Back to working on the bench work, tracks and more.

Latest update.

Yes, I'm still working on my layout. I want the last spike to be placed by year end at the latest. So here are some updates.

Been working on finishing one part of the layout. This is the Canadian Pacific workshop, it will have lights on the inside and outside and will have two arc welding lights (one inside and one outside), everything will work on an Arduino mini. I still need to do the chain link fence and a bit of finishing touches here and there.

FINALLY finished the reversing loop of my staging area, well I still need to install 3 tortoises. But I did run some trains back and forth and it ran like a charm.
 

Since I was in the mood to finish my staging area, I continued and installed the rest of the tracks in my yard. I also did the bench work for the extension which will house my turn table and 6 stalls. I had to play around to make the tracks fit because I miss calculated the room in the aisles, I only had 18". So, I shrunk the extension by 10" to give me an aisle of 24", but that complicated the track work leaving the yard to the turn table because I already had glued the road bed. So I had to add roadbed (some places 3 wide) to fit the tracks because I wanted to keep my 30" radius, which is the norm on my entire layout.
 

I've also been working on one of my two trestle bridges. Now I need to finish this one, work on the other and then carve the styrofoam, add plaster, paint and do the scenery, but for now it's on pause so I can work on finishing building the layout.

What's next:
- More bench work and more track laying.
- Will install a few more tortoises (still need to install about 70).
- More wiring.
- Working on buildings.
- More Arduino stuff (speedometer, weighing station and other stuff).
- Gyprock workbench area and finish the workbench with dispatcher area.
- Will be doing my first attempt at weathering and it will be a box car.

Just a little info if anybody is interested. I'm also part of a group called YouTube Model Railroaders. We have many live shows such as Fine Scale Building, Tech shows, Arduino basic, layout tours, etc. Lots of us meet every night live to discuss techniques, ideas or just watch others work on their layouts. We can be up to 12 at the same time live (video and sound), it's lots of fun. We use the appear.in to communicate.

Later all.