I've gotten to a good point. I've got 9 whole feet of track down. Two six foot staging tracks, a switch, and a three foot tail. I've been working on the electrical the past couple of weeks. BTW, this is all DC, for now. The three sections are divided into blocks controlled from a temporary panel. I've got a couple of LEDs to indicate the turnout position.

The next two things I'm going to work on are playing around with the Ir Tx/Rx LEDs to display whether the turnout is fouled from either the two legs.

For the first time is 12 years I moved one of my locos by electricity on the track. Granted it was only 6 feet of track, but it moved by itself.

Downside, I went to take a video and my camera batteries are dead.

But, it moved. By itself.

It's been a few weeks since I've been able to work on this, life & work get in the way. Sigh.

First experiment. Building a shelf.

Some thoughts on the room I have.

Ok, here is another pass. Clockwise from left. Staging (Bethlehem), comes out of the Perkasie Tunnel, splits to a two track main. Siding that splits for the team track (which had a gantry crane) and the freight station. Perkasie Passenger Stn, and then the siding for a coal distributor, a feed mill and a place called Mt Alto. Then on to Sellersville and Lansdale. I will reserve putting a bridge across the door way for continuous running as the "Board of Directors" would have a fit with that.

Here is my first attempt at a HO design. Not happy, but I gotta start some where. The corner where the two ends almost come together is the entrance and I cannot block that. Not even a duck-under. On this I want to learn track laying, and wiring, no DCC yet. I also want to experiment with track detection & signalling.

Doug M

I've got a home office that I'm going to use for now. The basement is years away from being available for use. My home office is a spare bedroom 11'7" x 7'10". I now have bracket shelving on three walls. So I'm going to do do a couple of little shelf layouts to experiment with. From all the reading I've done, I've come to the conclusion that my first layout is going to be a failure. No getting around that fact. The main reason is that I don't have the skills to pull off what I want to do.