This week I finished laying the NP main through Yakima and ran a small freight around the line. Lots of track laying ahead. I can now start installing and repairing engine decoders in several of my engines. I’m also hoping to receive my new NCE system this next Friday.
I’m learning how to build my own turnouts using a paper template and spiking the ties and rails before soldering. I have to thank “Fast Tracks” for their videos which taught me the basic steps to build a turnout. But, with several different sizes and shapes of turnouts on my layout I could not afford to purchase their metal jigs. With each turnout built I am improving my method and speed. Who knows, some day I may actually get to run a train. 
For the last couple days I have been laying roadbed and track for the Northern Pacific main line through Yakima, on my layout. I now have to start building some curved turnouts that lead into the NP yard and the interchange track with the PCRy yard.
You can see the paper templates I use to help identify where turnouts and track need to go.
I’ve made a major change of the Yakima NP yard on my Anyrail CAD file. I moved the ladder tracks and yard lead to the south end of the layout. I did not like the way the yard lead at the north end of the layout looked or functioned. The problem I am now seeking a solution for is that the Fasttracks switches in the CAD program appear to be smaller than the templates I downloaded from their site. In my CAD I can get six leads but on the layout, with the templates, I can only fit in five leads. I’m going to ask the CAD user group to look into the problem.
Yesterday I completed the track wiring for my reversing “Y” on the backside of the layout into the staging area. This afternoon I will wire up the turnout motors and then move forward on the Yakima loop track. For the last several days I have been looking into converting to a NCE system and selling my Digitrax gear. The Willamette club where I operate runs all NCE.
