In June my NMRA Division along with the Dallas area division hosted our Regional NMRA convention in Arlington. It cut into my progress some, but then again it encouraged me to get the layout ready for my first open house.
The focus since May has been the Billings yard area. I started by drawing a line from one end to the other where I thought the mainline needed to go. I used a laser to connect the two endpoints. We will see that I didn't really have the right location in mind on the right side where the mainline needs to be near the wall in order to make the turn around the room to come up the wall on the left of this photo.
With a line drawn, I laid the first track in the yard.
Billings has a small yard with the double track main going down the middle. The prototype doesn't have a proper yard lead, so neither is my model. Since the yard isn't a classification yard, it should be OK. I picture mostly block swaps and some trains terminating. It will also give a place for cars to be blocked before switching the Billings Industries.
Looking back the other way, I tried to keep all the tracks from being parallel to the edge of the benchwork.
Before the LSR convention we had a joint division meeting in Allen and Soundtraxx came and demonstrated the new Tsunami 2 decoders.
Here's a short video of the first train on the lower level with cars.
I spiffed the place up a little for the open house. Also, I placed the three Walthers Double Track truss bridges temporarily.
This is a much of the yard that was done by the time of the open house.
By the time the throngs of people came (5) my number one helper Katy had unboxed a bunch of building that were packed away.
We were able to run a couple trains back and forth.
After the convention I took the family to Frisco, TX to visit our new National Computer Gaming Museum. Among other relics, they had my first computer a Comodore Vic20.
Next to the Video Game Museum is what someday may once again be a train museum - the former Age of Rust museum from Fair Park... not the Museum of the American Railroad. Unfortunately, it's not open.
