By the time I started planning my current layout, I had decided that I did not like grades in the mainline. My dislike stemmed from the my particular situation: a small layout with conventional trains. The short mainline run means that the train frequently changes attitudes--uphill to flat to downhill to uphill again--and the conventional operation means constant babysitting. It would never be possible to just step back and enjoy just watching the train. So for that reason, I chose to confine the "running" portion of the layout to one level, but use lower levels for staging. That way, the grade connecting the main level to the staging levels only gets used when the train enters or exits the layout. That will happen frequently, but it will not happen every 30 seconds, as it would were the grade part of the mainline.
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