staging yards???? Do you have to have one????

[cuyama]

I know when I read the above posts, my first thought was "But how big is their layout"?

Do you think that's valid?

Not really, in my experience. I've designed layouts as small as 1X6 in N scale that had staging (the car float and interchange track) ...

... and as large as about 25'X40' in HO that had none. This was a railfanning/display type of layout and while I think that staging would have helped it a lot, the owner didn't agree. He had zero interest in operations and wanted all his prized trains sitting around out in the open for all to see. (In my view, having some secluded staging, even on a railfan-style layout, is nice to vary the consists people see.)

So it's not size at all, IMHO, it's one's intentions for the layout. If you enjoy imagining your layout as interconnected with the rest of the world, staging helps. If you are interested in a variety of cars and engines on the layout at various times, staging helps. If you want to be able to use your visible yards for the extra fun and interest of making-up and breaking-down trains rather than being forever clogged as storage, staging helps.

Byron
Model RR Blog

[wjstix]

My last layout had basically one-track "staging". I run by myself, so at the end of an operating "session" I would prepare the next sessions train, like a wayfreight, and set it on the one track which went from an off-layout fiddle/storage area to the mainline. The train would eventually go thru a reverse loop, and head back to staging where it would be manually broken down and a new train made up. The layout before that had something similar, but it was on the layout itself - basically a long siding parallel to the mainline, and within easy reach of my storage tracks.

Since my new layout is going to have more trackage and will be able to run two trains at a time(and because I have more space now), I'm planning on maybe a 4-5 car staging track with storage underneath it.

[pastorbob]

Layout, 3 decks, size 28' by 33'.  Because of the area of the Santa Fe I am modeling, I use 5 staging yards.  First is Oklahoma City south and north.  8 tracks. Also have two yards, Nowers and Flynn yards, both visible and working.  Arkansas City staging 7 tracks.  Arkansas City and Oklahoma City stagings are in a "mole hole" area but different levels, trains are removed and added for both yards in the "hole".

Third staging is Waynoka Okla, a visible 8 track staging area.  Fourth is the Oklahoma Northern staging at Cherokee, 3 tracks (freelance regional).  Fifth is Tulsa Cherokee Yard on BN, 6 tracks.  This yard is also reachable from the "mole hole" area.

In addition, the UP (ex CRIP) at Oklahoma City has a stub end hidden siding for staging.  The BN at Oklahoma City also has a hidden siding for staging.

About it.

[wm3798]

Having some sort of staging will add infinitely to your interest in running trains whether you're a train order and time table guy or a roundy rounder.  Just having the ability to swap one train for another makes it more fun to watch your trains go.

As was described earlier, if you are modeling any kind of through operations, staging makes it possible to run a more complete schedule of trains.  I have an 8 track staging yard, and once I got it hooked into the main line, I was able to do far more with my layout, and increase the "play" value infinitely.  Between it and the "live" yard I have, plus a couple of sidings on the layout proper, at any given moment I can call upon any one of over a dozen trains that are ready to roll.

Having a staging yard is also good for stimulating the economy, since you'll have to buy many, many more freight cars!

Lee 

[wedudler]

My staging yard has 12 tracks. It serves for two destinations.

Wolfgang 

 

[jamnest]

I model the Kansas City Southern (Kansas City area and south in 1981.  The KCS Knoche Yard a..k.a. Joint Agency Terminal is the northern terminus of the Kansas City Southern and is shared with the Milwaukee and serves as the southern terminus for the Milwaukee.  My layout will model a condensed version of this yard.  The KCS and MILW lines out of Kansas Citer were primarily bridge lines with not much switching. I will make up both KCS and MILW trains in Kansas City and send them out over the line to staging.

I am constructing a large layout using modular (domino) sections.  It will take years to complete the layout so I have constructed two four track (1' x 16') modular staging yards which are at each end of the layout.  As I add on to the layout I just move the staging yards.

I will also have several small staging yards to represent some of the lines (ATSF, BN, CNW, ICG, KCT, MKT, MP, NW, SSW, UP) which interchange with the KCS in Kansas City.  These yards will be variable in assignment.  If a friend comes over to operate and is a UP fan, then one of these yards will be the UP and bring cars on the layout to interchange with the KCS/MILW.

I also like to just watch trains roll.  In between operating sessions I can pull a train out of staging; run it arround the layout; and park it in staging; without disrupting the set-up for an operating session.

Do you have to have a staging yard?  NO, but I believe they enhance layout operations.

[jecorbett]

Just a thought:
I think it's very important here to make your pro or con points by saying how large your layouts are.
If you are indeed only one operator or maybe two, it can make a big difference on whether or not
staging is a given or a druther for you or for a new builder to decide if it's essential for the minimum space the have available to build.

I know ideally, we'd all love LOTS of staging whether hidden or not but...

I know when I read the above posts, my first thought was "But how big is their layout"?

Do you think that's valid?

I am in the process of building a very large layout (46x26). One thing I have learned already is no matter how much space you have, it is not enough. Model railroad real estate is precious and staging yards requires devoting a good percentage of that real estate to it. Larger layouts will probably require more staging capacity although not necessarily proportionally. There are a number of tricks which can reduce the amount of space needed for staging. One way is by stacking staging yards on top of each other or put the staging yard beneath the visible portion. This does raise issues with the grade required to bring the trains to the visible portion and as a previous poster pointed out, if you use just the minimum clearance for the lower staging yard, you can have problems with access and visibility. Another trick is to put the staging yard behind a viewblock such as a hill or row of buildings. By doing so, the staging yard will share the length with a visible portion of the layout and only require some additional width.

Without staging, the modeler must imagine that the trains have arrived in his visible yard at some time before the operating session began and departing trains will leave after the session. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Imagination is a prerequisite for this hobby. A staging yard allows the modeler to actually make those incoming and outgoing movements rather than imagining they have happened. It also allows arrival and departures to occur during the operating session. This greatly increases then number of trains that can be run during a giving session. Simply put staging yards increase the operating capacity of a layout at the cost of some real estate. For me that's a good trade off but everyone's situation is different. Staging might actually be more important on smaller layouts since it can greatly increase the number and variety of trains that can be run.

[trainnut1250]

Staging is good for one other reason than operation:  Simple car storage.  Consider that in HO one car, is half a foot long minimum.  Consider the idea that you may be building cars for many years.  20 cars is ten feet, 100 cars is 50 feet etc.  If you keep the same layout over many years, you can easily fill up all of your storage space with cars...

 

Guy

[tomikawaTT]

why do car numbers have to be used?.  --snip--

 only reason it should go by car numbers is reefers of perishalbes. Or load the cars as they are assembled on a train?

If the object is to model the business of railroading, the CONTENTS of each car are important.  It wouldn't be a clever idea to have a carload of red fuming nitric acid adjacent to a carload of hydrazine.  (If you want to know why, google Titan II explosion.)  The only way to operate accurately is with car cards and waybills, and the thing that ties the system together is the uniqueness of each car number - especially when the yard contains a dozen identical boxcars with a dozen different loads, some just as incompatible as the example above.

Cars are not loaded as they are placed in a train.  They are loaded by shippers (and unloaded by receivers) and only transported from loading point to unloading point by the railroad.

Of course, if prototype operation isn't your thing, you don't have to do this - but please bear in mind that other people DO.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with LOTS of staging)

 

[markpierce]

Without trying to repeat previous advantages given for staging yards, I'll add my two cents to the collection plate.

Staging yards are very useful for passenger train operations, particularly for class-1 railroads.  Passenger trains didn't/don't start or originate in most yards, so the modeled yard probably shouldn't have passenger trains start or originate there either.  The staging can represent the distant origination and destination of those trains.  Even if your yard represents the start or end of the passenger-train route, unless you have a coach yard and other facilities modeled to support these activities (rare because most layouts provide room for just for freight yards), the staging can still represent the passenger yard. 

Mark

 

[Butlerhawk]

Can someone post a layout design showing a staging yard? Thank you.

[tomikawaTT]

Can someone post a layout design showing a staging yard? Thank you.

There are a couple on the preceding page of this thread, one with a photo.

If you are a Model Railroader subscriber, check the track plan data base in your newsletter.  I entered, "Staging yard," in the search block and got seven hits.

Staging, simply stated, is any place where a train can be held out of sight until it is needed for operation.  It can be as simple as the back half of the loop on a tabletop roundy-rounder, or as complex as the trackwork of New York's Grand Central Terminal at its zenith.  (Since the GCT throat and fan are all hidden under streets and buildings, they could be considered a prototype staging yards.  The main doesn't surface until it's several miles north.)

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with LOTS of staging)

[markpierce]

Layout plans with staging yards are ubiquitous.  For instance, the latest (July) issue of Model Railroader contains two track plans with staging.  See pages 57 and 63.

Mark

[Capt. Grimek]

Byron and Jeff,
I see your points.

Mark's point about passenger car staging is something that's even harder to "imagine away" than hiding freight cars in on layout yards.

My question about referring to the size of our layouts pertained to things like considering whether or not we had room for a helix or a long enough grade to be able to make use of under the bench work staging yards, etc.- to accomplish what others are doing. I thought that it might serve to clarifiy things a bit..when considering the validity our choices on how to accomplish/make room for staging on smaller layouts, especially for newbie builders.

[4merroad4man]

Without getting into a long convoluted answer, staging is dependent upon some specific items:

1. Overall layout size and number of trains to be handled per session

2.  Availability of a central yard or division point

3.  Prototype or freelance operation

4.  Number of available operators

5.  Method of operation

Overall layout size will to a certain extent, detrmine space available for staging and act as one of several factors influencing need.

If a central yard or double ended division point style yard is available in which to build and yard trains, a little imagination goes a long way to reducing or eliminating staging needs.

If your operation follows a specific prototype, then train frequency and other operational factors are pretty much locked in and will help dictate staging requirements.  Freelanced operations have much more flexibility in this regard.

The number of people available to man "must fill" jobs like a staging yardmaster will also determine whether staging is viable.  Also staging or fiddling helps determine trackage required.  I have built as many as 15 trains in a 4 hours session on a moderate sized layout with one and one only fiddle track at one end.  Those trains terminated in another fiddle track at the other end, where they were promptly removed and new trains built.

I teach timetable and train order operation to others, and it is essential for some layouts to have staging yards in this form of operation.  Other, less time consuming or complex methods of operation do not require the additional support structures, or as many support structures.  Hidden staging can buy time for a dispatcher to issue or annul train orders, or for trains to register by ticket, etc.  Where staging is combined with a separate visible yard in TT&TO operations, it tends to keep the visible yard fluid.

Staging should be a goal for all, but as pointed out earlier, it is not a necessity for some.  Generally from what I have experienced, in lieu of staging, a very vivid imagination is required.

[wedudler]

Here you're:

More at my staging site. 

Wolfgang 

[BN Man]

 I have a 2x11 switching layout that has a two track yard "staging area" for setouts and pickups. Call it what you want, but I think it's a must for a good running operation.

[Grand Skunk Conductor]

You might look into a hinged staging area that folds down when not in use. You would have to stock it when doing a session but that's not a big thing.

[HEdward]

All the world's a stage! 

 Seriously, I'm planning on enough staging to hide all the trains when the layout is not in use. My local could then run around and return to the main in the opposite direction whence it came.  Staging opens the layout to being a part of the rest of the universe.  Best track planning idea since pencil and paper.  Even a small logging line needs a connection, unless your sawmill is shipping everything via those nasty truck things.

[jecorbett]

You might look into a hinged staging area that folds down when not in use. You would have to stock it when doing a session but that's not a big thing.

I seem to remember quite a while back, one of the magazines showed a layout with liftout staging tracks. These liftout sections had guard rails so after the train arrived on the staging track, it could be lifted out with the train in place and then stored on a shelf until it was time for it to make its return appearance. It also meant the entire train could be turned without a space eating loop and the capacity of such and arrangement would be limited only by shelf space.

[Autobus Prime]

Folks:

The thing I don't like about staging in the "whole op session" way is that all that costly equipment just sits there. I prefer to reuse trains. I.E. Train 40 WB comes out as Train 17 EB.

My V&E layout is very small, with low-key operations. I have a sneak-off track which is going to go to some sort of fiddle yard, to stage up a few through trains, but up to now I have been delivering my few overhead cars to the NYC and picking up strikingly similar cars from the B&O at the other end, which, as it happens, is the other end of the very same runaround track. It strains the brain less than one might think.

MR had a 4x8-with-shelf layout last year in which spacetime was warped in this manner. I found it inspiring. Single pieces of track had multiple uses, trains had multiple identities, depending where in the "script" the operator was. You can get a ton out of a small layout that way.

[CNE Runner]

Hey Chris,

I have a fold-up layout (11'x30") in my garage and have been perplexed about including some sort of staging yard. Being a fan of shunting puzzles, staging is necessary to add a bit of realism to operations. Location in a garage means that any type of staging must be removable. Your answer to the original post was an inspiration to me...a cart. So simple, yet it somehow eluded me. Not only did you give some assistance to the original poster...you aided my meager efforts.

Thanks!

Ray

[mike_ruby]

Yes, I would fit as much storage space as possible, especially if you want to run trains, it makes train operation much easier. My layout is only 11' x 10', I managed to fit 3x 22' loops around the outside of the layout, which are now hidden by removable scenery. I also added another short loop at one end to take a small passenger train. The main loops usually contain either one long train or two shorter trains, giving a max of 7 trains. I position trains using CCTV cameras.

Here are some photos of the yard before being covered and from two of the cameras.







Mike Ruby

[Marty on Vancouver Island]

Tony Koester once said something like this about staging: "Whatever number of staging tracks you think you need, double that number and add one."

The first "Maine Central's West End" layout had 6 staging tracks, varying in length from 7 to 10 feet. After I moved and commenced re-assembling the layout, I lengthened the staging tracks by about 28 inches and added three additional tracks. I have since added two more run-through tracks and three stub-end tracks. If I had applied Tony's formula from the start.....

Cheers, Marty on Vancouver Island

 

[ChristopherBlackwell]

mic staging.

Cassettes where short trains get stored

Regards,

Charlie Comstock 

 

I am planning on building a 20 foot by 20 foot building for my layout. So I expect t have at least 60 feet of mainline, but it will be a small and rather sleepy narrow gauge railroad and it is designed basically as a one man railroad. So one train on the line at a time. So for simplicity sake I will probably go with the Cassettes.

The next train will be set in place on the next cassette and some will be used for storage of other future trains. I only have two locomotives and 1 real but small yard. There will be only two towns on the line, and number of flag stops whose use may be seasonal at best. My longest train most likely will only be six cars long which in HOn30 means about three feet long, so a cassette makes a great deal of sense.

It eliminates having a lot of space tied up by a reversing loop and keeps the wiring simple. Very good for a person building his first layout. Once the first town is built operations will start. Every extension of track will increase operations, both as a place to off load freight to wagons but also for constructions trains. I expect the layout to build section by section.

[Beowulf]

Forty years ago, before staging was widely popular, I knew a fellow who got the same effect by having a number of interchange tracks on his layout.  Each interchange track was near the edge of the layout and each was accompanyed by one or more drawers (from old furniture) under the edge of the layout.

Between operating session he would switch the cars or entire train on each interchange track.  He had it planned in such a way that after eight monthly operating sessions, much of his equipment would have rotated through the drawers.

[jfrank138]

My hobby hero remains the late Frank Ellison who set the standard for operating and scenic realism during the 1940s with his O-Scale Delta Lines.  Regarding hidden trackage he once wrote "For the luvva Pete, man, tear out those tunnels and bring the trains into view."  (Quoted from memory -- he actually was much more poetic.)

Ellison's writings have influenced my O-Scale railroad now under construction (around the walls in a room about 16 x 32 feet).  The design eschews staging yards, helixes, and other modern "musts" and substitutes my imagination.  As on the Delta Lines I even will allow a train to pass through some scenes more than once, thus violating the principle John Armstrong called "sincerity."  I am adopting some of Ellison's theatrical sleights-of-hand to make it work for me (I am a lone-wolf operator.)

I guess some of this is my reaction against what I see as a "too literal" approach to the hobby.  I don't object to that approach -- it's fine for others but it ain't what I am doing.  To each his/her own.

Ain't this stuff fun?

John 

[HEdward]

It's the age old argument, show off the trains or operate the railroad.  I'm going for both.  That's just me.  Do we need DCC?  Do we need sound?  Do we need staging?  Do we need turntables, roundhouses, water tanks, sanding towers, coaling tipples, diesel service tracks, operating signals, cabooses, train crews(in the loco's cab and the caboose) and DINOSAURS?

Can a railroad have a function without connecting to the outside world?  Maybe.  Can yours?  That is the question.  Wether running a train off the layout(removing interchanged cars using those two 0-5-0 switchers God gave you for your birthday)and putting them in a drawer, or simply sitting them in a hidden track, your railroad business is part of a larger world.

Now if we get together and lease that 190,000 sq ft warehouse and build our Z scale monster, maybe we can model a large enough universe not to need staging.  We'll do that right after we figure out how to get that Moose off the IRT.

[markpierce]

A long-ago layout of mine had both staging tracks and a second deck.  That was back in 1964 when in high school.  This was based on John Armstrong's suggestions.

Mark

[ChrisNH]

Another trick is to put the staging yard behind a viewblock such as a hill or row of buildings.

I have been considering exactly that for my staging. Could some folks who use that form of staging comment on the difficulty of using it.. that is.. having to deal with a staging yard that is set up behind a view block or low backdrop which is in turn behind the operating portion of the layout?

My concern is that a yard hidden back like that will not be very ergonomic. Put another way, a pain in the butt to work with the trains and the track back there. I do like how it would let me use the back wall of my layout and save areas with aisle space for sceniced portions.. and that I can probably use a mirror on the cieling to see trains moving in and out by looking up.

Right now I am looking at modeling a very slow bridge line I can operate alone or with a disinterested relative, but a little artist license would allow me to make it as busy as I like if I find some more people to share the hobby with me locally. 

Thanks,

 

Chris