I had planned to complete the South Denver module 1, aka as the Joint Line Return Loop & Burnham Shops, to operational stage. Unfortunately, the size of the wiring job has somewhat overwhelmed me, largely because:

1. I wired all of the block detectors with the baseboard in a “pop-up” vertical position and did not take into consideration access after it was lowered back onto it’s normal horizontal position.
2. Wiring individual DCC accessory decoders for 40 turnouts is a long soul-destroying job.
3. I use solid wire which has many advantages. The one major disadvantage is that the one strand can easily break.
4. For economic reasons most of the turnouts have been re-used from previous layouts. This has led to questionable trackwork.

After a period of indecision, while I spent my time testing Locomotives on the new test loop of track (see first photo below) I decided that I would build west from the test loop to the Grand Junction return loop.

What I have done, and can be seen in the following photographs, is build the CB&Q and UP main line from the test track loop all the way to a single loop of track, being part of the Grand Junction loop. I have installed all of the main line turnouts as I went so that I can build on from the main line as required.