We had talked about using dricore or carpet on the basement floor. I did a search and the main issues for train rooms is feet comfort and also possibly less damage to something that hits the floor. I have to do something with the floor. My original plan was grinding and painting and carpet in the aisles. That won't be enough. I got over 1200 sq feet of train room and lounge area to cover. The lounge is carpeted with used carpet and no pad and its very cold on the feet.

I set up some saw horses in the basement so I could work on laying the rear track on the waterfront shelf. We precut and located the risers and roadbed andthen moved the whole section to the saw horses so I could do some scenery. Easier to work bith sides then try to lean over the benchwork. So much for that plan. It has been sitting there over a week.

I went to Monroe WA. today for a model railroad swap meet. They had three bldgs at the fairgrounds full of layouts and a lot of vendors. Crowd was large and one gent commented it was the largest crowd he has seen in awhile. Aisles were crowded and I think I made three walk throughs of the two largest bldgs.

The primary area I am modeling is southwest washington. It rains over 100 inches a year. I looked up Naselle and they get 114. The coast is pretty much a rainforest and so it is very green. Trees grow tall and the undergrowth can be impenetrable. So I am going to need a whole lot of trees. I will need both evergreen and deciduous trees. I also bookmarked a couple videos making evergreens from furnace filter. Some methods are better than others, even with the same material. 

If I was getting paid by the unit I think I would starve. I have handlaid turnouts in the past in place. So I tried the templates and it took me about 4 hours to build a code 83 turnout with track that is the old style. 74 thousands at the base. And so I built another one same method and it took about the same time and will actually see the layout.

Mind you, 4 hours without the wood ties yet.

SO I got the fast tracks #6 code 70 fixture the other day and have spent a few hours making some frogs and trying to figure out how to put the wood ties on the code 83 turnouts I made using just the templates.

I mentioned it before that one of the things that stands out between railroads of 20 years ago and today is backdrops. They were not so common before.  And I find myself drawing a track plan thinking about how much space to the wall for scenery. Its not that important anymore. A well done backdrop 1 inch from the edge of the roadbed looks very acceptable. And today, there are a whole bunch of backdrop suppliers and any scene you can imagine. And custom made backdrops.

Finally, I am about to do room prep on the layout room. The rest of the basement is about done.

 Still have to clean up the weight room and install a sink and paintbooth near the door. Water is already there for the outside fawcet so it should be fairly easy. Just have to teach myself to solder copper pipes. Those keep moving higher on the priority list.

The last few days I have been asking a lot of questions and getting answers I don't always like but they are the hard truth from experience. I taught myself to stumble thru Xtrackcad so I can put my ideas in scale and it really changes the perspective of what will work and what won't. I am really enjoying the xtrackcad software but the learning curve is still steep. And looking for items in the para files is time consuming.

In the basement and future train room, the lighting is twisty bulbs and a single shop light. I am going to hang shop lights for construction. The final lighting will have to be LED with a few spotlights? So that means a valance? I am thinking I should plan this layout with possible future expansion to an upper level. The upper level gives me a place to hang the leds. And until or if I ever put track up there, I will have a nice shelf for storage.