Double Deck Staging Yard?

[Jake]

Wow, it's been a while since I posted here, Ive been over on my roller coaster sites... Model Railroading is majorly an off season thing...

BUT anyway. When I think about starting a layout, I get stressed over two things, location, and era, I've decided on a southeast location with it's mountains and all, with a wharf or two. But my major thing is what era to model in??? I love the old Iron horses, and the newer diesels. (Sorry gene!) But I have an idea, what about a double deck staging yard An upper one for the older ones and a lower one for the modern trains or vice versa. But, I'm not sure if this is practical, has anyone tried this or thought about it? Any help appreciated!


Ope! Just remembered the term! Staging Yard!

[Nathan]

Take a look at John Armstrong on Creative Layout Design, Kalmbach.  I belive that some other ones by Kalmbach may help.  Also, rather then an upper and lower, think in terms of 'Car Ferries' of some other sort of removable stageing.

[Jim Banner]

Upper and lower yards with a vertical switch between them could be just what you are looking for.  A vertical switch is a long board with track on it and hinged at one end.  The other end can move up and down to align with either the upper or the lower yard lead.

[Jake]

I don't exactly get how that would work, wouldn't the grade be too steep for a train to go up the switch? 

[SteamGene]

Chesapeake Bay Railroaders has a double deck staging in a helix.   The staging is fairly small - but adequate.   It's under the upper level, in a corner.
Gene

[Orsonroy]

I just visited a HUGE O scale home layout with something simiar to what you want to do. The owner is very interested in 1930s modeling, but most of his operators are younger and want to model the 1970s. His staging areas have a carrying capacity of 4000 (!) cars, and the layout operated well with about 2500 on the layout at any one time (either on sidings or in staging ready to come into play). So he's planning on staging both eras trains in the staging yards, and will trot them out as the scenario dictates. He figures that it'll only take him a couple of hours to replace older cars with newer ones that are parked in the visible areas of the layout.

To me, this seems like the perfect idea: build your staging yards as large as possible, with vastly too much staging for the size of the layout. That way, it's easy enough to park trains from multiple eras in them, and take out only which trains you want to run on any given day. That way you can still play "It's my railroad, I'll run whatever I like" without blowing any sense of reality. You can run 1930 one hour and 1989 the next.

[SteamGene]

There is a major problem with multi-era layouts.  The first part deals with scenery and the second with serviced industry. 
Many of the buildings which fit the 1930s, even up to the 1960s are either no longer there or are in disrepair.  I'd have to get the reference book for exact figures, but in the 1930s there were something like 15-20 stations on the C&O between Mile Marker Zero and Richmond, which is something like MM 90.  Now there are at the most four.  There are still a few stations along the track, but most are in poor shape.  Interlocking towers are either gone or boarded up.  Crossings are different.  Road markings are different.  Cars are different. 
Sidings come and go, but there were a whole lot more rail serviced industies in 1930 than there are today.  Of course, with the price of gas and diesel, we may have a resurgance of rail service, but that is today, not 20-30 years ago.
Gene

[ebtnut]

I think one of the things we can do since it's OUR railroad is ignore the economic changes that have occurred in the last 50 years.  One of the things I don't like about modern railroading is that most class 1's just want to run big through trains or unit trains from point A to point B.  There is very little on-line switching any more, since most of those small and medium size customers are either gone or use trucks.  I guess it's OK if you are a train runner, but curmudgeons like me still like the on-line switching to go along with passenger trains (another dinosaur) and bridge line freight.  On the subject of multiple staging yards, the Northern Virginia Club in Vienna has an elevator that rises about 6 feet to move trains from one end of the run to the other.  It takes a bit of design engineering, but one should be able to make a short rise, like 6-8" work reasonably well.

[Jim Banner]

I don't exactly get how that would work, wouldn't the grade be too steep for a train to go up the switch? 

If you put the upper and lower staging yards say 5" apart (enough to put a hand in and pluck derailled cars off tracks behind the first one) then a board 100" long would give a 2.5% up grade when the switch is up, and give a 2.5% down grade when the switch is down. 

[Jake]

I appreciat your effort with the vertical switch but that just make much sense to me. Maybe I could have a fixed upper and lower yard, 5" below eachother, have a lead from the lower yard come up and join up with the lead from the upper, and then they both go up to the layout.

[Jim Banner]

Jake, that will work just fine.  The lower lead will be longer than a vertical switch (twice as long for the same spacing between the yards and for the same grade.)  On the other hand, what you are proposing will be easier to construct than a reliable vertical switch.