On To the Second Level and Center Section

The answer to the question in my last post about getting the second level done before Easter is "Yes, sort of".  I did get the bottom level and a good chunk of the second level completed, but it may have taken slightly past Easter to achieve it.

The beige roadbed on the right side of the photo above is the formerly white foam from the previous post.  I gave it a light brown paint job which will form the basis of ballasting it.  This way if there is any sort of gap in the ballast you won't see bright white shining through!  

I have started to install the risers for the top level, where the station will be.  When I first started the layout I tried to be very careful about the height of the original benchwork because I wanted to make sure that the top level wasn't too high up (it's hard to visualize when you don't actually see anything other than an empty room).  I'm a little nervous that I may have gone too high.  We shall see once the station is in place!

  

And finally I added the benchwork for the middle of the layout.  Unfortunately it means I have to duck now when I go from one side of the layout to the other, but it was time.  This center benchwork is where the two returns for the ends of the dogbone, one on the bottom and one on the middle level, are located.  As you can see in the picture above I have already installed supports and provisionally laid the track in the middle.  Also, in the foreground  of the photo you can see the two-track staging yard for the middle level on the left coming together via the switch in the foreground. EDIT: It occurs to me that the track plan shows that the staging yard for the middle level was supposed to be on the other side of the layout, above the lower staging yard.  I discovered that I needed a little too much space over there, and that it made more sense to have the staging yard tracks on the opposite side.  So a train coming from the station will enter the second level on the track on the inside of the second level (the track directly above the switch in the foreground), go across the middle via the upper return, swing around to the left in the back where the two-track staging yard starts, and then come down the left side, around the bottom / foreground, and back up to the station.  The idea is to have one train coming into the staging yard and the train on the other track going out.  This mixes up the traffic in the station a little.  

Next up is finishing the center section and the return loops, and adding the benchwork to make it up to the top level of the layout!