A new year begins

Happy New Year and a belated Merry Christmas to all my followers.  As we continue to work on the layout and make progress we have made a few minor changes.  Yesterday after months of trying to get the swing gate to line up properly, I secured the gate and it is no longer a swing gate, just a part of the layout.   So from now on to access the utilities area we require crawling or scouting under the layout.  I have found an office chair with arms which can go down fairly close to the floor will allow me to scout under.  I have to bend over just a bit to clear the framework on the layout.  So we replace a small amount of track at the cracks of the swing portion and the rails are now smooth as silk.

We are continuing to lay more check on the new roadbed in the south end of the basement.  This is the area where the WM splits.  One track leads to Port Covington which is now a lower level portion of the layout under the WM on the West wall.  Two additional PRR tracks lead to the South also under the layout on the West wall.  This staging represents Washington DC and points south.

The Penn Station terminal tracks are almost finished and the WM track that connects at Fulton Tower is in place which allows the WM to enter Penn Station and beyond there continue to Hillen Station in downtown Baltimore.

The PRR tracks north of Penn Station lead to a staging yard representing points North e.g. Philly and New York are behind downtown Baltimore.   In downtown Baltimore there will be some city scenes and may include Fells Point waterfront area with a couple of O Scale ships tied up.  Also Hillen station which was WM passenger station in Baltimore.  The WM also stopped at Penn Station.  This allows the WM to connect with the North and the South.  One could travel from Cumberland, Elkins, or Hagerstown to Florida or Boston via the stop at Penn Station.

Also continuing to build various buildings for the layout.  Will post photos as soon as the four structures I am working on are completed and painted.

I also had to change my email address due to a spammer using my email as a return address on his/her spams.  They did not get my address lists, just using my email address.  So that is the origin of james @ thebeckhams . us.