Then I had to "dig" out of the homasote, the maintenance pits for the roundhouse and the diesel house.  A real buster. Then I fit the trackwork to the turntable pit and very carefully cut the ends of the track over the pit.  Trackwork was laid to the diesel house and a minor change was made to lengthen the one track through the diesel house.

Then the layout was "zip textured" by essentially mixing some "burnt umbra" color pigment with water and then brush painting it on the layout.  This provides a ground looking color as opposed to the gray homasote and also paints the tracks with a "rust" look.  I then scrapped the tops of the tracks off with a hard eraser so that future electrical contact can be made with motive power.  Cleaning the turnouts can be an experience.
I took down one side of the big sky blue background to prepare it for transport to the artist, so what you see in the pictures over the west end is "raw" garage cinder block wall.

The next step was kind of fun? or so I thought.  It's "final fit" time.  Let's make sure the buildings fit and then put some trains on the trackwork to measure track car capacities and clearance factors.  After the building arranging and fitting, here are the pictures.
 
 
 
 

The layout from east to west	The layout from west to east
The layout was "zip textured" with burnt umbra	Buildings and trains packed in many, many boxes
The buildings go up	A photo from the rail level looking east

Looking down the engine ready line.	Track level looking west to the depot
The Car Repair Shed and lumber company	The car repair shed and ice house

 Putting the buildings up took me about three hours.  They had been packed away in the boxes (see picture above) and they needed some TLC and almost all needed some slight repairs.  Unpacking the trains was an 8 hour experience.  The whole thing took up the entire weekend.  About ten cars and engines were put aside for repair during unpacking.  Some minor problems, like couplers that had fallen off, were fixed on the spot.   Even after meticulous packing and careful handling, things end up broken.

Here's pictures of it loaded with cars, engines, buildings and anything else I could find.  I didn't bother opening all the freight car boxes.  The layout had absorbed all the cars it could handle and I still had 7 Xerox paper boxes full of freight cars to go.   It doesn't work yet, but  I'm getting closer and closer to "play time".

Overlooking the Commissary with a string of Stillwells in storage and a dining car and "the" business car #1.	Overlooking the Commissary straight into the passenger yard.
Looking at the Commissary from track level	Looking at the Diesel House from track level
A complete overview of the layout from east to west. Boxes on left contained everything now on the layout.	An  overview of the layout from the middle to the east.
An  overview of the layout from the West to the East.	The passenger yard.

The line up of passenger trains is overwhelming.  As I said before, I just put as many trains as possible on the layout to judge where there may have tracks too close to each other and so track clearances can be checked. In the photo on the left is the first section of the "Phoebe Snow" pulled by two E8A's in gray, maroon and yellow. On the outside track you can see the tail end of the "Erie Limited".  A second section of the "Phoebe Snow" is along side of the first section.  The second section of the Phoebe Snow is led by two Erie Lackawanna gray, maroon and yellow  PA-1's, the "Erie Limited" by another two PA-1's in green/graygreen livery.  The second section of the "Erie Limited" is on the first track (Buckley track) of the passenger yard.   The passenger yard has a variety of commuter type trains from outside to inside, a U34CH, a comet coach and comet control cab; an Erie Lackawanna RS-2 with three Stillwell coaches; an DL&W FM Trainmaster with three Boonton coaches and another U34CH Comet set.  Parked at the station is an Erie doodlebug with Stillwell combine and coach. The last passenger train is in Yard B and consists of an E8A with six ex-Sante Fe coaches.
Not all passenger and freight equipment made it to the layout.

The pictures above and below with red text are thumbnails and can be
enlarged by clicking on them.

Roundhouse and turntable	Turntable and diesel house near fuel line	All passenger yard with thru trains
Passenger trains at the depot	West end of the  passenger yard	Fueling facilitiesand ready track
Passenger trains in yard	Overview from east to west	Over the top of the fueling line
In front of the Port Jervis depot	West end of the ready track.Car repair shed in foreground	Ice yard and Yard B with car repair shed in background
Ice house  yard and freight yard B	Passenger varnish on the mainline	Car repair shed with ice house in background
Car repair shed and NYS&W box cars at lumber company.	Lumber company and car repair shed	Rail truck terminal and car repair shed

Freight yard B & cabooses on right, TOFC's in the middle.	Freight yard B with ice house on the left	Freight yards A & B & cabooses on left
Erie Limited coming right at you.	Overlooking the passenger yard from the west.  3 SD's ready to move TOFC train east in foreground left.	The cabooses overrun Yard A next to E8A with ex-Sante Fe cars.

Here's the finished Engine Terminal control  panel fully painted, decaled and with all controls inserted.

This is the control panel for the Freight Yards painted, decaled  and all controls mounted

The latest: November 2001 - control panels attached to the layout and the wiring started.  Why are they under the layout?  They swing down and out when the layout is dropped down to the floor level and are then locked in place to be usable.  Three down, one to go.

September 28, 2003  - Well, my backdrop painter bailed on me so it's a "do it yourself" project.    We took a ride up to Port Jervis, New York and took some more pictures of the scenery in and around the area being modeled for the painting project.  Sporadicaly over the last two years, I've been wiring this monster for power to the various tracks.  What a bear!  Installation of under the table switch machines was not easy either.  Only a few have been installed.  On the underside of the layout is the wiring.  To keep it as simple as possible and traceable wiring, I set up some wire connectors (three at this point) and wired the layout wire to them and then wired the control panels to them.  Most of this is done.  Next is to provide power to the different cab controls and test them by running trains.
 

Painting has commenced.  Here are some pictures of the "in-progress" painting.

 

Just remember, this is still under construction,both the layout and the web site.
Comments? Questions?  email me.

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Here's what I think it will be when it's finished.
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 There will be more pictures and commentary as this project evolves and nears "running ability", so for the moment it's still "under construction".      The next priorities are drilling holes for the switch machines, switch machine placement, wiring the switch machines and finishing the  wiring of the layout to the control panels.   I have, at this time, decided NOT to use DCC, so the layout has to be wired with on-off switches (to isolate track power) and rotary switches (to assign cabs).  Even as I do this type of "heavy wiring", I do know that I can quickly revert to DCC power when I feel it's appropriate and when I've selected the system to use.
I'll let you know which one, Paul, Steve and Tim.

 If you would like to see a list of equipment on this layout, you can go to Page 3

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