The below was posted by Sandjam on another thread: Powered elevator wall storage incorporated into the layout: http://www.ro-ro.net/ View demo. For the price difference between SCE and RO-RO you maybe want to consider hands off wall display. What are everyone's thought on this. I tempted, very tempted. This would not be my end all staging solution but would work very well for out of site staging for my upper level.
I have a good friend in the UK who uses what he calls a “cassette” storage system. This is how it works. In the staging yard, there is a section of removable track on a rigid frame which is pinned in place for alignment and power strip contact. The train is driven onto this length of track and the entire length is then lifted out and placed on a storage rack similar to the wall displays. The next train is already staged on another same length track and that one is removed from the wall and placed down on the layout and over the locating pins. The locating pins are steel and fit into a drilled steel insert on the bench work; the contacts are strips of phosphor bronze which contact the bottom of the rails. The removable section is on the same “block” as the staging yard. The removable piece is in hidden staging (which is quite common in UK layouts) usually behind a backdrop or curtain. The piece the track is mounted to, can be made from either wood or plastic C channel. As the staging is completely hidden from front view there is no ballast or scenic material in the yard but rather just plywood prairie. At the time he was seriously considering the RO-RO as he didn’t always have a friend “behind the curtain” and was planning to control the RO-RO from the front of the layout with some simple sensors to indicate which one of the levels of the RO-RO was at table level. His thoughts on automating the process were both for speed as well as removing the de-railment factor while removing and/or inserting the next cassette.
