Let's say your railroad stretches between Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester. You could use staging yards to represent the endpoints of Buffalo and Syracuse... these staging yards would be "off-stage" hidden from visitors and the trains that are visible to your public would be "on-stage." By originating and terminating trains in "Buffalo" and "Syracuse" you could free up your visible yard in Rochester for normal yard functions instead of storage of trains not running.
Oh wait. We did that. See the track plan for our club layout, the Rochester & Irondequoit Terminal. The staging yards are off to the left, in a back room. There are two levels- the top level is Buffalo, the bottom level is Syracuse. The railroad mainline runs from Buffalo yard, down three levels to Rochester, then through to Syracuse. The system works quite well, and has more than doubled the amount of trains we can run in a given operating session. Our layout is roughly 10x25 (not counting the staging yards).
Visit
http://www.ritmrc.org for more information...
-otto-
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