The illusion of distance--do I need it or what?


Hi Grandman!
That area has a mainline that leads to the new extension and it also has a passing siding with two exits: one to return to the main and the other to come out by the Steel complex as before. I may even put in an additional parallel siding to act as a "staging track" to loosely use the term, but the primary use of these tracks are as passing sidings for two-way traffic.

I suppose all this is somewhat synonymic, but I don't designate this area as for staging only. That is what I meant about hiding/delaying trains on sidings or at Stations.
 
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RexHea said:
...Ah heck guys! Again, this is all about what a person actually needs for their layout and their operational wants, regardless of what the MR gurus of the past have said or done.

That's it Rex. All it really boils down to is what the modeler wants and needs for a layout to please him and not necessarily others.

RexHea said:
(It never ceases to amaze me how only those of the 50's/60's or earlier knew what they were doing:cool: )

Its not they were the only ones that knew what they were doing, its that they were some of the first ones that developed and refined the theories, and then got them published out to the MR world. In some cases it took literally 30-40 years for some of these ideas to become accepted, and followed as a must have/do on our own layouts.:D;)

When one of the new crop of gurus publish a newer, different theory, I'll be willing to bet that it will be around 30yrs, (I'll even drop that to 15yrs to allow for faster communications nowdays), for their ideas to be accepted as those of Whit Towers, Alan Lake Rice, Frank Ellison, Bill McClanahan, Ed Alexander, Doug Smith, Ed Ravenscoft and others.:)
 
jacon12 said:
A friend of mine says that 'if you go with conventional wisdom, you have to have a staging area, and I say it's a lotta phooey'.
Different strokes, I suppose.
Jarrell
I've never called the "have to have" staging conventional wisdom, I call it the current trendy thing. If one has a layout that is large enough so that there are enough real places for trains to go and work then why invent fake ones that aren't fun to operate?
 
Space,
I owe you an apology for some of my posts that were a bit too argumentative or sarcastic and didn't really contribute to the good intentions of your thread. After thinking about it, I have voluntarily deleted or modified these posts.
REX
The only stage area should be for actors. (Had to say that!:D :D :D )
 
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RexHea said:
Space,
I owe you an apology for some of my posts

No sweat. I have pretty thick skin. I have no problem with other people's points of view.

Even if the are more twisted than amoeba DNA. (I couldn't help that.:D )
 
Well hmmm, I have about 45 feet of track in a 4 foot by 6 foot area. Nope, no room for staging, I have to use the 'time' thing LOL.

If I had the room for staging I think I would just add another yard myself. But that's me. I like neat yards. :)
 
Cjcrescent said:
Josh;

Nice plan, even if preliminary. I would hope however that you're gonna try and make that hump yard at Barstow bigger. With your longest track there appearing to be about 7-8 ft long a modern free rolling car would have to be severely retarded to not roll completely out of that yard.
LOL, no kidding eh? Now you get the Preliminary part of my post! There's ALOT to do still, I'm thinking that its gonna end up needing 40' for the layout portion, to make the San Bernardino and Barstow yards work properly. The Metrolink station is a KEY factor in this (could care less about the length of the hump yard...), as the tracks in the station can BEARLY hold 2 Commuter cars & a F59PH/PHI... I need them to hold AT THE LEAST 3 Cars & the engine, if not, 4...
 
Yeah Josh, I just had to pick at ya! I know how many preliminary plans never windup looking like the plan actually built!
 
I'm on draft 14 of just one yard--then I scraped in and moved it to a new location. I'm on draft 3. Is there an upper limit before you have to build?
 
SpaceMouse said:
I'm on draft 14 of just one yard--then I scraped in and moved it to a new location. I'm on draft 3. Is there an upper limit before you have to build?

Yep, 17. Time to start slappin track down. :D
 
grande man said:
Yep, 17. Time to start slappin track down. :D

No, no, no! Its 10 I tell you!:p He shuda started 7 drafts ago!;)

Wow! Its really getting drafty in here! Close the window!:eek:

Shoot, Chip. On some plans I've drawn, I've gone as high as 40. This was for a club, and unfortunately, they decided on my competition.:( His had tighter curves, less industries, and smaller yards. All in the same area. Go fig!:confused:
 
RexHea said:
Chip, no more flashlight jokes!:eek:

Everytime I think about Eric's flashlight I get a big laugh.:D :D
Ok, ya'll got me curious now. What's this about a flashlight? :confused:
Jarrell
 
jacon12 said:
Ok, ya'll got me curious now. What's this about a flashlight? :confused:
Jarrell

It's the way he holds it.

PCS.jpg
 
GandyDancer said:
I've never called the "have to have" staging conventional wisdom, I call it the current trendy thing. If one has a layout that is large enough so that there are enough real places for trains to go and work then why invent fake ones that aren't fun to operate?

Precisely correct! What few in the hobby realize these days is that subjects such as hidden staging were the idea of operating "correctness" voiced by just a handful of fellas way back when, who just happened to be published in, and their ideas heavily pushed, in Model Railroader Magazine for years. MR passed it off as the only way to go. But was it? Certainly, it was not advocated by 99% of hobbyists at the time and probably still isn't by 75% of us! Operations, hidden staging, etc. are niche concepts in the hobby, not mainstream.

Unfortunately, those who have blindly followed the hidden staging concept have indeed often wasted a lot of otherwise useful running room or potential for fine scenicking on their layouts. Likewise, in many cases those who feel they must optomize "operations" have tried to crammed in far too much in the way of sidings and industries, resulting in a very cluttered and unrealistic looking layout...not a better one.

It's better and far more enjoyable to do your own thing than to listen to any of the supposed "gurus" in the hobby, be they past or present. Remember, model railroading it's supposed to be fun, not about solving complex tasks or problems in running trains (unless you are one of those workaholics guys!).

NYW&B
 
NYW&B,While stagging is nice its not a absolute in layout planing..I am a firm believer in point to point layouts and yarding a train and take the engine to the engine service area after the days operation on "loop" type layouts...Now..I remove my "Industrial turn" from my industrial switching layout..When I operate I can use my choice of engine type and pick cars by car card/waybill that I pick ramdomly..:D
 
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Originally Posted by RexHea
(It never ceases to amaze me how only those of the 50's/60's or earlier knew what they were doing )
=================
Carey said:
Its not they were the only ones that knew what they were doing, its that they were some of the first ones that developed and refined the theories, and then got them published out to the MR world. In some cases it took literally 30-40 years for some of these ideas to become accepted, and followed as a must have/do on our own layouts.

When one of the new crop of gurus publish a newer, different theory, I'll be willing to bet that it will be around 30yrs, (I'll even drop that to 15yrs to allow for faster communications nowdays), for their ideas to be accepted as those of Whit Towers, Alan Lake Rice, Frank Ellison, Bill McClanahan, Ed Alexander, Doug Smith, Ed Ravenscoft and others.
================================================== =======

Absolutely! A lot of us younger modelers back in the 60s was talking about prototype operation,off layout interchanges,following Doug Smith's Car car/waybill system long before Tony Koester,Allen McClelland and others wrote articles and books on operation or Allen's "Good enough/close enough" modeling approach...Thousands of us been doing that for years.
By golly I have to smile when operation discussions come up and some young hot shot modeler fully believes TK invented the car card/waybill system.:D
I am sure a lot of the "NEW" ideas isn't "NEW" at all but,been around for years.
 
Brakie said:
By golly I have to smile when operation discussions come up and some young hot shot modeler fully believes TK invented the car card/waybill system.:D
I am sure a lot of the "NEW" ideas isn't "NEW" at all but,been around for years.
(My emphasis)

This was one point I was trying to illustrate, Larry! Model Railroading in this country, has been around as a formal hobby at least since the twenties. Modelers have been learning how to do things more realistically since then.

Based on old, books, mags, pictures, and in some cases films, that I have seen, it seems that the only changes/advancements that has occured in recent years have been on the technical side and not the theoretical side.
 



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