This is my layout:

[Image: warehouse42.jpg]

It is a small layout, with very little staging. What I have is there is a cassette that can hold an engine and five 40-foot cars to try to support the illusion that short transfer runs consisting of a small diesel engine and 4-5 cars arrives from "nearby yards or industries" or departs for "nearby yards and industries" once in a while.

Using a cassette allows me to swap in or out an entire train - just grab the cassette (gently) and move it over to a shelf above my layout containing a handful of staging tracks and let the short train run from the cassette to one of the staging tracks on my shelf, or from the shelf onto my cassette.

It also allows me to turn the entire train - either after it's run from the layout onto the cassette or before it's run from the cassette onto the layout, by turning the cassette around (again - slowly and gently Goldth).

To save place, I have placed the cassette in such a way (across the door) as to allow it to be used as staging from either end of my point to point layout (or to allow continuous running when I want that).

My setup allows me to swap trains in and out. At the expense of having to manually handle every single train that leaves for "somewhere else" or arrives from "somewhere else".

I also plan to stage trains on the visible layout before operations - like having a train on the curve on the right end of the room that has "just arrived from the west" and is waiting to enter the area at the top of the layout, and one train on the middle track along the bottom left of the layout, also having "just arrived from the east". Likewise, a session can end with a train "just about to depart for the east" and another "just about to depart for the west".

In short - a little can go a long way if you just think of staging as "somewhere else" while running trains, and if you are prepared to do a little pre-staging or re-staging before you start your session, or even a little "fiddling" (manual handling of trains in staging) during a session.

As for your question. A couple of ideas for your point to point layout with single ended staging on both ends:

You can simulate a train coming from left staging, going through the layout, and disappearing off into right staging, and that's it for that train for that session.

Before the next session you could then either back the train over the visible layout back into the staging it originally came from - ie "re-stage" the train between session, getting it ready for it's appearance during your next operating session. Or you can turn the train in some way in right staging, so during the next session it will make an appearance as a train going in the opposite direction.

Or you could e.g. have staging represent a branchline without the ability to run the engine around it's train - so the train will (after a decent interval spent "doing something down the branchline") back out of staging onto the visible layout, before doing a runaround move on the visible layout and heading back into the staging where it came from initially, either doing some work on the way back (e.g. switching spurs that were facing spurs going the initial way) - in the same session.

Or you could "fiddle" (handle manually) the train in staging before it comes back onto the layout - e.g. swapping out or running around engines, swapping cars and/or cabooses or turn the entire train around, before your train makes a reappearance going in the opposite direction through your layout - either pretending to be another train or pretending to be the same train returning from somewhere else.

No matter what you do - try to include as many and as long staging tracks as at all possible - it makes it possible for you to run longer operating sessions before you have to do something in staging.

With e.g. 6 single ended staging tracks of suitable length on each end of the layout (and a place where trains can pass each other on the visible layout), you could run as much as 12 trains before you have to re-stage or fiddle or otherwise deal with trains in staging. That allows you to concentrate on running trains on the visible layout rather than on how to work trains in staging all the time.

A couple of other neat ideas with staging (if you have the space to do so):

Shared double ended staging is often a neat idea that increases flexibility, if you can configure your layout in such a way that the same staging tracks are connected both to the east and west end of your layout. Then same tracks represents both "east staging" and "west staging", and a train that run from "east staging" through the visible layout and into "west staging" then immediately is ready for a new run out from "east staging" - either later in the same operating session or for the next session.

X factor staging (and idea popularized by Byron Henderson in Model Railroad Planning a few years ago) - having east and west staging facing each other across crossovers, like this:

[Image: x-factor.jpg]

Allows you to take a train that headed into west staging engine first and back it across to east staging, where it will be ready for a new appearance as a train coming from the east - either in the same session or in the next session.

Lots of options. What will work for you depends on what kind of traffic you want to model, and how many comprimizes you will have to make to fit in what you want in the space you have.

Smile,
Stein

Re: Talk to me about staging - Puddlejumper - 02-15-2009

My thoughts for staging on my planned urban Baltimore-Washington layout are simple, I want to use a single large yard with one end representing Potomac Yard, and the other end representing Bayview. The yard would be operated as 2 stub end yards during operations but allow for continuous running if need be and eliminate the need to "turn" through trains or restage them for the next session.

FWIW
Dave

Re: Talk to me about staging - nomad - 02-15-2009

Thanks guys. I have read everything I could find about staging, but they mainly talk about design, not how to actually operate.
BR, I like your thinking. Due to the size of my layout and number of industries, I think one train a session is all the layout could handle.
Steinjr, I like your trackplan ! That X factor staging looks great, and I have read about it, but I just don't have the room Nope
Puddlejumper, Your layout sounds like fun, but I only have room for a point to point run. My wife has gained weight from all the candy and stuff I have bought her, but she won't leave her car outside Wallbang

Loren

Re: Talk to me about staging - Ralph - 02-15-2009

Hi Loren,

Sometimes I wish I'd designed my layout to be point to point with hidden staging at each end. You could have a train run in each direction if your staging yards at either end had just two tracks. Set up trains on the "East" and "West" end. Run the "East bound" and park it on the siding next to the "westbound". Then send the "West bound" out. Actually, with two staging sidings at each end you could run three trains across the layout. Once those tree trains were run you'd have to manually locate the locomotives to the front if each train for the next operating session.

Ralph

Re: Talk to me about staging - nomad - 02-15-2009

Hi Ralph.
Right now that is the way I have my track plan. But would I have enough industries to handle three trains? I have 9 industries planned.

Loren

Re: Talk to me about staging - steinjr - 02-15-2009

nomad Wrote:Hi Ralph.
Right now that is the way I have my track plan. But would I have enough industries to handle three trains? I have 9 industries planned.

Loren

Nothing preventing you from having trains that just run through your layout without doing any switching on the visible part of the layout.

Or to have trains that stop on the way across the layout to drop off a small block of cars on a siding or pick up a small block of cars from a siding before continuing. And then those cars will be picked up by another train or by a local switcher later.

Tony Koester has a good book on starting operations called "Realistic Model Railroad Operations", which gives some examples of how you can set up train traffic through a small town. His town (named "Wingate, Indiana") has just four small industries - a small town coal dealer, a local fertilizer dealer, a team track and an elevator, plus a small passenger depot.

But he sets up an operating scheme which sees westbound local no 45 switching the town, clearing the main to let eastbound through train no 42 past, then later having westbound through train no 41 and eastbound through train no 48 pass through town, along with doodlebug passenger trains no 9 and 10. That's 6 trains through this one little town in one operating session Goldth


Smile,
Stein

Re: Talk to me about staging - doctorwayne - 02-15-2009

While my layout is not yet fully built to the point where trains can be operated totally in the manner intended, the premise is that it's a point-to-point-to-point with staging at all three ends (double staging, actually, at the south end).

Here's the south and west end staging yards - the main south yard is the the upper level, with five stub-end tracks, and an additional two tracks immediately below, (with the string of reefers, just beyond the post) representing an industrial district. On the lowest level (with the train of loaded hoppers on it) is the west end staging. This is meant to represent an interchange with the TH&B, and access is via a lift-out at the room's entrance - immediately across the aisle is GERN Industries, in Port Maitland.
The north end staging yard will be built directly above south staging (the bit of backdrop visible at far upper right will be at track level) and access will be via another lift-out across the entrance aisle - I'm planning on five or six tracks here, all stub-ended. There will also be a modelled interchange with Mister Nutbar's CNR on the upper level - this will be a single stub-ended track leading to another room, making it, I guess, a fifth staging area.

[album]372[/album]

Because I usually operate solo (that may change when all trackwork is in service), all trains are operated in sequence - I select a train (possibly using a timetable Wink ) then run it either to its destination or to a suitable passing siding, where it can be parked while I operate another train. Pretty-well all trains will have en route switching to do, so a single train may require an entire operating session to complete its run.
Once a train reaches its destination, either one of the interchange points or a staging yard, it will be considered either "gone elsewhere" or "arrived". The same train will not appear again. All of the cars will be removed from the layout and returned to their boxes (stored beneath the layout), leaving only the loco and caboose, which can then be turned either on either a wye or a turntable. (That's why there are no crossovers or escape tracks required in any of the staging areas.)
Operation will be with car cards and waybills, which will determine which cars and how many will be selected to make up the next trains out of staging.
Because my layout is multi-level, I was able to save a lot of space by stacking the staging yards, but, of course, this is not an option for a single level layout.

Wayne

Re: Talk to me about staging - LynnB - 02-15-2009

A few years back I had posted this same sort of topic in a different forum and a great modeler and friend had posted this reply :
"
Snap whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr sssssssssssssssssss click click click.

OK Wick, I took the bait.

Let's take your own model railroad for an example. You will have the same trains running around and around switching the same cars over and over. That becomes boring after a while and you will wish you had more variety. That is where staging comes in handy.

Here is how it works in it's simplest form.

Assume you had an extra room in your house next to your layout room. A room where you can store whole trains full of fresh cars ready to run onto your layout via a tunnel through the wall.

These fresh trains could tour your layout picking up and setting out cars and then returning back to that extra via a second tunnel.

Operation would be more like the real world, where a train enters your town, takes care of business and leaves.

Many possibilities open up with this hidden train staging room. For instance, a passenger train, log train or ore train may pass over your layout on it's way to other destinations.

Or, you may have a coal yard on your layout, but no coal mines to serve it. The coal hoppers have to come from somewhere, right? In this case the coal hoppers would come from hidden staging where one can assume there must be coal mines.

In other words, staging allows you to expand your railroad into the rest of the unmodeled world.

I believe staging got it's name from a modeler that once described layouts as stages where the actors were the trains. We see this on television all the time. The scene remains the same but actors enter and leave the scene while the play continues.

Our railroads can be operated the same way if we have doors (tunnels) where actors (trains) can enter and leave the "scene" we have modeled.

I hope this helps you out a bit.

Doug
"

I hope this helps somehow , it sure helped me, which is why I built a staging yard on a lower level of my layout with a fully automated reverse loop and seven staging tracks and the main rail coming from the staging comes onto the upper level from a mountain tunnel ( stage curtain ). I might add this is why I believe a layout should have a purpose so that the train has reason to run. Cheers

Re: Talk to me about staging - shortliner - 02-15-2009

Do a search on the MR index site for an article called "Shift Time" by R Thomas Cole, and get hold of a copy - MR April 1983 page 88 - you work a shift, and then go home - things happen when you aren't there, and when you come back on your next shift a new set of cars await you to be delivered - they are, of course, the ones you left to be picked up by the overnight train - interesting concept!
Shortliner (Jack) away up here in the Highlands

Re: Talk to me about staging - doctorwayne - 02-15-2009

In conjunction with what Lynn and Jack noted, staging and en-route switching can keep your railroading operations interesting and ever-changing. Most of my trains arriving at their destinations will look very different from when they left their original staging yard, having picked-up and dropped-off cars along the way, either at industries or interchanges. Even passenger trains will set-out cars to be picked-up by other trains.
And while some freight will move between modelled industries, the bulk of it will either arrive from or be shipped to "elsewhere", with some just "passing through". Wink Misngth

Wayne

Re: Talk to me about staging - nomad - 02-15-2009

Thank you everyone. A lot of information to digest, but now I know what I am going to do.

Loren

Re: Talk to me about staging - LynnB - 02-15-2009

nomad Wrote:Thank you everyone. A lot of information to digest, but now I know what I am going to do.

Loren
Great to hear Loren, always willing to help.

Re: Talk to me about staging - Russ Bellinis - 02-18-2009

Loren, I'm presuming that you are still in the planning stages on the layout thread you started in this forum. That plan was for a branch line. It depends on what you want to do, but often a branch line will originate on a main and just go to the end of the branch with no connection at the other end. In that case you would only use staging at one end of the layout, and train would leave staging, and go to the end of the branch setting out loads and empties and picking up loads and empties to go back to off layout staging. I think the operating system of many railroads would be to work only trailing point switches when possible. You would then work all trailing point switches going out. Using your original track plan as an example, your branch would end on the far end of the upper level. When your train gets to the end of the branch, uncouple the engine, and run around, uncouple and pick up the caboose. The train would be on the inside track at the end of the branch. You would then drop the caboose at the tail track of the run around. Go back and pick up the train at the other end, pull it out and hook up to the caboose. As you go back down the branch to the main, you would work all of the sidings that you missed on the way up, which would all be trailing point on the way down. If you are running diesel power, you might want to run a pair of engines coupled back to back, and the "crew" would change locomotives to go back down; so that the crew is always going forward in the lead locomotive. If you are running small steam, you might want to incorporate a small turntable to turn the engine on. I think a lot of small branch lines had a turntable at the end of the line in the steam era to turn the engines around for the return trip.