Goals for weekend and beyond

My main goal for this weekend is to give scenic treatment (i.e. track paint and ballast) for one short section of track on the main layout. This will be a fairly involved process, but over the past few days I've made progress on testing various methods and researching what the prototype looks like, and I think I'm ready to go.

During the past few days I added a couple design posts, worked on the track scenery techniques, started preparations for the DS64 tests, and repaired a small number of locomotives with help from my son. In the process I felt like I was getting too scattered, and needed a clearer focus for the work.

I decided the key thing I want to emphasize is the "fun" factor for myself and my helpers in the family. We want to run trains, yes, but right now we also want more variety in terms of the trains we run and the places they go. This means adding more track and making the portions of the main layout that are currently off-limits usable again. Ideally the first part of this effort will be connecting the middle tier staging to the main layout because we need that space to store more trains on the layout.

Now, I could just proceed in this manner without thinking about track paint or ballast. Indeed, most modelers recommend deferring the ballasting of track for near the end of the process, after the major scenery projects are over, due to the mess and the tendency to "spill" things onto the ballast, forcing it to be redone. In addition, some modelers recommend not ballasting until all track is complete and you've run a few operating sessions, because there is a good chance you will want to change some part of the track arrangement after you experience how it operates.

However, the truth is while I have theories about how to scenic the track I don't really *know* because I haven't done it for this layout. I want to have completed the track scenery for at least one section that includes switches before proceeding with new track, because there is a good chance that I'll adapt my track-laying techniques as a result.

Therefore the goal for this weekend is to scenic a short section of double mainline track without switches, then next week I'll try an adjacent section with a crossover.

Once that is done I may decide to ignore the ballasting until all track is in place. Or I may decide that it looks so cool that I will want to complete it, at least for areas where I know the track arrangement won't change. But either way once I've completed this I can proceed to more track-laying with confidence that I know how the scenic details will be added later.