Staging Yard

The club layout design called for an upper staging yard over a lower one. Building the upper staging yard posed a few problems, chief of which was figuring out how to support the track.

Since a good bit of the upper yard would be over the lower yard, it would be difficult to bring supports down to the lower roadbed without possibly impacting trains. One easy solution to that is to take a track out to get room for a support. It worked out that by cutting the upper yard roadbed larger than needed, the place where a track had to be removed was a shorter track. The shorter track was approximately the same length as a switch, and the switch to that track could be removed as well. So, it turns out that we don't lose any storage space at all and gain a switch that can be used elsewhere!

The upper yard is temporarily supported by threaded rod. This has the advantage of being easily adjustable and once the nuts and washers are properly tightened, reasonably permanent. Once the yard is properly leveled (or acceptably out of level--a downhill pitch won't bother a staging yard), it's possible to put in more traditional supports where possible.

The problem with threaded rod is that it has to stick up above the roadbed to secure to the roadbed. This makes running track in that area impossible. Solutions such as T-nuts or threaded inserts are available, but threaded rod only lends support to a small area. A wood riser type of support will support a much larger area.

Now for the difficult parts: There's limited access for a screwdriver, so how are the supports going to be changed over to wood? Can we add support and provide a solid barrier to prevent trains from going off the end and hitting the stairs?

Problems and solutions like this are part of what make model railroading fun.