Happy New Year everyone. Well it has quite a few months since I last posted or even worked on the layout. After some prolonged health issues on my part as well other family members I am finally back to work. The East staging representing Missoula, Whitefish and points east is now operational. The yard may be operational although it does not go anywhere yet. Since this is staging it does not have a huge amount of clearance (about 10 inches) so I wanted to be sure it is running well be fore I put up benchwork for the Metaline Falls branch on top of it. What is not visible is a series of tortoise switch motors. These are all controlled with an NCE Switch 8. One thing my two previous layouts lacked was much staging. This layout will be different with 15 staging tracks that are at least 18 feet in length. Another new thing for me was to set up macros using the NCE Power Pro. Having used the PowerCab on my previous layout the Powerhouse was an easy transition. But this was my first time using Macros. I am really impressed at how easy and quickly those set up. Not to mention it is a whole lot easier to select one macro corresponding to the yard track number to align all turnouts for a particular track. I also just installed the ladder for the west staging yard as well. Should have more on that in a week or two. Well that is it for now.