Been a busy week at work, but managed around the edges of my days to get the layout almost set for its first formal operating session on Sunday.
First up, getting the layout back looking like scenery is kinda done. Having chosen to build a small layout, having it look semi complete is reasonably easy compared to many who have large layouts and lots of benchwork, where just getting the track in and running trains is an accomplishment. Having replaced the problem switch, and it seeming to be working after a couple of weeks testing. During the week I pulled the airbrush upstairs and painted the rail, then put down new ballast and ground cover dirt around that to fill the hole in the scenery. I am not going to start re-applying static grass in this area before my Sunday Ops Session, as that introduces another round of glue and wetting spray, and after the ballast and ground cover dried, the track seems to still be working ok.





Repairing ballast and base scenery around a replaced switch. Thankfully I had plenty of the mix of ballast I used, so it will blend right in as if nothing was ever ripped out.
Second up, paperwork and DCC. I have been thinking a lot about how operations will work, and realistically, all trains on my layout are yard jobs. This means, more than likely, rather than the crews having to deal with individual paperwork, they would be given switch lists from the yard master telling them which cars to collect from on-line industries, and which cars to delver to industries, and where to spot them. This means, for now at least, the where for cars destinations is less important, I can simplify by simply treating anything coming on layout as going to a destination, and anything leaving to a yard for onward travel. With that in mind, I split my switch list into two, a “Loads to Pick Up” and a “Cars to Spot”. This will let me, as effectively the yardmaster as the host prepare the lists in advance, so the challenge for the crews will be figuring out their order of operations in terms of which cars they pick up before they can spot any cars, and not running out of room in the staging yards to run around cars and change their locos location between pushing cars and pulling cars.


Slightly revised switch list for tomorrow, switching to cars to pick up and cars to spot. And my ESU Cab Control throttle and running tests before having guests.
Finally, today I will spot cars, do final cleaning of the track, and clean up the home office/layout/workshop. I am really excited to see how it runs in the hands of four of my friends. I really wish I had a second throttle though, with 4 people coming over, that is I think my maximum number of guests, but it means if they split into a CN and CP Crew, only one can work at any given time. I am really excited to see how tomorrow goes, and reporting back on it afterwards.