Gaining some separation

 Well, now that Christmas has passed, it is time to shut down the railroad and do some major engineering work The first major step is to put up the scenic divider between the yard and the balance of the room. The framework has been up for about a year so I have delayed long enough. Over the course of the holiday, my grandsons, their dad, Jason and I cut some Masonite to form the back of the backdrop. Last Monday night, the train guys helped me put 3 sheets of it up. Here is the first view looking down the aisle at the west end of the yard, under newspaper.

 Coming a little further along, we are now entering the yard area. You can clearly see how it runs under the overhead loop that is Mt. Carmel.  Weigh Scales is along the wall in the rear. It is a good time to get this backdrop up before I do any scenery work on the yard.

 Moving further, you can get an impression of how the backdrop isolates the view of the yard.

 Now we are coming to the end of the 24 feet of block we have put up. I have to stop here as I have to build a cross over in the main and it will be easier to do from the other side than from here. If I did it from here, I would have to lay on the track. We did have to lay on the track to fasten the Masonite to the frame.

 The crossover will be just beyond the end of the frame. I hope to get that done by the end of the month so we can continue framing.

 If you look through the framing, you can see the back side of what we already put up. I painted the back of the Masonite with Linz sealer to reduce any swelling from moisture.

 Moving further through the yard, we reach the end of the framing.

 Over the holiday, I took a layout break and painted some cars and engine parts. These three bright red ones were in that group.

 The 50 footer is a Precision car that I made a Pere Marquette auto car, the next two are Protocraft cars, a Rock Island and a CNO car with a Viking roof. They are really nice looking cars.

Now I have to weather them to get them to look more like these which appear to be on the RR for a longer time!