I have made quite good progress over the last 8 days . . .

First I glued 2′ (50mm) foam all around the left side and rear of the layout where I wanted a grade separation between the tracks.

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Next I laid all of the Kato Unitrack on lower part of the layout. This included confirming that the reverse loop was in fact a viable option.

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Then I tested the DCC connection to the trackage, at first with a RRamp meter and then with an Atlas U36B locomotive. I connected an NCE PowerCab to the end of one of the sidings and then checked the voltage on every branch, first making sure that the Kato #6 turnouts were pointing in the correct direction for the power routing. The loco ran at a slow speed (30/126) on every piece of track with no stalling or challenges.

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Yesterday I finally took delivery of a Woodland Scenics 2% incline/decline set. Although made with white foam, aka Expanded Polystyrene (EPS), which is not easy to work with, as compared to the blue Extruded Polystyrene (XPS), the Woodland Scenics product is wonderful for the determination of the correct percentage incline required on a layout.

Upon installing the incline set it quickly became apparent that I needed a longer run to reach the 2″ height of the scenery I had planned for the upper level of the layout. Furthermore the foam on which the oil and bakery industries planned for the right hand corner of the layout needed to be reduced in height from 2″ to 1½” and in order for the left side trackage to gain the 2″ elevation required to meet the right hand side trackage the incline would have to be 3%.

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Now I wait for the Woodland Scenics 3% incline/decline set to arrive to finalise the track arrangement.

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