Getting closer to the golden spike

Today, I laid the LAST turnout on the layout. It's on the upper deck at the Georgia Pacific particle board plant. This plant has three switches and four spur tracks. The only track left to lay now are the four spur tracks!! The countdown begins!!!

A busy month....

It's been a busy month since my last update. I've gotten a good bit accomplished but of course, never as much as I wanted to do. First of all, I got my command cab bus wiring in and complete including six NCE UTPs for emergency plug-ins for my radio cabs. Now, no matter where you are on the layout, you are only a few steps away from a CAB bus plug in the event of battery failure on the radio cabs. 

 

I was also able to get all the fascia in place and 98% painted. I've got one some area left that I plan to get painted this week. I've also got a small bit of fascia trimming to do as you can see in this shot of the Tibbee area. I've still got some foam to lay in for contour then I'll trim my fascia to match the contour. 

 

My latest bit of track work is shown with this photo. This is the Port of Greenville that's on the back side of the Columbus and Greenville reverse loop. Now, I'll be able to prototypically run the Columbus to Greenville train on the layout. you can also see the Helix in the background of this photo. 

 

 

 

I was also able to get all the track on the upper deck back into running shape. This winters cold, dry air played havoc on the track. I had several places where the benchwork shrank causing the track to buckle. I'm now about 97% done with track work. I've got about 8" of code 55 track to add to a TXI cement plant track and I've got about 6' of flex track to lay at the NS interchange on the lower deck. This should only take about an hour or so to get done. After that, the last bit of track work is the Georgia Pacific plant at Louisville on the upper deck. A few hours on this should wrap up my track work. I hope to be able to report all that done by the end of the month.