Passenger types: All

Freight types: All

Operators: Computer controlled

Toton staging is one of the newest additions to McKinley, but one of the oldest parts of the railway.

It is a 16-track yard in the corridor outside the original layout room, and for the first 20 years of life acted as the storage yards for each of the four mainlines. Each yard had (and still has) four double-ended tracks, with three used for storage and one as a through line.

So, for example, three trains could be waiting in the Green Yard to emerge onto the main layout, go around the layout or stop at different stations, and then either return to the Green Yard or one of either the Red, Blue or Black Yards, where it would then wait until called upon to do it all again. The yards have always been computer-controlled, and require no manual intervention.

The McKinley extension project has prompted a change of name and a change in use. The coloured yards are now known collectively as Toton Staging; an area where mainline trains can be held for different periods of time to extend their runs in a more realistic way. A train leaving London for Manchester can now travel via Toton Staging where it will wait before continuing to Manchester. A four-minute journey in McKinleyland could, in future, take 10 minutes or longer, which gives a much better sense of a journey which is covering about 200 miles.