I'd paint the area a neutral

I'd paint the area a neutral colour that matches the colour of your fascia.  I assume since it's a staging area that there will be trains parked there most of the time.  While a very dark colour or black will help to hide the empty track somewhat, unless all your equipment is black the trains themselves will likely stand out more against a really dark background than a neutral one.

Earth Tones

I would try using a brown or a green, not too light not too dark.  My 2 cents.

How about the same (or

How about the same (or similar) color as your fascias?

Charlie

Color of Facia...

 I like the idea of the color of the facia...  What's a good color for facia??  I'm modeling Milwaukee Road, so I don't know if I should go with a prototype color of more of an earthtone...

Thoughts?

I think the facia should complement the color of the room.

In my view, the facia is the divide between the model railroad and the rest of the room, so it should complement the room decor, but in a neutral pallet.  I think I would use a light tan or something similar.  One thing to consider is how easy it is to see a train in staging.  You might want them to disappear, but if you need to rerail, you want to see what you are doing.  The focus will always be on what is running on the layout, unless your staging is so brightly colored that it draws attention.

Perhaps...

Grey, similar shade to WS Grey Ballast...

Cheers,

Jason...

What ever color you decide on

What ever color you decide on DON"T use too dark or too light of a color as both show dirt and dust very easily Jason has the right idea of using medium gray tones for the fascia just not too light.

Dan

Fascia Colour

At the WRMRC, we use a dark grey colour that the hardware store called "Ominous" (insert relevant joke applying that adjective to the layout as a whole) It's similar to the colour of the blackened rocks of the area, and should fade away from view. With fascia below and valances above (all painted the same colour) the layout is nicely framed, like a theatre stage or shadowbox. You can see a small piece of the corner at the extreme left here:

Whatever you use, the colour of the fascia should not attract attention away from the layout. I've seen photos of layouts that use dark greens and light tans and earth tones to great effect, as long as the fascia colour blends well with the scenery and earth colours on the layout above.

Fascia Color

I always thought I would paint the fascia flat black, assuming this would best make the fascia visually "disappear", but I haven't seen ANYONE else paint one black.  Can anyone say from experience that this was not a good color choice?

I am more interested in the fascia being invisible (in a cognitive sense) than a visual border between real and small worlds.

Milt

A number of years ago I

A number of years ago I attended a work session at Joe Fugate's during which one of the tasks was to repaint the black fascia to a coniferous dark green.  I don't recall anyone thinking that the new color was a bad idea.

Charlie

Fascia Colour

The modular club that I belong to uses flat black.

It works fine for the modules, but we have no staging yard underneath.  Many of the guys have painted the underside of the modules gloss white to help them trace wiring in case of electrical problems.  Understand that the underside that is painted gloss white is at the top of a 1x4 frame facing down.  The flat black hides the gloss white unless a person is laying underneath the layout looking up!  Any color would work, but the less a color draws attention to the staging and away from the layout, the better.  On the other hand if everything is flat black and you don't have decent lighting over staging, you may have difficulty seeing what you are doing if you need to rerail a train.  What you might do is light the staging area with some dim lights so it isn't completely dark, but have some bright lighting on a separate switch or us a dimmer with incandescent lighting to lower the light level normally, but be able to brighten it if needed.  If it were me, I would use some dim low voltage lighting for normal ops over the staging yard.  Make it just light enough to see the trains moving when I bring one out of or into the staging yard.  This would lower the electricity usage under normal conditions.  I would then have bright lighting on a separate circuit that could be switched on if needed.