My breaks between my floor project have been adding up and things are starting to come together!

First, I realized that I had neglected to do Liquid Nails graffiti on this project, so I fixed that on my last missing upper level panel. JFRTM!

I then started putting things in place to start visualizing how it’s all going to look.

I started laying down the cork for the the mains and the siding. I needed a way to ensure that I kept things not only straight but also parallel to the front of the layout. In doing so, I found yet another thing that foam core can do! Here you can see the gauge I made that ensures the strips of cork are at the proper spacing and the proper distance from the wall. I thought it was pretty nifty.

The rest of my work focused on where the layout “starts”: the Route 30 overpass in North York. Like much of the layout, it’s far from a perfect match to the prototype, but it should be close enough for anyone familiar to go “oh, that’s Route 30”.

This is CP Loucks in progress.

I pulled out some locomotives to see how everything looked in scale. I ain’t mad at it. In fact, I might’ve gotten goosebumps when I was looking at it.

In the above photos you can see my mocked up fascia. It’s just some super cheap dollar store foam core that I cut down to 6″ strips. I’m not sure about the 6″ height on top, which is why I’m trying out the different heights. We’ll see how it goes. But with the fascia in place I was able to really see how the lighting on the lower level works. The answer: pretty damn well!

So, with that, it’s all starting to look like a real train layout! Onward.