As a member of the Operations Special Interest Group, OPSIG, I have been following their virtual meetings on You-tube. During one of these meetings a question and answer one mention was made of "active staging".

I use "active staging" on my medium sized layout. "Active staging" allows us to run more trains out of the limited number of tracks in the staging yard and also allows us to run more trains with the limited amount of rolling stock that can be held on the medium sized layout. 

KANUNDA & EMU FLAT RAILWAY

I have finally done it. Thanks to all those who have had the patience to help a slow learner.

My layout the Kanunda & Emu Flat railway is a early1980s Australian layout running Australian National and V/Line which ran through between Adelaide and Melbourne at that time. 

DECEMBER OPERATING SESSION PART 2

The towns on the Kanunda & Emu Flat railway are imagined to be somewhere in South Australia on the line between Adelaide and Melbourne in the early 1980s when Australian National and V / Line trains ran through between both cities.

G'Day,

I consider my HO scale 25 foot X 9 foot layout to be a medium sized layout.

What I consider the largest crew that the Kanunda & Emu Flat railway can handle is the following, two two man road crews, one person Kanunda yard master, one person Hostler (staging yard operator) and one person Controller (dispatcher), seven people. Even then it can become crowded when trains converge.

In the video attached we had a crew of five which results in a relaxed session. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X3CxHEErq4&t=15s

The Australian region of the NMRA is holding it's annual convention here in Adelaide South Australia on September 16 & 17.  http://www.nmra.org.au/Convention2017/convention17.html

Division six (South Australia) of the NMRA Australasian region will be holding the NMRA AR annual convention for the first time this year. The convention will be held in the Torrens Valley Christian school in the Adelaide suburb of Hope Valley on 16th and 17th of September.

We operate the K&EFR regularly on the first Monday evening of the month. For this months session we had the following operators  a Hostler to operate the staging yard, a Yard Master at Kanunda, the main station on the K&EFR one road crew with two operators and another road crew which had a single operators and finally the Controller (dispatcher). The video embedded will I hope give an idea of how a K&EFR operating session looks.

Yesterday I read stevie's blog "Adventures in Ballast and layout height" and decided to share my thoughts on layout height.

I am 180 cm (5' 11 1/2") tall.