What a weekend! On Sunday, I decided against all the honey-do things on my list in favor of putting up a wall between the laundry area and the Silverwood area of the layout. I put in metal studs, drywall, plus taped and mudded everything. It looks great! I've got to put up some more mud this week and then sand and paint. Now Sherry wants a ceiling put in the laundry room with a ceiling fan too. I shouldn't complain, she's let me take over the rest of the three-car garage for the layout!

Wayne came over this morning and we spent several hours working on the layout and removing the cupboards over by Silverwood. Wayne added the cork roadbed on the BNSF Main #1 between Devore and Silverwood. We also ran the Southwest Chief on the UP tracks without problem. That means the clothes-lining of the bare-table train had to be because of the wheel flanges rubbing aginst the center ridge on the Walther's well cars.

This evening, after Wayne split, I got the cork down on the BNSF Main #2 between Mormon Rocks and Devore. I also put down the mesh/mud on top of the foam from Summit down to Mormon Rocks. I took the cupboards we just took down and turned it into shelving under San Bernardino.

So the anniversary of the Union Pacific's completion of the transcontinental railroad is May 10th. On May 10, 2004, at 12:04 AM EST, I completed the UP loop on my layout. The first train to make the loop was a UP Tunnel Motor, pulling a bare-table train that clothes-lined at Mormon Rocks. I tried it again with a manifest train and it was no problem. Looks like I'll need to stick with short cars on that route. That was the first problem. Then I noted a short when I threw a turnout. Looks like I used the wrong turnouts! I used Electrofrog turnouts when I should've used Insulfrog. Urgh! The Wiring for DCC site shows how I can fix it. It's worth a try, otherwise it's rip them out and try again. On the bright side, it was great watching trains going around the layout. It took two minutes and fifteen seconds for the train to make the UP circuit. Oh yeah, the third thing to go wrong is the power outlet on this laptop computer just smoked! I'm going to bed!

Last night I finished the rest of the hidden tracks on the UP line. I now only need to lay the tracks between Silverwood and Cajon and we'll be able to run the entire UP circuit. Unfortunately, I found that while gluing the tracks for the Dike power district, the tracks left too big of a gap at the insulated rail joiners at Devore. That'll be an MoW chore before too long.

On Saturday night, Wayne and his wife, plus Drew and his family came over for dinner. It was a great chance to thank them for the hard work on the layout. It was also a great chance to start laying tack! We got the entire UP Blue Cut power district laid. I hooked it up to the power bus on Monday and ran a train through the district. Last night, I got industrious after work and laid the track in the UP Dike district, meaning that as of right now, half the UP tracks are down and working. If I can hurry, maybe I'll have my Union Pacific tracks completed for my own May 10th GREAT EVENT!

Wayne got me a great little ATSF MoW gondola, plus I've got some other MoW cars. I've been thinking about getting an MoW track cleaning car and putting together a Maintenance of Way train to keep at Cajon and bring out for track cleaning.