The latest video on the State Line layout on trains.com answered the very fundamental question - how to handle staging?
the key is the mole operator, setting up and breaking down trains to keep the stage moving. Sure, at the expense of time, space, lots of switches and flex track, wiring, a helix that will give you trouble… you can live without it, but they put together a very convincing day on a midwestern bridge line with an intermediate town. Great job MR !
i like the mole operator getting to run the mainline trains, and running a few run through to keep the local crews on their toes. This layout will be an inspiration for modern track plans for years to come.
I have been the “mole” operator at a layout which looks like a huge oval hugging the walls but is run like point to point. The two extreme ends of that point to point – the west and east ends – are in tne same physical space. It is more or less out of sight of the scenicked part of the layout.
The way the layout runs is that an arriving car is taken off the layout as per its routing destination. Originally the cars ended up in a large cabinet, than a series of shorter drawers on wheels, and eventually supplemented by 4 foot long interchangeable cassettes of wood with HO gauged slots milled into the wood. The layout owner’s goal was to avoid operators seeing the same cars over and over-- like most of us he has more cars than he (or anybody) “needs.” The trains are made up by hand using re-railers. So that is known as “active staging.” The system uses car cards and switch lists and JMRI train generation. It is not random at all.
But yes the combination of how the layout is constructed and operated and the key role of the busy “mole” in the back room does mean fewer tracks, turnouts, wiring, switch engines, and other hard assets.
I enjoy being the mole but then I also like being a yardmaster more than a road engineer or conductor.
I guess I would say this about the idea of a staging mole. Just as with a yardmaster at a yard on a layout, the desire to keep crews busy on a layout with a fast clock means trains are arriving as fast or faster than a yardmaster or mole can create new ones to send out. Everytime the layout owner tries to create a balance with fewer trains to deal with while I (the mole) do my work, crews complain they have nothing to do. And recruiting happy crews for an operating layout is a delicate task. They have to be kept busy to be happy. Otherwise they want sodas and snacks and comfy chairs that means $$$ too.
Seriously? What kind of people are these who get to visit and run trains on some other person’s or club’s layout in community with other model railroaders and railfans and are able nonetheless to be unhappy? Are they paying for this amazing experience?
Those people should be assigned a train that is directed into the nearest passing siding and be forced to sit there watching a parade of trains go by until their hours expire. Just like a real railroad.
One issue with mole operations, or fiddle yards, is the handling of equipment. (I’m NOT talking about high-detail ready to run cars here, so please don’t go there). The more frequently equipment is handled, the higher the odds of that equipment falling to the floor. The more frequently equipment is handled, the higher the odds of parts breaking off. The more frequently equipment is handled, the more likely it is to be covered with fingerprints. The busier the person is, the faster they need to work, the less care will be taken with equipment. Does the layout owner need to identify a few people who they know well and trust to be in the mole position? What kind of cost, in time and effort as well as money, is the layout owner prepared to absorb?
The mole or fiddle concept does have the benefit of less trackage on the layout, which means less space and less cost, and the benefit of cars rotating on and off the layout. The same cars are not constantly reappearing in different trains. It also has the cost of safely storing equipment off the layout, and potentially the cost of damage.
Personally I would never incorporate a fiddle yard of any sort into my layout. Rolling stock is almost never handled, except for the occasional derailment and balky coupler. Too much chance of doing damage to the equipment by handling it, and no way will I allow someone else to handle my equipment in a wholesale fashion.
A second factor is finding someone who wants to be the mole. In my neck of the woods it’s hard enough to get someone to be a yard operator. Everyone wants to run through freights or locals. Finding someone willing to be a mole would be very difficult around here.
Mark, do all of your rail cars then remain on the layout always? I’m curious how that would work. Do you have a switch (not fiddle) yard that is big enough to enterain all your rolling stock, and you move them around with switcher engines so that you never have to touch them? That would be prototypical of course but it seems like a luxury.
My yard only has enough track to shuffle the few cars going up the branch. When I get done running a long freight or passenger train on the mainline, I have to stop and put the cars all away in boxes before I can run another train. Suboptimal, to say the least.
Yes, except when I carry a few to another part of the layout to test some new track that isn’t tied in to the rest of the layout yet (which happens only rarely).
Yes I do. I have one main division point yard with a capacity of nearly 100 cars. A second yard yet to be constructed will have capacity for about 70 more, and two staging yards that will be able to hold four 30-car trains in one and six 30-car trains in the other. There are two branchlines, each with small yards at the end. Total they’ll hold about 60 more cars. Cars are moved with locomotives, though I’ll push short strings by hand on the couplers when I’m doing work on the area.
We all do what we need to for the type of running we want. I’m fortunate to have enough room for the yards I need.
Right now I only have 118 cars on the entire layout Industries in the various towns swallow up nearly all of them. I have a huge car shortage I’m trying to remedy by building kits (I have probably a hundred kits waiting to be built, and I’ll need even more).
I also keep all my cars on the layout at all times currently, but I am getting to the point that I might have to swap out some cars because by the end of the year I will have more cars than the railroad can handle. I will use cassettes to minimize car handling.
As far as complaining about not having anything to do, as far as I am concerned it can be a valid complaint. I have gone to operating weekends where I “operated” on layouts for 3 hours, but only had a throttle in my hand for about 45" of that time handling 2 trains and half of that time I was either negoiating a helix and staging yard or sitting in a siding for a train meet. The other 2’ 15" I was waiting in the crew lounge for the “next” train. Considering I had driven a couple hundred miles and was spending a couple hundred dollars on hotel rooms and meals to attend operating sessions, only running trains for 45" would not be as satisfying as the layouts where I was running trains for 2’15" and idle for 45".
In light of this new testimony about expenses incurred vis-a-vis expectations disappointed, I stand educated. Thank you, Dave. I’ve reholstered. Sorry about the unwarranted discharge. [C):-)]
Matt the crews can “complain” by simply not coming back. And has been pointed out some places have massive operating weekends where crews drive long distances, stay in hotels and eat at restaurants, and often have a list of local layouts to choose from. It is not that they are ungrateful wretches.
I do believe strongly that staging yards are one of the great improvements in layout design since I got into the hobby. I would urge you to find examples of both active and passive staging and see how they work and which you like best. I would also encourage anyone to try the job of yardmaster and/or “mole.” I find it fun because it keeps your mind AND your hands busy.
I’m with Mark on this, I don’t handle equipment any more than necessary, and surely not making up trains with the five finger crane during an operating session.
My new layout is designed with all thru or stub end staging that does not require handling equipment. And it is done out of sight for the most part without using a helix to get to another level.
For operating sessions a few trains will be staged visibly, and about 30 will be staged out of sight. The stub end 10 track staging yard is visible in my workshop area.
I have not seen the video in question, nor am I likely to, but I lost all interest in true point to point layouts years ago. I would much rather invest in more hidden track, and the access and monitoring for it, than be constantly handling models at the end of the line.
Real world train movements can be modeled very effectively with hidden thru staging.
Yep, its a trade off. Size of the layout matters. I can’t really relate to a layout that takes up an entire basement. Operational space becomes more valuable when there is little of it to begin with. If I had the space to devote to dead scenicked space, I’d be more interested in staging. But I’ve never been interested in having that kind of layout anyway.
Having said that, my layout spans 75 linear feet in two basement rooms. I chose to spread things out and build sidings, spurs, and yards using #8 turnouts rather than to use the space for a lot of staging. The layout is based upon trains taking about 30 cars from interchange to the various industries on the layout. It takes about 3 or 4 trains to get through a cycle.
There are about 30 cars spotted at industries, and their 30 swap-mates held at the interchange yard. It effectively acts as staging.
However, if I did not have the yard, I would indeed use a “mole” operation like you speak, and build each train on a single track representing interchange (some folks might go through the trouble of building cassettes to hold each
I think that’s where I am right now. Just feel lucky to be near such expertise, dedication and skill embodied in a magazine-quality layout. I suppose if I paid to attend, I might have expectations that could leave me feeling disappointed, as some have mentioned here. But that’s what I get for opening my mouth too soon. I don’t mind gettin’ schooled.
A well-respected modeler on the SP&S historical society Groups.io page invited me to come to the midwest next time he hosts a session, and I was gobsmacked that he would do so. And on this forum, a guy invited me on behalf of his club a few hours north to come up and bring my trains, which I did and which I thoroughly enjoyed. A couple of the members were planting trees on a mountain in a side room, and they handed me a throttle, showed me which way to take my train out and what things not to touch, then went off and left me to run my train around for a while. (!)
I don’t have enough room on my layout for all of my rolling stock, so I regularily return some items to their respective boxes, and then pick-out replacements, depending on what I want to see.
I have no trouble handling rolling stock or locos manually…clean and steady hands work well and usually such items can be be easily place on the track, even if the track is hidden by trains in the foreground.
I probably spend more time working on trains and the layout, than I do running trains.