Once again, progress... Okay, not much ...

Well, I spent alot of the day today working on the layout. Why, well, because I got displaced off of my regular job onto the extra board again ... ah well. Anyway, I have done some work on the layout.

First off, I sanded and painted the rest of the roadbed on the section that I have up ...

 Well, the second project was to create a splice plate so that I can hold the splines on the next section of layout. Here is the piece I built using a scrap piece of aspen, cutting 1/2" deep notches for the spines with a table saw.

This is the splicer plate installed on the new section. I also installed that tie that you see that hasn't been stained ... That is actually on the second section.

For reference, this is the tie spacing jig that I made out of masonite pieces last year. The width of the masonite strips is such that it allows for a little variation in the tie spacing, just like on the prototype.

I installed a couple tie strips and held them down into the yellow gluw with these pieces of 1/2" plywood and clamps ...

 In this case, it was a good thing that I am impatient, because when I looked at the ties under the block on the left, they had shifted WAY out of position. Fortunately, the glue had not set completely, so I was able to move and reglue them. They are now being held in place three at a time with the clamps.

Oooo, I love it when I get parts in the mail ... I just got these today ... Rail anchors! The last piece of the puzzle as far as the track detailing here goes, but dear lord, I am going to go broke using these things as much as I need to ... They come from the Irish Tracklayer, but I think y'all could figure that out.

And this is what they look like installed .... I really think that they make the track pop ...

And here is a shot of a little more of the track with them installed ...

But wait ... there's more ...