06-19-2010, 05:02 PM
You raise some good points, but if I may, let me present some contrariwise thoughts, just for discussion's sake.
Frank Ellison, one of the doyens of design and operation in the early days of the hobby, despite his interest in operation as theatre, never espoused staging. IN fact, he advised the reader to 'expose that shangri-la' or some such language.
And consider this disturbing proposition - to what does the hidden staging yard connect? Well, to the visible, scenicked portions of the railroad, of course. No, not that end, what about the other end? Well, it's in the operator's imagination that the staging yard is actually 'all points north' or some other fabrication we assign it for the play value of operations.
If it's an imagined place, then why not imagine trains going to a staging yard? In other words, save yourself the hassle of laying enough track to build your layout twice over (the turnouts alone are expensive!) with some sort of detection circuits or viewing device or crook'd neck bending over to look into the staging area. That much more track, especially if it's hidden, must be well maintained, no, bulletproof, to avoid the frustration of reaching under the layout to rerail errant rolling stock.
If your staging is normally visible (not stacked beneath the scenicked layout) then the area that was used for staging can then be used for additional customers to be served by rail, or a deeper scene with larger structures, or beautiful countryside, well, you get the picture. Anything but bare rail on naked plywood. And if you must have a staging yard, why not do like George Sellios did recently, and scenic it!
All this coming from a guy whose current layout build includes two hidden staging tracks that will be potentially difficult to access...but I have my reasons and that's another post for that thread perhaps.
Galen
Frank Ellison, one of the doyens of design and operation in the early days of the hobby, despite his interest in operation as theatre, never espoused staging. IN fact, he advised the reader to 'expose that shangri-la' or some such language.
And consider this disturbing proposition - to what does the hidden staging yard connect? Well, to the visible, scenicked portions of the railroad, of course. No, not that end, what about the other end? Well, it's in the operator's imagination that the staging yard is actually 'all points north' or some other fabrication we assign it for the play value of operations.
If it's an imagined place, then why not imagine trains going to a staging yard? In other words, save yourself the hassle of laying enough track to build your layout twice over (the turnouts alone are expensive!) with some sort of detection circuits or viewing device or crook'd neck bending over to look into the staging area. That much more track, especially if it's hidden, must be well maintained, no, bulletproof, to avoid the frustration of reaching under the layout to rerail errant rolling stock.
If your staging is normally visible (not stacked beneath the scenicked layout) then the area that was used for staging can then be used for additional customers to be served by rail, or a deeper scene with larger structures, or beautiful countryside, well, you get the picture. Anything but bare rail on naked plywood. And if you must have a staging yard, why not do like George Sellios did recently, and scenic it!
All this coming from a guy whose current layout build includes two hidden staging tracks that will be potentially difficult to access...but I have my reasons and that's another post for that thread perhaps.
Galen
I may not be a rivet counter, but I sure do like rivets!