If I understand staging, it is one or more tracks with cars imagined to be coming from outside of the layout to be switched onto it, or possibly passing through. Presumably, on a medium to large layout, there are yards or hidden staging tracks, but on a smaller layout, there isn’t necessarily room. And I’m planning a small (8’x8’ shelf) point-to-point layout with passing sidings, stations, near each end.
I was envisioning manually placing/removing cars to/from the mainline at one station and then switching those cars with cars already on the layout using a pedler(?) freight. It either returns back to the original station with all the cars after switching, or leaves those unswitched at the far end station, presumably for interchange(?) with whatever the other end of the line connects to.
It is a good start. Size of layout isn’t that important. Staging is a way to move cars on and off the visible railroad. My layout is three decks and I have five staging track areas, two representing a division point yard, two are hidden interchanges with other railroads and one is a visible interchange with another railroad.
I too have a small plan and don’t want to lose space to hidden staging. My goal is for the staging to be fully scenicked as a small junction. It will be fully visible but separated from the rest of the layout by an open space “bridge” across a window.
I have a small switching layout as well – I use cassette staging to move cars on and off the layout so I don’t have to lose space for staging. They work great! Another option you may have is to use some space along the wall for staging. Simply put in a low backdrop or scenery 6-12 inches out from the wall to screen the staging area from view and now you have several 8 foot long staging tracks on each wall. One note of caution; make sure you can easily access those staging tracks! There have been a few plans in MR that have used this type of staging. I am considering doing this for the next piece of my layout. One thing I learned about track planning and operations: one can never have too much staging! Chuck
Greg, it looks like you have two 8’ legs to make a “L” shaped shelf layout. I would think about using a large portion of one leg as a freight yard for interchange and/or classification. The other leg can be mostly some large industry such as a cereal, auto parts, cement, paper, or steel plant for example. This could give you a source of freight traffic.
You could place the hidden staging yard behind a backdrop behind the industry, or even disguised within the largest structures of your industry. You can use other structures or an overpass to help hide the entrance to the staging area.
The trickiest part is being able to access the staging yard without too much trouble. I assume your trains will be about 6 cars or so in length, but operationally, it could still be very rewarding and fun.
The good news is that there are multiple good ways to think about operation. For a switching layout of about 16 linear feet in HO, there are a few approaches I’ve used. One is to use a visible yard as the interchange yard with another railroad.
In the HO 4X8 above (adapted from Linn Westcott’s “Switchman’s Nightmare”), cars in the visible yard are imagined to have been delivered by the connecting railroad (unseen to the right). Then our crew (or crews) can set to work switching cars to-and-from the visible industries.
At the end of the session, we can line up the cars in the yard for “pick-up” by the connecting railroad. Between sessions, manually swap those cars for new cars and you’re ready for the next session.
In that much length, a second choice would be to have a secluded 2-track or so staging yard against the wall, hidden by a backdrop or structure. This also works very well. In this case, the crew(s) are pulling cars from an interchange yard again, but we just can’t “see” it. Again, swap cars between sessions.
A third viable choice is to have the crews arrive on scene from that secluded staging yard, do their work on the visible layout, and then drive back into the secluded staging yard. Just pull these trains out again to swap cars for the next session. This makes for reatlively short trains with roughly 16 linear feet in HO, but it’s certainly workable.
I too have a small layout and I use a 2 track casset that can easily be removed . Mine attaches to one end of the layout and has a fold down leg to give it stability when it is inplace . I have been very happy with it ,
Here are some examples of small shelf switching plans with some form of staging.
A cassette at the end of the benchwork:
Room for a short train behind a warehouse:
Track behind scenic divider:
Lots of ways to fit in a little staging on a shelf layout, so you can have a train arrive into your modeled scene and depart from your modeled scene.
And - as you point out yourself - you can also prestage cars (or a train) in the modeled scene “having just arrived” or “about to depart” - you don’t have to model the actual arrival or departure.
As for whether a staging track is waste of space or not - it depends on what you want to model.
If you can find room for a staging track where a train can hide, you can e.g. model a live interchange between two railroads, or between a railroad and a plant switcher.
The plant switcher picks up outbound cars from the industries and place them at an interchange track, and then get out of the way.
Then another train arrives (from staging) with new inbound cars, drops off the inbound cars and picks up the outbound cars, before departing (back to staging).
My favorite track schematic is a continuous mainline with a point-to-point branchline.
The following schematic is such a scheme. The “column” on the left, representing division point yards, are several staging tracks providing a source and destination of both mainline and branchline trains, the next column is the visible mainline, the third column the branchline to the terminus, and the fourth the branchline terminus) In this case, the branchline terminal is reached using a double switchback, necessary because sufficient elevation gain is needed to reach the terminus situated on a second deck. Since the layout is only bedroom-sized, there are only two significant “towns” although they are nearly the length of four walls and two walls, respectively.
more and more I am leaning towards visible staging; hard to reach spots behind backdrops or yards hidden far away under scenery should be avoided. One or more cassettes are a great option.
You didn’t tell us if you are modelling in HO or N.
The plural is making me wonder; maybe you are wanting to much. Lance Mindheim wrote a book about designing a small switching layout. (Amazon press)
These two plan were adapted to fit in a different room. And a passing sided was added to the original design; to facilitate servicing facing and trailing spurs. The only thing you really need are spurs. the rest can be done by hands. You can place all cars to be switched in the right order and at the right side of your engine by 0-5-0 before the operation session begins.
But if you like to do the blocking of your train and the runaround moves, you will want to add a small yard and a passing siding. And you don’t need two; look at Cuyama’s (Byron Henderson) plan.
This 1967 photo of my five-by-ten donut layout under construction had mainline hidden staging (reached via a piano-hinged panel on the front/right side of the layout), although in this case the “branchline” was a narrow-gauged shortline terminating on the second deck via a nolix. (Any of you guys remember those Mallory control panels, complete with voltage and amp meters, fixed and portable throttles. The portable is hanging on the right end of the panel.)
Chuck
