So I haven't had as much time to finish wiring the staging the past week as I anticipated.  But I had a little time this morning so I was able to finish soldering about half the remaining staging feeders to the track and to the bus.  I did some of it, checking for continuity with each feeder. All good.  About half way through what I did today, I also checked for shorts. Still good.   Hooked up the power to the bus and tested the track with an engine.  Working great. Removed the engine and went back to soldering.  

Well, today was the day I try out soldering for the first time.  Here I am in my 50s and it just isn;t something I'd done before.  I had started out by buying this Weller variable wattage soldering setup from Micro-Mark:

http://www.micromark.com/economy-priced-variable-temperature-soldering-iron,9257.html

I happily can report that the next step of my early construction is complete - finishing building the under layout staging benchwork as well as cross bracing the island that is the start of the first visible level.

Here is the wide view (sorry about the shaky hands again.  I think I am going to start to have to put the camera on something stationary - though I think the jpeg file size reduction software I am using has some to do with it as well because the full size files are much better):

I managed to get started earlier than expected on the railroad.  It was a small start, but felt great to begin.  I will be journalling the progress here over the coming months.  Today's accomplishments:

- Swapped furniture and rug around to establish boundary between guest bedroom end of room and railroad end of room.  What I could do with a whole room... but 1/2 a room is better than none.  Then cleared everything out of the railroad end to be ready to start.

Below is a redesign of the Gilman VT section of my track plan: