Don,
I applaud your inclusion of kids. My Ops group is all ‘grumpy old men’ 
running HO.
I’m curious about your plan for a session. With kids of such diverse ages TT & TO would be a bit much but there must be some organization or chaos would reign. I’m also curious to find other large scale operations.
Thanks,
Tom
Hi, Tom. To begin, it’s not just my wife Jane, myself, and a bunch of kids. The parents stay during the session. They become friends and visit, but they also help with their children. Some of them learn to operate the trains and crew with their children during their first sessions. Our garden includes about a quarter of an acre, and that provides a lot more room than the typical train room! But that probably isn’t what you were asking about. Our operations really are as simple as I described in the article. We operate three or four freight specials at once. Two start at the large yard in the middle of the layout heading toward opposite ends where the reverse loops are. A third and occasionally a fourth starts from one or both of the reverse loops. Prototypically, a train has a final destination where its crew is dispatched and the train is disassembled. We usually don’t do that. A train runs continuously back and forth between the reverse loops for 45-50 minutes. Then we take a snack break. After the break, new crews are assigned and the trains start from wherever they were parked before the break. We run for another 45-50 minute. Then all the operators help us take in the locomotives, rolling stock, siding labels, screw drivers/uncouplers, and survey flags/car brakes (see the article or our web site for explanation.) Instead of starting and stopping trains based on the length of a session before or after a snack break, we can note where a train begins. When it has made one complete circuit of the layout, a new crew is assigned. This takes more attention, but it helps if we have more operators than we have jobs. The children don’t have to wait as long for a turn running the trains. A dispatcher assigns the crews and any other jobs. Crews take the marked washers or loads to the dispatcher when a car is delivered. The dispatcher gives these to the shipper, who walks around the layout and places marked washers or loads onto cars to direct them to their next destination. Station masters act as t