tion (2) it became obvious that those turnouts needed to be closer
to the aisle – a lot closer.
You can have too much staging!
Conventional wisdom says that it's not possible to have too much
staging for a layout. This isn't true. When the quest for more and
longer tracks results in inaccessible turnouts and tracks, you need
to ask if the end justifies the means. I'd sold out turnout accessi-
bility to increase the average length of my staging tracks by about
4'. Given that the shortest track in the redesigned staging area still
has room for a 25-car train, the answer should be obvious.
Unfortunately it wasn't obvious to me until I saw the staging cav-
ern under the upper deck with paper turnout templates in place.
Some looked awfully hard to reach! I'm really glad I figured this
out before spiking all those inaccessible turnouts in place! (3) (13)
3: The revised B-side staging area. Turnouts are now
much more accessible. See also (13).
3
