After a lot of cleaning and gleaming of the track I finally had reliable track work and my 3 truck gear driven locos run all over it without any problems.  I then added a new (to me) PFM United 2-truck Shay to the roster.  The 2-truck Shay was professionally overhauled now has a can motor, flywheel, a stay alive, and a Tsunami decoder and speaker installed.  It runs great until the second truck goes onto any frog on my layout.

Today I performed some maintenance on the layout to deal with seasonal expansion and contraction.  With all the discussion that occurs on soldering rail joints and feeders, I thought I'd share what needed fixing...

Switcherama is my new operating concept that is designed to give all operators a continuous running experience on the LVN.  It is an alternative to the standard trains that are scheduled on the LVN and provides interest and variety for the operators at one session.  Thirty-two strips of paper are created.  Each has a switching move which includes a pick up and drop off from an industry to a yard or from yard to industry or industry to industry or yard to yard.  The dispatcher controls the operation by giving the train orders (strips of paper) one at a time to each of

Did some real quick drawings laying out the main line, helix and both terminating points of my layout and have included them here.Again this is just get me going in the right direction.

My goal is to have a double deck connected via a helix in the middle peninsula, possibly herniated helix to allow for a view of the train. Around the room and then back down the helix and terminating in its destination, either Hagerstown or Baltimore.