I have two questions. I,m starting to make a staging yard and need some advice.
the first question is making the yard look like a yard . Im having problems making it look even. Im using peco short turn outs. I can,t get the turn outs to be evenly spaced out . its hard for me to explain this. i hope someone can grasp what im trying to say.
the second question is that how much space do you have between center to center in your yards.
who cares what it looks like? staging yards are supposed to be hidden. the distance apart should be enough that when something derails you can get it back on the track.
I can’t really help with turnouts.
General track spacing is usually 2 inches. However, since this is staging, and there are magic hands grabbing cars, allow for at least 3 inch centers.
I would like to hide it but i do not have the room so it going to be a out in the open for people to see. I would like to put it under my layout but i do not have tne room for a helix or enought runway to get under without having too much of a grade.
i am open to any other sugestions
here are somepics of my layout if you can think of any changes i can make to it to hide my staging yard I am open to sugestions.
My personal opnion is that it is better to have exposed staging than no staging. I am planning to have my staging visible, but isolated from the action. I can think of ways to make it invisible during ops. For instance. you could put a hinged table 4 inches above the staging area and scenic it. Dufing ops sessions you could fold it down to cover staging, but fold it up to set up the staging.
At the risk of suggesting the obvious, and in view of your first statement above, maybe you should be talking straight “yard”, and not staging. The two are really different concepts, and I don’t think they dovetail very well.