Cascadia 2.0 Notebook: Yards and Staging as a Main Event

When I started model railroading, I hated yards.  I've always hated them. By a funny coincidence, I've never been a fan of staging either.  Mostly I have seen them waste a lot of space that enables scope creep and track farming on a layout.  For someone who has wanted the layout to be nicely-modeled scenes of railroad operation, I often think of yards and staging as the same thing: a necessary evil for getting trains into and out of the operation.  I have no use for them for their own sake.  The same applies to engine facilities, which I often think of as the barn yards for foaming on a motive power fetish.  

That all changed when I built a layout for operation and quickly learned that I need staging and yards.  Now I've come to the view that good, well-designed staging is the foundation for a good layout operation (and it makes the modeling better as a side-effect).  That leaves the question of yards on the layout.  Well, as a big fan of passenger operations who has modeled a passenger terminal, I learned quickly that a passenger station is, in effect, a yard.  Coach yards, named as such, function as yards.  Then there are freight yards, holding yards, sidings, and other places to hold cars for switching. This contempt for yards as I saw them on other layouts is that they take up so much valuable space better used for modeling great scenes.  I now admit that was naive, but a dislike of something can lead to good design.  

The yard lead for the former Salt Lake, Garfield and Western along I-80 near the Salt Lake City Airport (author's photo), showing that even a necessary railroad function can have its own beauty. 

In sum, yards and staging perform a vital role in any good operating model railroad. Now I'm sold on them!

First of all, staging can be modeled, as long as it does not interfere with its smooth operation.  Second, staging and yards perform the same function on a model railroad: holding, switching, blocking, storing trains and their equipment. Third, staging yards can save layout space for high-value modeling, such as enabling longer mainline runs, adding branch lines for switching jobs, increasing volume and quality of passenger operations at the union station.  Seen in this light, my layout taught me the value of staging and yards in good modeling and operation.

So why not combine their roles into one place and function?

As I have looked back on operating my current layout, together with visiting and operating on many other layouts, I've learned that online yards and staging, viewed objectively, perform the same function on a railroad.  Historically, the main difference between online yards and staging is that one gets modeled, while the other does not.  

Often staging is segregated into a different room or hidden under the main level.  Often staging is principally for storing trains between runs, which is a passive operation that can be hidden away.  When 'active staging' is used, where staging is used to consist  and break up trains, the staging function becomes akin to any holding, interchange and classification yard on the layout, whether it be for passenger or freight.  Logically, these two functions can be combined to save space and create new opportunities for modeling.  

Specifically, my current layout operates with freight and passenger trains as separate entities that don't interact at all on the layout, save for those times when they require the use of the same mainline tracks to get to where they are going.  Prototype railroads segregated freight and passenger trains within main yards and often created separate yards for them.  Mainlines and branches are where these trains co-mingled.  Provided that they have enough space and are well-designed, the staging operation of a good layout can easily segregate freight from passenger trains into separate yards for ease of operation.   Both staging areas can be operated as regular crew jobs for 

1. Freight classification, blocking and billing trains, assigning power/caboose and crews, as well as car storage:  Online freight yards are used primarily for reclassification and blocking trains before sending them out to be switched. Railroads operated freight yards both for their home rails and for interchange with other railroads.  
2. Passenger train consisting, blocking and billing, assigning power and routing:  During the golden era of passenger trains (the 1950s), the Pullman Company was a large nationwide operating entity with its own yards and facilities.  At the same time, the individual railroads had coach yards at major cities to handle the variety of needs of passenger service as demands ebbed and flowed. In major territories, Pullman operated its own major yards, relying on the major railroads to incorporate Pullman sleepers into their timetables and trains.  This symbiotic relationship was unique to passenger trains and is worth the time and effort to model and operate it!   

Cascadia 2.0: Staging as the layout's nerve center

Cascadia 2.0 will distill the best of 1950s passenger operations in the Pacific Northwest - especially interchanging of passenger cars, loading/unloading of mail and express, set outs and pickups at major stations - by supplementing depot operations with mainline running.  To do so, it will require a large staging yard capable of handling each railroad's trains to be consisted and held, as well as the vast fleet of 'shared service' cars, particularly mail and express and Pullman sleeping cars.  Passenger staging is where all passenger trains and their cars originate and terminate.  

Cascadia 2.0 will offer the best of 1950s freight operations as well.  Because I love both the Pacific Northwest and Southern California aesthetically, my new layout should not force me to choose one over the other as my modeling and operating focus.  As long as each of these freight operations can be visually separated, there's no reason why they cannot coexist on the same layout.  Having freight staging independent of passenger operation makes coexistence of two geographies feasible and realistic.  The freight staging yard connects the Pacific Northwest to Southern California and performs the active role of switching between these two destinations. This staging yard can be modeled like San Bernardino, complete with station and freight/express terminal.  

I'll meet you on the mainline: the only places passenger and freight trains share are mainline and branch lines that have local passenger trains, as well as freight.  Their staging can - and should - be separated into two distinct functional yards, where specialized crews are trained to focus on the specific jobs of each.  Spatially and operationally separated, freight and passenger trains are both switched onto the main line from their respective staging yards according to the operating principle (Time Table/Train Orders, CTC or hybrid).  Once they leave the mainline, each train is switched into its appropriate staging yard for its next assignment.  

Modeling the staging areas.

Coach yards are seldom modeled because they take up a lot of space, and because few modelers understand their role in railroading and, accordingly, how to build and operate them.  Coach yards are staging yards.  Prototype railroads used them for cleaning, repairing, provisioning and turning passenger trains for their next assignments.  Pullman used coach yards for keeping sleeping cars service-ready for their next assignments.  Properly modeled, coach yards can become the busy nerve-center for passenger operations. 

It's a busy day at Cascadia's Pullman yard, as peak demand for extra cars throughout the West has created a rush to ready cars to be dispatched to their next assignments. Heavyweight Pullman Pool cars were used to fill gaps in sleeping car capacity as demand ebbed and flowed.  Here the yard is packed with Pullman Pool sleepers being switched and sent to their next assignments - whether on trains departing Cascadia or far away, in which case sleepers are deadheaded to their next assignment.  It can fill a yard with cars and demanding work for operators.   

Cascadia's current coach yard consists of 6 stubbed tracks with a capacity of 35 cars.  That is plenty of space for the needs of the depot's operation. But it lacks capacity for servicing entire trains, removing bad order cars and adding relief cars, as well as the space to put together blocks of cars to be shipped out for their next assignments in other territories.  So it acts largely as car storage.

Laying out Cascadia's existing coach yard with labels used to designate track capacity and function.

The next layout will give the coach yard a complete overhaul, giving it the capacity to stage entire trains, switch passenger trains for mainline assignments, hold and pick Pullman sleepers for assignments, and provide capacity for pools of 'relief cars' needed to protect important passengers services (such as mail handling, dining, lounge and coach operations).  While the depot will be the place for switching trains en route (setouts, pickups, transfers), the main place for building trains should be the coach yard.  As an active staging operation based on prototype practices, the coach yard should be modeled and operated like any other part of the layout.  My current coach yard is modeled, which makes its structures and details portable to the new layout.

Cascadia 2.0 will use the coach yard as the staging yard for passenger trains going in all directions on the layout.  Separated from the main layout by a scenic partition, the coach yard will complete the loop between both ends of the mainline (many layouts put staging yards at both ends of the mainline, a practice that dictates staging as passive storage).  The reality of prototype operations is that trains change over the course of their routes, which cannot be captured in passive staging as storage.  With active staging, every train entering and leaving the layout gets worked before re-entering the mainline.  A single double-ended coach yard connecting both ends of the mainline means that trains are re-blocked and turned before their next assignments.

Since passenger and freight operations are distinct functions, it makes sense to operate freight staging separately.  This new design would operate freight staging like a main yard, where classification, consisting and billing would be done actively as a job.  Accordingly, the freight staging yard can be modeled and run like a busy yard.  Connecting to the mainline via a switch in staging allows freight and passenger trains co-mingling 'on the layout' while keeping their switching as separate activities.  The two staging yards will become the hubs of activity, where trains operating on the layout are completing assignments begun in staging.  This approach integrates staging into an essential function of the layout and making every bit of its space count and being worthy of modeling.

A fully-modeled staging yard on George Sellios' Franklin and South Manchester.

Future posts will present a couple of plans for the staging operation.  Model railroads primarily are point-to-point operations with staging at either end.  When staging becomes an active part of the railroad, its status is elevated to the railroad's hub of activity.  Cascadia 2.0 will explore ways to build and model this railroad hub.