This October marks the 11th anniversary of the starting of this layout. It's come a long way in those 11 years and still much more to do. Here are a few things happening on the layout and away from the layout over the past couple of months that have not been covered in separate posts.
One of my goals for this year is to have a somewhat structured operating session on the layout with a few friends. The opportunity came in late August when Paul, my partner in the AsiaNRail modular layout came over with a couple of other friends who have helped us with that layout. Below is Griffin working the Carlin yard interchanging a few cars from an eastbound manifest train.
Griffin also brought over a Bachmann sound equipped 4-8-4 with a passenger train and after running a few structured jobs, we all enjoyed seeing and hearing it run on the layout.
With the bench work for the Lovelock expansion completed, I have been slowly building turnouts for it. I will end up needing about 8 or 9 turnouts. I picked up all the track I'm going to need for the new section and am working on gathering a few parts still needed for the turnout linkages. In the photo below are 5 of the turnouts in various stages of completion.
And track laying has actually started on the new section. The first turnout after coming off the helix is built to be fixed in the diverging position with the continuation of the dummy main line leaving the front of the bench work. There will be a long siding and then a switch lead with the various industrial spurs branching off from that.
This fall I am looking forward to attending a couple club layout open houses and then in December a setup with the Ntrak club at the Great Train Show. I have already started preparing the trains I am going to bring to that layout.