Thoughts Wanted: layout staging-interchange yard

[Sumpter250]

Back to my original thought... the point-to-point ending at each side of the door is what I have invisioned since the inception of the layout building. The reason I like that is that the trains really are going to distinct locations, and for me, the overall "feel" of that is "appropriate"... I mean, it just feels good to me.

My thoughts on the interchanges: The interchange yards would be scenically complete and would be where cars come off of and go onto the layout. I would have storage drawers underneath. Between operating sessions, the cars leaving my railroad would be placed back in storage, and new cars would be placed on the interchange tracks based on some type of waybill system or whatever.

My other reason for suggesting "car ferry", was this; it would be a way of removing, and replacing cars on the layout (and an additional operation step) without a lot of "hands on", which can eventually lead to detail being damaged (I "hands on", place and remove all the time on the modular group layout....I gave up on detail a long time ago). At the same time, there's no permanent/semi-permanent door blockage, and no fiddling with lift bridge alignment.
Where you have a specific location in mind, that doesn't have car ferries, that becomes something that would require constant "explaining". :o