It's been a banner weekend for my layout and that I FINALLY started to lay some track - well actually the cork.  I installed the three Tam Valley "Singled" turnout servos and starting installing the three turnouts.  I had to be accurate in mounting everything as the servos and linkage went in first and have to align with the turnouts.  It wasn't that difficult but it did take some time.   In the picture below I highlighted the area (pay no attention to the mess in the dark area!)  You can click on the picture to get a bigger view.

I'm at that important point in my railroad where I can actually start putting down some track! The problem is, I can't locate my soldering iron. I know that I packed it when we moved from Georgia to Florida, but I don't know which of the over 600 (that's right - 600) boxes it is in. Now I was very careful to label all of the boxes as to which were for the railroad; however, I didn't mark in detail the contents in each box. All of these boxes have been sitting on my selves in my new home garage waiting for me to unpack.

As I start to get serious about constructing the railroad it became painfully apparent that I needed a work surface other than my benchwork top.  I've been constantly moving things around on the top of the benchwork and everything is always in the wrong place and always needed to be moved.  I had a nice 30" x 6' work table for my previous layout and certainly don't have the room for it in my 10' x 12' layout room / office.

I did a little more work on the swing gate today because I didn't like how hard it was to open and close due to the friction between the gate and benchwork.  Here's what the benchwork looked like where the gate rests before I started.

I've combined what was in this post to the first post.

**** UPDATE 10-2-18 *****

It's been over five years since I installed my coved corners using Charlie Comstock's styrene method and still no cracks - not even one! Also, no rust!

**** UPDATE 4-18-17

It's been over four years since I installed my coved corners using Charlie Comstock's styrene method and still no cracks - not even one!

**** UPDATE 7-18-14 ****

In part one of my swing gate I made the basic gate and got lots of good input from many of you.  I want to give a special thanks to Trevor for posting links to his gate where I saw how he added a diagonal brace.  It got me to looking critically at my gate and I could see that with only one top hinge that any downward pressure on the end opposite the hinge could easily damage the hinge.  Here's what it looked like:

*** UPDATE 10-22-13***

Well, I had been putting it off long enough so this long Labor Day weekend I decided to tackle the gate for my benchwork.  I had been trying to decided between a lift (hinged) gate and a swing gate.  After careful consideration I decided on a swing gate as I believe that I (personally) have a better chance of achieving and keeping track alignment with a swing style gate.