N scale staging yard is laid!

Today, having returned from a hiking trip to Death Valley, I completed the track laying on the stinging yard. There are 7 tracks. The layout is set so that I can take a train out of stinging, run it around the railroad once (or more if I want) and return it to staging. Since the train leaves engine first and returns engine first, I added a run around crossover on track 2 - lower left corner. This allows me to easily uncouple the locos and run them onto track 1, then reverse up that track to recouple on the head of the train for the next run. With multiple diesels, no problem as they can go either way. Steamers will need to be reversed and I will do that on the layout after an operating session. Each track will hold a train eight feet long - about 30 40' cars plus locos. I will probably only run 20 cars at a time with multiple locos - just a better scale on this small railroad.

Current thoughts are that there will be a track for a through freight westbound, a through freight east bound, two local freights (east and westbound), a passenger train, and two front tracks for fiddling.

The tracks are held onto the cork roadbed with Dap 230 adhesive caulk. Great stuff. Just have to do a thin layer so that the caulk does not ooze up over the ties. Eventually I will spray paint the rails and ties "railroad tie brown", and then clean off the paint from the top of the rails for electrical connectivity. Final step will be adding ballast to the tracks - between the ties and down the sides of the roadbed. Like the real thing. This helps keep the track in place and looks "right".

Next step - I want to wire up the tracks and install cutout toggles (to kill power to each of the seven tracks). With sound decoders in each loco, seven trains waiting to run would make a racket. Once this is done, I can then install the Ikea shelves underneath. Much easier to work underneath the staging yard without the shelves in place.