Garden Railroad Trackwork Complete

Today was another productive day.  We started the day by heading to Shaw's to pick up one of my prescriptions and a few grocery bags of food to hold us over until later in the week.  Then I started collecting tools again in an attempt to finish laying all the trackwork in the garden railroad.  By dinnertime, all the trackwork was laid and I was able to smoothly push a passenger car around the layout by hand without it derailing.  This meant that the trackwork was good!

I can't run my locomotive because I am still waiting on the USPS to deliver packages of parts...  packages that should have been here far too long ago.  Once these last packages arrive, then I can install the electronics into the locomotive.  I have a trolley that I plan to convert too but that project is on hold for now.  The priority is to get the big 4-6-0 steam locomotive completed so we can run it as soon as possible.  

All the grandkids will be here this coming weekend so the priority is to get this up and running for a day of model railroading in the garden (among many other things...  playing in the playhouse, playing on the sailboat, horseshoes, golf...  I moved the cup and flag to the lawn in front of the playhouse... giant Jenga, perhaps even Dominoes).  I'll deal with finishing the rest of this layout in the coming weeks as time allows.  

The first thing I want to do later on is to stain all this woodwork a dark stain...  maybe a very dark green stain...  perhaps a dark brown...  maybe the vertical supports will be stained a very dark green and the roadbed a dark brown.  Right now, the bare wood is nice and clean but it is too bright.  The eye is drawn to the wood rather than the trains.  I want this wood to almost disappear into the landscape.  

Eventually, the middle of the dogbone layout will be filled with tall lupines.  For now, we have a lot of weeds.  The lupines probably won't start appearing until next year because I didn't plant the seeds until about a month ago.  

This is the sweeping curve that will have a wood trestle bridge holding up the track...

This is that same curve where the wood trestle bridge will be located...

Below, the locomotive is pulling into the back side of the garden layout.  I'm thinking of adding another bridge on this side of the layout.  It will probably be a truss bridge...

I plan to also convert this trolley to battery power with high quality electronics and sound so we'll eventually be able to run both the trolley and the steam locomotive at the same time. 

It was a great relief to get the two ends of this small garden railroad connected to each other today!  Tomorrow I might do a little work on the foundation blocks for each of the wood trestle bridge bents.  I still have plenty to do but I'm ready to run trains!