Sorry I haven't been posting much lately.
For five years I freelanced at home, which allowed a lot of modeling time: very easy to pop out to the garage while "on break" to spray paint a single coat, or make a few trees, or glue together some walls.
Since the start of 2016 I've been working full time in San Francisco, which has cut drastically into my train time (darn you, FTE with health benefits!).
I shut down my layout design / construction business & website, & really haven't touched a train for almost a year.

Creating a modular, stackable N scale layout that can store in IKEA shelves:

Building a layout for a client in his 3rd-floor game room based on Monticello, NY in late 1950's/early 60's:

Last month (May), a man contacted me through our shared Local Hobby Shop:  He had a 3'x16' HO layout that was half done.  He also had grandsons who are 7- and 8-years old and who really wanted to run trains with Grandpa.

The challenge was that, ever since being diagnosed with cancer a year ago, between the chemo and the medication he just didn't have the energy to continue work on the layout.  So he needed a strapping young man with the muscles and know-how to get the layout done and running well. 

As it seems my Free-moN modules have now become my "home layout", thought I'd start a new thread featuring the whole kit-n-keboodle rather than individual modules.

'Twas a busy weekend: on Saturday I set up all my modules in my garage to 1) troubleshoot, 2) see it if fit in my garage (a "California Basement") and 3) run trains!
Only took about a kabillion hours to get everything going, but once it did...!

A video:

 It was showtime at the Hiller.

Silicon Valley Free-moN had our modules set up and trains running only to find...

ONLY ONE PASSING SIDING ON THE WHOLE LAYOUT????

We had over a week of show and the ability to run only two trains at a time?

What would happen next Sunday when the whole group showed up and wanted to run trains?
Draw straws?
Stand in line?

Something had to be done!

So I built (most of) a staging yard in (most of) a week.

Ever since reading John Armstrong's Track Planning for Realistic Operations I've been intrigued by his drawing of a "shoofly" (page 123, 3rd ed.). It's a simple scene of track diverted over a fill while a crew repaired / rebuilt a bridge over a small stream, yet contained the possibility of multiple "stories" within the scene (not only the work on the rails, but the land just outside of railroad property: orchards, farms, roads, forests, etc.)

So I designed a 2'x6' "Shoofly" module:

Here's the continuation of my Mt. Coffin & Columbia River 23" x 41" N scale layout that I started back at the end of November, 2010.

My drill-spun, floral-wire & ground foam pines are anything but groundbreaking (I even use a T-pin in the foam for planting), but I thought I'd share my "pining away" process anyway.