Let them shine

Dave Barrow was on to something with visible staging! I always thought that John Armstrong's exposed staging was Also brilliant. He even had the lines drop in at different heights so you could see all the trains front to back. 

The number of turnouts and track didn't change with these solutions though. We should think further back to running trains on the floor. Didn't like a train? Take it off the track and set it aside! Cassettes work the same way. No switches. No staging tracks. Just slide around the Masonite with aluminum angle iron for track. 

Forget roundly-round and just do a run through layout with one industry or station and go to the end. Now there are less engines and cars as well. Model railroading is financially in reach of nearly anyone interested. Wait. Is this TOMA?

I did not know it was that

I did not know it was that sunny at this time of year in the Pacific north west. Clearly Don has been in the sun too long. I know this is an attempt to take the contrary view but this topic was tough to go against. Visible staging looks like visible staging, spaghetti bowls look like bowls of spaghetti. It was a good try but in this instance your dog will not hunt.

On a positive note you were able to point out many issues with poorly designed staging and access to it from a standpoint of running trains to upkeep and lack of capacity. Very good points, hopefully those in the design phase will take your contrary view to heart and avoid creating problems for themselves.

You get 5 stars for effort and finding redeeming qualities in a bad position.

Good point, but...

I've always thought yards are the most interesting part of railroading. I'd much prefer watching a busy classification operation than a stretch of single track that only sees a train once a day. So my ideal would be to have the staging front and center (fully detailed, of course) and hide the main lines. They could drop to a lower level via a pair of helices, and the bottom track would need nothing but a passing siding or two.

pqe

Staging?

I agree with no staging Rob, but I think it also depends on the size of ones layout. My space is going to be 3 sided, 10x10, and I have no interest in using any of that for staging. It won't be under the layout for the simple reason I am not getting under it except to do whatever wiring is needed. Above it, nope to weird looking.

What I will do is have a cassette type interchange track on one or both ends or I will simple use the interchange tracks as a fiddle point.

Jack

False Choice

This month's Reverse Running presents us with a false (and hopefully intentionally sarcastic or humorous) premise - that we must choose between hidden staging and spaghetti bowl layouts.

First and foremost is that so-called hidden staging must necessarily be "hidden" underneath the layout and must have the most inconvenient clearance possible. While there are some examples of this, it can hardly be considered to be ubiquitous. Often hidden staging is placed in a room apart from the main layout space where access and visibility are on par with the main layout room - some modeler go so far as to scenic these hidden yards. 

Next an extreme example is given of the bottle necks that can be formed by staging yards. Well, bottlenecks are part of real world railroading and something that modelers enjoy duplicating in miniature. If your dispatcher parked the 20th Century Limited behind a drag freight in staging and then failed to put two other freights in "the hole" to clear a route for the Limited, you have a dispatcher problem, not a staging yard problem.  

Finally, the assumption is made that any layout that doesn't use hidden staging must, of necessity, be a "spaghetti bowl" type layout. Dave Barrows and others have long since disproved claim. 

George

April Fools?

Probably not.

I agree with the idea that hidden staging is a pain.  A pet peeve of mine is a layout where the operators spend 1/3 of the session running trains in a "subway" to get in and out of staging.  Even worse is the gaggle of guys kneeling on the floor watching their train navigate a hidden staging yard (maybe the kneeling is prayer that they go to the right track.  I had hidden staging on my 1950 era W&N Branch, the subsequent two 1900 iterations do not.

I strongly disagree that staging is a bad idea, and prefer non-spaghetti bowl track plans (although as with everything, there is a time and place for a spaghetti bowl design.)

Check the cover month

Mr. Hanley's April Fools Joke?

Maybe.

If one assigns railroad names to locations along the mainline of a spaghetti bowl type design it could make it seem larger and give space between locations. With limits of course. 

Pigeon holing modelers into thinking any design style including linear or what not is the only acceptable way to build a layout is unreasonable and can cause people to simply not build a layout for many years.

That said I like visible staging and yards. I plan to have staging run parallel behind the active yard to help create the busy setting.  

I love April...

The really serious guys show up in droves!  

Yep . . .

 . . . some people can't get a joke even if the punch line is right up front.

Oh, well, I too have taken Reverse Running at face value sometimes. ...

Don't see the cover

If you are in the forum, you don't see the cover.

In order to see the cover you have to go to the magazine and actually read the cover.  If you go to "Get current issue" its still March, you can't even see the the April edition, let alone look at the cover.  I won't download the magazine until later this week or next.    Even then, I really don't spend a lot of time looking at the cover.

If if was a snake . . .

. . . it would have bitten you!

 "April 2017" is in the brown bar abuttng the "Reverse Running" logo. You had to have opened the page to read the column!

I sort of thought so...

However, I've seen far more ridiculous ideas presented seriously both online and in print. 

George

The last straw!

That's it! This is the last straw! I'm cancelling all my subscriptions, MRH, TMTV. I'm not even going to use the letters M, R, or H anymore, er, uh, any longer, crap that has an R, not going to use them anymoe.  Dang! There's an M in there! I am not using those letters in the future. D'oh! This is tough. Future has an R. You did this on purpose Fugate!  I can't function without M, R, and H!  

Randy

Don't need no stinking M, R, or H?

Yep. Happy April 1st ...

What?? Read the cover,

What?? Read the cover, snakes? somehow I just don't see or get the April Fools part. Maybe i'm reading the wrong magazine. M,R,and H?  What the hel are you guys talking about.

Please send me my doofus award, cause I just don't get it.

Sorry

Randy

Every time I click on the link to MRH mag I get this

Page not found

An Further More.....

Not only should we get rid of staging because of the cost associated with turnouts, we need to get rid of sound decoders and DCC altogether. You only need to run one train at a time on a roundy-roundy, which means you only need one power pack. Also forget about all that expensive block wiring, with the right power routing turnouts you can park your train in the yard, throw the points and the track is isolated, the layout is now ready for the next train.

Yep, as soon as I saw Don say it's time to get back to the roundy-roundy, I knew the article had to be a April fools joke.

Fixed.

Fixed.

The last straw!

Best Reaction Ever.    Well played Randy!

Yes

I ag ee w ole ea tedly wit   andy.

Poor joke

It's no more ridiculous or far fetched a position as the reverse running published in about half the other issues.

The best April Fool jokes sound "serious" until the very end ...

Subtle

Joe,

At least your April Fools joke was somewhat more subtle than that other magazine's April Fools offering.

George