Due to the nature of my job I was unexpectedly out of work from last Christmas until te beginning of May which presented a wonderful opportunity to fill the cold winter days by working on my layout uninterrupted. In that time I feel like I achieved quite a lot on the layout construction itself as well as building structures and whatnot. Like most railroad modelers, I tend to get "on a track" of maybe wiring for a while then when I get bored I shift gears and build a structure or two or maybe work on scenery. This keeps the process more interesting and allows me to see the changes faster which keeps me more motivated.

Right now I am focusing on the evolution of my layout but in future blogs I will step back a little and show some of the structures I built as well as the process of installing decoders in my Z scale DCC locos which is no easy feat considering the tiny space you have to work with not to mention the tiny wires and components.

Back to the evolution in pictures. When I last posted my layout had moved from one room to another and I had covered the entire thing in plaster cloth. I mentioned that I wad building this layout in a way in which I could move it some day and reassemble it elsewhere if need be but at this stage I hadn't yet installed any wiring which made this short move pretty easy. Using 5/32" plywood, foam and ultimately hollow mts keeps the weight down and makes moving these 4 sections very easy on the back.

I had planned on having my steam/diesel mainline rise 4 inches then come back down with the help of Woodland Scenics risers in a 2% grade and a small helix. However, once I laid the track I decided it would be prudent to test some locos going up this grade pulling some rolling stock to make sure it would work before I ended up too much further along in case I needed to rip up some of what I had done. Well thank god I did my test because I could barely get mu steam locos (without rolling stock) to climb the first graded curve and I couldn't get them to climb the helix at all. My curves inside the tunnel were much to tight and therefor added too much friction. The wheels would simply slip and the locos would run in place. What to do?

Well, when life gives you helix lemons you make helix lemonade. I determined that I would need much more track to allow a more gradual climb so I added an additional 2' to the end of the table which gave me a larger mountain as well as a new interesting focal point in the from of a curved viaduct.

This picture shows the added section before I enclosed it as part of the mountain. You can see the viaduct in place at this point.

The trains run into the tunnel then run in a clockwise direction over the viaduct, through another tunnel then back to the left across that viaduct in the back between the two mountains. One nice aspect of this is a visual thing: the trains disappear into the tunnel for a bit heading in one direction then reappear heading in the opposite direction for a short time, disappear again and end up with a "peek-a-boo" effect in the back. I believe this helps to reduce the toy-like nature of trains running in circles and almost makes it look like two different trains. I think these small illusions are what help bring a life like quality to layouts. I will share some tip and tricks I learned from other modelers in a future blog.

This next picture shows the scene after I had enclosed the mountain, colored the rocks and painted the plaster to get rid of the stark white surface I had been looking at for so long. What a difference a little color makes!

Another added bonus is I was able to extend the run of the coal train up top which can run in whichever direction I want through 4 tunnel portals. At this point I hadn't yet painted the viaduct. I will add a picture of the final product in a future blog.

This next photo shows that same scene from the back. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I wanted to allow as much access to everything inside the mountains because I have a lot of hidden railroad real estate in these mts.

​In my next installment, a little extra "free space" and another small problem create another great opportunity.