Here's the view toward Strong.  On the left is the Salmon Hole Bridge, behind the Birch trees is the Dickey Bridge Underpass, and strong behind.  The three skirting fabric samples were temporary to hide the underside of the layout.  Guests voted on the preferred fabric.

During the week, I spent quite a bit of time getting the layout ready for the meeting.  I installed 30' of homa-bed to complete the continuous run.  The most time consuming part of that was finalizing the trackplan at Starbirds.  Then I installed 9 feet of HOn3 flex track, where the trains will be hidden behind Kingfield and head through the backdrop.  After that, I installed ties and hand laid the remaining 20+ feet of track.  Jim Amato came over one night to learn how to hand lay track.  It was a struggle for him, but he completed 3 feet of track at the eventual location of the Phillips Covered Bridge.  All in all, I worked several late nights, but all the track was in.  The 7 Railway Engineering turnouts laid were spiked over, as I did not install spurs or sidings.

Before cleaning the basement, Jim and I mocked up a valance, by attaching a 1/8"x6"x6' piece of masonite.  I like the look.  The valance gives an idea of how the whole layout will look some day.

On Sunday, the big day, Jim Stewart came over and helped clean and rearrange the basement.  I had not cleaned in a month, and the basement was arranged for working on the layout.  Once I installed the sections of the layout, we were able to remove the selves that they had been stored on.  Additionally, large amounts of lumber and foam were moved around and disposed of.  Basically Jim transformed the basement into a fine railroad room, while I complete the installation of the railroad sections.  Thanks Jim!

This view shows the approach to Phillips from Strong.  Under the layout, there is plenty of room for my Mountain Bikes.  Eventfully valance, fascia, and skirting will be installed here.

Around 2:30 the first locomotive circled the layout.  I was ecstatic and relieved.  3 months earlier we had ripped out the initial layout back to the walls, and now I had a larger version up and running and to be viewed by the NMRA.

Around 3:30 the first guests arrived.  I was attempting to run a train, but I did not get the DCC hooked up.  I have a small porter which runs on DC and a Diesel which runs on DCC.  The Diesel is the better puller, but I had not yet hooked up the system.  A few months earlier, I had sold off my Digitrax system and decided to use my Atlas system and transition to a Lenz system.  Having never set the Atlas system up on the layout (I had used it to program decoders), I did not feel that the proper time was when guests were arriving.

At 6:30, the last guest left the house.  Most seemed complementary, staying more than the token 5-10 minutes.  I felt great about the progress, about the layout, and hope my crew feels good too.  They should take pride in it as well.

Looking down the Phillips yard, with card board mockups for the Phillips station and covered bridge.  The large open space in the foreground will be the turntable, engine house, and shops.  I left part of the backdrop unpainted, so that viewers could see a joint in the styrene.  The continuous loop of track goes through the backdrop at left.  Eventually, the main line will curve around the isle and the sawmill town of Redington will be at left.

While the layout ran, there were a few short comings.  I wish I had completed the following:

• Atlas DCC running, so that I could run a long train of cars.  The porter did not pull any cars.

• The Lenz XPA hooked up, so that the members of the NMRA could try their hand at using a cordless phone to control the locomotives.

• Photos and diagrams of the prototype SR&RL railroad.  I do not think most of the NMRA members realized how I have (and plan to) reproduce the town layouts, industries, buildings, etc.  The photos provide the basis of the layout design and without them most visitors have no idea how inspired I am by the SR&RL.

• A register book for guests.  It would have been nice to have an accurate account of who attended and their interests.

Even with these short comings, I'm juiced about next years NMRA national convention being here in Cincinnati.  Hopefully by then, I will be operating trains from Farming to Rangeley and up to Bigelow.  Moving forward, the work group is going to work on Paul Miklos' N-scale B&O Ohio Division, a large multi-deck layout.  But that said, I will continue to progress on the SR&RL (and already have).

 
This view is taken looking down the tracks toward Strong (South) from the approach to the Salmon Hole Bridge over the Sandy River.  In 1912, the birch trees were starting to grow back along the river, growing in on the railroad.