Staging: Think about it now or.....

[Ralph]

...think about it later. Unfortunately, I did the latter. I remarked in a recent threat that I regretted not having thought more about staging when designing my layout years ago. Don't get me wrong, I like my set up. It has a long continuous main line run, and I thought enough about operations potential to include a couple of good length sidings and several industrial spurs for my trains to work on...but I really didn't provide much of a way for trains to enter and exit my layout's territory. There wasn't a connection to the outside world.

Over the years several threads about operations and staging made me want to create those kinds of connections. My layout's construction didn't afford too many options, certainly not room for a multi-track staging yard, but I was able to find some places to add a track here or there that suggest trains come from "elsewhere".

My layout has some hidden track. Some of it is accessible behind my cement complex and its easily removed buildings. The tracks pictured here are part of the main line and a long siding. I can leave one train parked back there while another runs the circuit of the layout and then returns to stop on the hidden track. Then the second train can come out and do the same. This was really my only original provision for staging.



Since then I have added this branch line which was originally a spur serving the cement plant that ended before the current tunnel location. I can still operate it as a spur if I wish and ignore the extended track and tunnel. Most of the time, however, this staging track, which can accommodate a 12 car freight train, represents my road's connection to the B&M and the fictional Mayfield Yard where trains may originate or terminate.



Another later addition. The track with the freight cars is my connection to the Kings Port & Western. Unfortunately I could only make it long enough to hide four cars. I wish I could extend it to a small yard that would let me send out or receive three or four trains, but I'd have to cut a hole in my house and build an out building. I usually set up an outgoing train with the loco and lead cars visible waiting on this sidetrack for clearance to run over my PC track. Sometimes I'll run an RDC which easily hides on this staging track.



And another addition. The tunnel on the left is the main. The right side is a three foot long staging track that can also accommodate the RDC or small transfer runs.



Finally, perhaps my best staging, the car float yard at West Mill. I built this on a shelf with hinges so it folds down in case I need access to the back of the layout behind it. I can move ten cars onto the layout using the float. Transfer runs to Kings Port can be made from here which eventually disappear onto the hidden track behind the cement plant.



I guess the point of my post is to encourage people who are in the planning phase of their layout to think more about adding staging...and to assure modelers who didn't that they probably can still find some places to add staging with a little creativity.

Ralph

[nachoman]

A very useful post, and excellent advice.

[Gary S]

Ralph, excellent points and an interesting read with the photos. But dang it, I thought I was satisfied with my "on-the-layout" staging and fiddle yards with storage underneath. Now you have me thinking.

Since my freelanced shortline is called the Almeda Terminal And Gulf and is set in Houston, I need to take care of the "Gulf" part by having a branch which goes to Galveston. This could be accomplished well with a track that goes into a hidden area - and I think that would be pretty cool. It would give me an off-layout destination to sort cars for, and receive cars from.

AAARRRGGGHHH!!! I don't even want to think about it!

[doctorwayne]

Staging: Think about it now or........think about it later.

I guess the point of my post is to encourage people who are in the planning phase of their layout to think more about adding staging...and to assure modelers who didn't that they probably can still find some places to add staging with a little creativity.

Ralph

A good point to bring up, Ralph, and some nice illustrations of creative solutions. Staging, which is often hidden, is at least as important for most layouts as is the stuff which we model on the visible part of the layout. It allows your "world" to connect with all of the other layouts out there, and can be a great traffic generator without eating up a lot of layout space.

Wayne

[P5se Camelback]

Hey, Ralphie! (Norton to Cramden)

You make an excellent point which I hope those in the planning stages take heed of!

The whole "Beyond the Basement" concept, as it was called when I was getting back into the hobby after four in the Army and four in college, was championed by the likes of Allen McClelland (Virginian & Ohio) and Tony Koester (Allegheny Midland) and reading much of what they published helped form my thoughts about layout design. [The two of them were to me in my late twenties what John Allen was to me in my early teen years - I couldn't wait for the next magazine issue!] I had no real room to build a railroad at that time, and a string of "right-out-of-school" consultant design office jobs and the moving that went along with them didn't help, but I did build rolling stock (doing my best to stay in the time period I wanted to model - which required reading and research.) I did keep an eye out for the kind of locomotives I wanted (Wooten-fireboxed Camelbacks, hopefully in pairs and numbered several numbers apart to imply a larger number of units in a class of locomotives.) When I drove though upstate Pennsylvania (the area I wanted to model) I observed and photographed the countryside and the architecture of the area, all the while developing plans for a model railroad that included "interchange with neighboring roads," to reinforce the illusion of a miniature transportation system that dealt with shippers and receivers that were "Beyond the Basement."

The "Beyond the Basement" concept transcends the size or the style of a model railroad and that should be considered when in the planning stages. Full basement with four-track mainline and needing eight operators to run a session on a Tuesday night or a simple 18" wide shelf that hugs one wall in a small bedroom ... both (and everything in between) will be better served if consideration is given to the fact that your railroad does not exist on an island, all by itself (unless you are modeling Hawaii.) All railroads make connections with other railroads and so should yours (not "yours," Ralph - you've already got this figured out - but those in the planning stages!)

I've babbled on long enough, maybe too long. But ... think about "Beyond the Basement" and you won't regret it later on!

[ocalicreek]

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

[nachoman]

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

Nobody said staging has to be "hidden"

[doctorwayne]

While my staging is/will be in plain view and both well-lit and accessible, it's still intended to be "elsewhere". I can generate traffic to or from anywhere in North America, and by stacking it (there's another full yard to be built above the one shown), I get all of that in a space only 12' long and 20" wide. Even if I had used the space instead as an extension of the visible two-level layout directly across the aisle, there's no way that limited area could have afforded so many operational possibilities. It's also handy to the car storage shelves (beneath the lowest level), as most cars will cycle on or off the layout at this point.
[album]372[/album]

Wayne

[Russ Bellinis]

Ralph, excellent points and an interesting read with the photos. But dang it, I thought I was satisfied with my "on-the-layout" staging and fiddle yards with storage underneath. Now you have me thinking.

Since my freelanced shortline is called the Almeda Terminal And Gulf and is set in Houston, I need to take care of the "Gulf" part by having a branch which goes to Galveston. This could be accomplished well with a track that goes into a hidden area - and I think that would be pretty cool. It would give me an off-layout destination to sort cars for, and receive cars from.

AAARRRGGGHHH!!! I don't even want to think about it!

Gary the only reason to have staging yards on your layout is to have storage for excess rolling stock. You could run a track at one end going behind a large factory building to simulate the connection one way. A similar set up at the other end could go to the Galveston warf. The only reason to have a staging yard as such on your layout is if you have so many freight cars that you want to move some off the layout. What you could do in that case is make removable cassettes that would have holes drilled in the center of the tracks on each end to drop in a nail to keep cars from rolling off of the cassettes. The cassettes could then be stored on the walls around the room, and changed out to refresh the rolling stock on the layout.

[jim currie]

the last three of my layouts have had storage / staging yards (some thing needed if you have a large amount of rolling stock) one in the open(had a large room then) the last two under the layout ones(a bit of a pain as you might guess) the current plan is to have a 10 ft by 42 inch section on slides under the layout but it will be slid out to work on it or make up trains the big problem with this is alliment but as it only has one access track i found the answer in plan for a old turntable locking system (photo below) by having the first inch or so on the yard track real rigid it should work. and a solid lock on the slides.

jim

[Gary S]

Ralph, you did good starting this thread! Thank you. And great thoughts from everyone.

Russ, my plan from the start was along the lines of Galen's thoughts. I will have a scenicked Southern Pacific interchange yard on one end and a scenicked Santa Fe interchange yard on the other. The idea came from and is modeled after the prototype Modesto and Empire. So... cars that were headed "beyond the basement" to the SP railroad would make their way around the layout and be dropped off at the SP interchange. Then between operating sessions, I would remove those cars from the layout and place them in storage drawers, at the same type replensihing the interchange with new cars that were dropped off by Southern Pacific. Ditto for the SF interchange yard.

Galen, I just couldn't make myself devote so much space for a unscenicked hidden staging yard. To me, your commentary seems like a good way to avoid the staging yard "dungeon" and use that space for scenery and active operations.

Now, as I was working on the layout wiring, I was looking for a way to add the Galveston branch. I could do something at the approach to the peninsula, but I would have to put a new backdrop out from the wall for the trains to hide behind. That's one option, but it may be difficult to blend the new portion of the backdrop into the already painted sheetrock backdrop. Another option would be to hide it behind structures and large trees and whatever else I can think of.

Or, as Ralph has done and Russ mentioned, have the track go behind a large industry.

And... is there actually a such word as "scenicked" or "seniced"?

[faraway]

On a small layout like mine I understand the staging yard as a convenient kind of cassettes to get cars and engines on and off the scene.
The actual layout is more or less a switching layout to be feed with a short cut of cars to be delivered at various industries and to collect some cars to be picked up. That is the basic operation.
It is a pure technical question how I will get the engine with some cars into the industrial area and how I will get it out after switching.
My answer is a staging yard with four tracks and two short stub tracks. That provides a lazy way to have six engines with six cuts of cars at immediate access for a switching session.

ps. And yes, in case I am to tired to do switching it permits a run around I can watch end enjoy-

[P5se Camelback]

Gary ...
With a yard at either end of your industrial district, I believe you've got the "Beyond the Basement" interchange covered! Let's not get caught up in the "hidden" v "out in the open" debate ... the main tenet is interchange, however you choose to accomplish it. Besides, doesn't the Galveston Branch join your industrial district at or near one of the yards? Huh, huh? Of course ...! No need to try to cram track between the backdrop and the wall in "no access-land"! Keep on wiring ... you've got it all covered!

And Jim ... Nice drawing! The lever, the eccentric link, the slides ... I like it! I may use that arrangement where I designed in a scenicked "roll-away" section that will take the place of a hinged drop-down or swinging "gate." I'll need to lock it at both ends, but I designed the unususal removeable element because I'm not at all interested in a duck-under to get into my bedroom!*

And I can't find "sceniced" or "scenicked" any any of my four dictionaries or in the Encarta on-line dictionary either ... but the scenicked "roll-away" section of my layout is planned to include a bascule bridge crossing the Lehigh River between Weissport and Lehighton. There! In the dictionary or not, I'm still going to use it ... it's a model railroad-coined word!

* The Muscovy ducks out in the canal behind my house now have about twenty or so litlle ducklings who swim along in a tight bunch strung out behind Mama Muscovy ... very cute! And Ugly Papa Muscovy is VERY protective of "his woman" ... it's amusing to watch him chase off other interested males, running after them with his neck staight out, head near the ground as they hurriedly waddle away to escape his ire!


And ...HAPPY FATHERS' DAY!

[Gary S]

Gary ...
With a yard at either end of your industrial district, I believe you've got the "Beyond the Basement" interchange covered! Let's not get caught up in the "hidden" v "out in the open" debate ... the main tenet is interchange, however you choose to accomplish it. Besides, doesn't the Galveston Branch join your industrial district at or near one of the yards? Huh, huh? Of course ...! No need to try to cram track between the backdrop and the wall in "no access-land"! Keep on wiring ... you've got it all covered!

Thanks for keeping me sane, biL. I was just about to start cutting into sheetrock.

The Galveston branch could come off of one of the interchangesas you suggest. But, food for thought - on the middle wall, the "old" mainline exiting the middle yard is being converted into a long spur - was going to put a grain elevator there. It would be possible to extend that spur and let that be the Galveston branch, and just partially hide the track behind trees and houses near the peninsula. I think it would add operational interest in that any cars arriving from the SP or SF and destined for Galveston would be moved to the middle yard and held until a train was made up, then it could head off down the Galveston branch. Now, the track would only be around 12 feet long, but a fairly short train could actually travel a ways before stopping, hidden behind the houses and trees. Thinking... it isn't so much the actual Galveston branch track that appeals to me, it is the yardwork that would be necessary to assemble that train as cars came from the interchanges or from the layout industries. It just sounds like a really good idea.

Hmmm.... I could cut a hole in the wall at the peninsula per DocWayne's suggestion awhile back. Then the Galveston train could pass through the wall and "dissappear, albeit appearring on the other side... still partially hidden by trees and houses.

[ocalicreek]

Now that I've made a case for scenicked staging, let me throw a wrench in the works. If you can find one or perhaps have one already, there's an issue of Model Railroad Planning (I think...or maybe it was just a monthly MR) with Bill Darnaby's Maumee Route as a feature. The article was primarily about interchanges and crossings - active and otherwise, and how Bill acheived his design goals by including diamond crossings, hidden staging, visible staging, simulated crossings, etc. and all sorts of options for interchange. Perhaps there's some wisdom there that might help generate some ideas around staging.

And since this thread is still going strong, here's another consideration from my own experience. I will operate my current layout like a branch line with a connection to a logging line at the end of the branch. SO trains originate and terminate from a mainline connection somewhere off layout. If I had the room I'd have modeled that terminal with the mainline running East to West, and a hidden doubled ended staging yard simulating points east & west. Basically, a big loop with part of it a hidden yard. That way I could bring the branchline traffic in on a through freight and set it out, and vice-versa. But I don't have that sort of room so that big beautiful junction has to be simulated with a pair of tracks and a few drawers for rolling stock.

But the hidden tracks do add to the play value of the operations. I like scene-cerity, the idea that a train passes through a scene only once. Careful observation of my plan (see that thread pg. 6) will show that I really don't acheive that goal, as a train has to pass through a scene on the way out of staging and again on the way up the branch. But that's a tolerable tradeoff (I hope) for a longer run with three distinct towns on the visible portion of the layout.

On a previous layout the staging was hidden beneath the main yard, and never really worked the way I wanted it to...the layout was never truly 'operational' beyond continuous running and some switching before I went off to college. But even then I didn't like the amount of hidden trackage and I didn't do a good job of planning access. Had I stayed with it much longer I may have revised the plan considerably (tear it out and start over!)

Alrighty...time to get back to work on the layout.

Galen