"Don't spill paint on it"

iPhone panorama of the new station signs, floor and skirts

I spent the past few days working on layout room infrastructure, mostly adding a new floor surface and skirts. But before I could do those tasks, I spent a good part of an afternoon sorting through the boxes of tools and stuff under the layout. After purging about half of what was there, I proceeded to add the new floor.

Allure planks have self stick edges making installation simple

I used Allure Laminate flooring, the same as in the rest of the basement. It is water resistant and fairly easy to install. The toughest part was having to jack up the layout one leg at a time to allow clearance to slide the laminate planks under the legs. Each leg had small sections of the old flooring under them that I removed when I jacked up the legs. So the change in height due to the new flooring material was minimal. It did take some courage to pump the hydraulic jack, fearing that the layout would spring apart. But it all seemed to go well. No real apparent damage occurred except for some ominous groans and creaks.

Close up of the nearly finished Brooke station

I am using the  layout skirting from McCooks Landing. Since I only have 12 linear feet of the panels with the bunting, I need to get my mom to sew some new ones, once her leg heals.

CINCHOUSE (Alicia) likes the new look, though she did admonish me to, "don't spill paint on it."

When I started building this layout, I told her to not worry about some of the closet space that I was removing. I said, "There will be infinite storage under the layout." Well I was right. With the purge and shelves under the layout, I only need half of the square footage under the benchwork for storage.

With this addition, the layout from Brooke to Falmouth is nearly complete. All that remains is detailing. No new structures are needed, though I do need to make a conductors car turned into a telegraph shack for Stonemans Station.