STAGING - AT LAST..!!

[Steamtrains]

I have spent the last few days working on my "underground" staging casette/yard. Even though it was one of the first features that got "built" when I started this layout, it was never operational. But with the arrival of my "Super Chief" I needed a home for it. Since it's going to be a large consist I needed a place to "park" it when it's "away". I began by laying down the track from the turnout off the main, but had a helluva time with the length that's on the lift-out section. Once I got over that, the rest of the track went pretty smoothly, and joined it to the staging yard lead which had been laid when it was first built. I then proceed to wire each of the staging tracks. Each one can have power turned off via a rotary switch. Each track is "locked" in place by a sprung latch so track alignment is always "dead-on".
Here's a few pics of the "inaguration" of the staging yard.

The lead to the lower level staging-




Branching off the main and begins its descent-




Entering the "underground"-


In the underground-


A bird's eye-view of the open casette and the 4 staging tracks-


And a couple of other views of the open cassete-




I also needed to get this done before starting work on the peninsula. That's a job I've been wanting to get to, but needed to "clear the decks "of any other "major" work before tackling it. Stay tuned-more to come....