Back at it

Well I'm back at it.

The cold weather arrived and along with it was a LCL of motivation. The peninsula is gone. I was never thrilled with it anyhow. I wanted wide open aisles and it just wasn't going to deliver that. So a helix will serve to gain the necessary elevation and now the main level and upper level will be relatively flat. Because of that, the area originally designated as Malta is changing and will become the Eagle River canyon. This allows the upper level to actually come down 2 inches which will make viewing much better for shorter Engineers.

I was able to get the ladders for both ends of the staging yard laid out and spiked down.

And start laying out the rerailers.

And had just a few extra pieces of track.

And if you've made it this far down and care to do more than look at pictures, I have some words of wisdom. 

"Listen to those who have done, they'll know what not to do."   

I started this layout pretty cavalier about wanting to build every yard switch using my Fast Tracks #6 jig.  This turned out to be a complete time bust.  I'd build a couple here and a couple there thinking the time spent was fine as I wasn't in a hurry.  At least that's what I told myself.  What really happened was nothing got done on the layout because I was waiting on myself to build switches. These absolutely needed built so I could finish the staging yard because I couldn't build the benchwork above it and have adequate space to lay the track later without major aggravation. 

I finally broke down and decided to buy Atlas Custom switches on the advice (given at the beginning!) of an experienced layout builder.  Yah... laying out, adjusting, and spiking down BOTH ladders took less time than assembling just two Fast Tracks turnouts.  

If there is one downside it's that I'm using Micro Engineering track for the layout, and using Atlas switches and track for the staging yard.  While I've read numerous threads, posts, and rants about the profile differences of the track it really does not appear to be an issue.  Cars do not roll through the frog and point rails as smoothly as the Fast Tracks but again that's not an issue either. 

Now I'm waiting for more track from MBKlein.