I am looking at hidden staging tracks for my N&W/Southern layout. I want both east and west staging yards. Most trains will be about 15-20 cars long (55 ton hoppers). I plan to run an occasional passenger train, probably one each direction. The mainline line will be about 150 feet with a yard and roundhouse with a turntable some where in the middle. I do not know how many trains I would operate in an operating session, Nor the number of operators, although I am thinking of one yard crew and 4 mainline crews along with a dispatcher. Suggestions? One concern is height above the hidden staging tracks which also leads to the question of depth (aka number of tracks). At the moment, It looks like about 9-12 inches of height.
The type of staging yard has an impact here; a double-ended yard or a balloon loop lets the same train roll out again later, acting as if it were another train. Stub-ended yard tracks, or separate staging yards at each end of the route, limit each train to making a single appearance (unless you have a staging yard operator whose job is to “turn” each train by swapping engines and caboose so that the train can exit again). My own staging yards are stub-ended, one east and one west, and for capacity’s sake I stacked them… thus no chance of through running! Except that I did think ahead and included one track that runs around the perimeter and rises to connect one level to the other. But this is more for continuous running, and doesn’t really help any given train to pose as two trains.
If a lot of your running is to be uniform consists of coal, then recycling of trains might be worthwhile. Double-ended staging, with one end ladder representing east staging and the other ladder being west, would allow a single coal consist to traverse multiple times in a given session. Maybe include an engine runaround track so that after each train completes its east to west journey, the engines can be cut off and exchanged for another set of power. The next time the train appears, it is the same cars, but they’re all hoppers, who’s gonna notice that it’s the same cut of cars as before?
Such a scheme might do okay with one track for a loaded train, one track for empty, one track for misc. traffic, and one track for runaround, 4 tracks minimum. Of course, you probably want a lot more than that, so that you can include other types of traffic, and maybe have two tracks each for loads and empties. And, to avoid gridlock it’s perhaps best to have at least one more track than you need for static storage, so there’s always an empty siding to arrive at.
It really does depend on your projection of traffic, so I think you ought to scope that out a little more definitely. But just know that the form of your staging
however many you think you need. times two. for now. more later on.
grizlump
Just like the prototype, how many tracks you have down will never be enough.
Pete
I don’t have any staging right now, but I will have it in my planned extension room. I will only have room for 4 tracks. Not having staging right now is limiting my operations. I have no where to keep/store trains. The yard and sidings are filling up with new locos and cars I’ve been buying.
I’m really starting to understand the importance of staging.
Question: When operating with a staging yard, so the train comes out of staging onto the layout heading West. Will these trains destinations be the rail yard? Or Industries? Both?
If the train comes from staging to the rail yard, will the next step is building those incoming cars for the next outbound train? And to where? the Industries?
Then from the industries back to staging? Or back to the yard? Both?
this is an over-simplification but in general, the loads go back where they came from as empties via reverse route and the empties go back as loads. just like in real life.
outbound road trains go to staging and come back as inbound trains to be switched out and delivered to industries or connecting lines.
at least, that’s how i do it.
grizlump.
Generally never. A railyard doesn’t load or unload cars, it processes cars.
First you have to understand what a railroad does. Somebody wants to move something from where it is to where somebody wants it to be and either the shipper or the reciever is willing to pay somebody to move it. The shipper orders a car. The railroad spots a car. The shipper loads the car. The local picks the car up and brings it to a yard. A switcher switches the car into a train. A through freight carries it to another yard. Andother switcher switches it into a local. the local spots it at the reciever. Teh reciever unloads the car and tells the railroad its empty. The railroad pulls the empty with a local and takes it back to the yard. The switcher switches it into a thru freight. The through freight takes it to someplace where they will ,load it again. The switcher switches it into a local who spots it at and industry to load and the cycle repeats itself.
So what part of that cycle is being modeled on you layout? All of it? Part of it? Some of your cars can be on one part of the cycle and some of your cars can be on other parts of the cycle. Are your trains locals or through freights? Do they move cars between yards or do they spot industries/ They don’t all have to be locals and they don’t all have to be through freights. Not all trains have to work in your yard.
At the moment all I have is (or maybe I should say, eventually will be) staging. And I still have to build a lot more!
Of course, I’m modeling a very specific piece of prototype railway at a very specific time, with (by North American standards) incredibly dense traffic - and extremely diverse traffic. To attempt a credible simulation of reality, I have to be able to hide seven passenger trains (plus five EMU that mix and match to provide appropriate 2, 3 and 4-car trains.) On the freight side, the two stub-end yards on the existing section of the layout can handle up to eleven trains for the catenary division, while the sequential staging tracks to be built on the far side of the room will be able to keep seven combustion division trains ready for their close-ups. The coal units will have their own empties in/loads out (2 of each) arrangement in the netherworld beneath the big colliery. Last, but hardly least important, is the cassette dock at the end of the down local freight staging lead, which can swallow as many 12 car trains as there are cassettes to receive them. I have eight at present, but can fabricate more in, literally, minutes.
Two (at present) of those cassettes are designed for the fast unloading of open-top cars, so the gons and hoppers live-loaded at the mines can be returned empty, and the same crates or pallets of machinery won’t come back once they vanish into the netherworld. Thanks to cassette staging, some cars that should only appear once in a great while (like my four-truck depressed center machinery flat) have a place to stay - on rails - between their curtain calls.
So, there really isn’t a set number of staging tracks that can be described as ‘enough.’ If you can hide your entire locomotive roster and most of your cars, either in the netherworld or in cassettes, you probably have enough.
Until you buy some more cars
The rule of thumb from Koester is N=2n+1; where N is the number of tracks you need in staging and n the number of tracks you think you need. E.g., you think you need 4, you actually need 9.
I’m building a multideck mainline railroad and I’ve got a double ended staging yard that has 8 tracks, the shortest about 10 or so feet long, at the bottom of the stack of levels. In retrospect, I need probably about 10 or so tracks, the shortest about 16 feet, but I can’t fit that into the basement I have; I’ve made a note for my next house.
Staging is like beer at a party - too much is just enough!
Will take a stab which may help. My layout is three decks. Oklahoma City is the south end of the railroad on the top deck. Hence, I have a mix of staging and visible staging at Flynn yard, the southern most portion modeled. Flynn yard also generates a lot of traffic on its own. So I have through trains coming out of staging (Texas) that are through trains to Kansas City, but they may pick up and set out in Flynn yard. Unit through trains like grain trains (empty) roll through as they are routed to the Enid Dist. which is a branch that cuts off at Guthrie north of Oklahoma City. The same is true in reverse, trains coming off Enid Dist. for Texas gulf will pass across all three decks and into staging at Oklahoma City with no switching. Trains from Kansas City south will also arrive at Oklahoma City going south, some will pick up and set out, then go into staging, the others will just go into staging.
Plus there are local freights, interchange trains with BN and UP, and local cars delivered to industries. This is just one part of the railroad. I also have staging at Waynoka on the Enid Dist, I have staging at Cherokee OK, also at Kiowa KS on the Enid dist.
Because a large amount of the traffic on these lines is grain at harvest time (I do June 8th as my operating day, 1989) so trains and traffic emulate the real thing for that date. I have off line staging in a mole hole area where more trains are broken up and set up. It goes on and I will not, you are probably well confused now. Just remember, there are through trains, trains that pick up and set out, and trains that are switched and rebuilt.
Bob
It’s relative to how much room you have to spare. I operate on a friends railroad and he has a 40 yes count em 40 track stub end hidden staging yard in another room separate form the train room. and he actually has room to add I believe 20 more tracks. He as a classification yard on the railroad where he builds trains for opp sessions and once a train has been built it’s moved to hidden staging and depending the train orders for the session will dictate what track what train lives on. We run point to point operations most of the time but being the layout has full loop capability when the train has finished it’s run it comes back to hidden staging just pointed in the other direction. Yours truly has spent many days in that hidden yard room, aka the garage…lol sending trains out to the operators.A good rule of thumb to live by when it comes to how many track you can fit in an area for hidden staging is leave just enough room for the old 0-5-0. As other have said you can never have too many but you sure as heck can not have enough.
To add to that, I mentioned in my post about having some smaller number staging tracks. Recently, ion one staging area of three tracks, a Torti went bonkers. To my surprise I couldn’t reach the sucker to replace or repair. So I decided what the heck, just one staging track out of many. But after three sessions sent it was badly missed. I really miss that missing track to the point that sometime this winter, I will burrow, tunnel, blast my way to the torti and replace it. Until then, we annulled two grain trains because that one track is out of service.
Bob
Bob
I think it’s safe to say and pretty much everyone would agree that staging tracks are like trains you can never have too many or enough of either.
I plan to have snub ended staging tracks. It would be nice to have one balloon track but that would take up a lot of space in the basement. I plan to run a variety of trains including through freights, locals, passenger trains, etc. The rail yard with the roundhouse is about the midway point. I am thinking about one other feature. An interchange with the C&O. This might involve another hidden staging of perhaps 3-4 tracks. As usual, the wish or need for more tracks is not realistic with the basement space available. There could be a hole in the wall from the finished basement train room to the unfinished basement. That would make my wife angry. The train room is insulated and has heating/air conditioning. So, a hole in the wall could bite me somewhere not pleasant.