New track plan update

I have not been able to do much on the room preparation this week other than the initial spackling of the nail holes. An hour or two to sand those smooth and apply a second patch for some of the deeper creases and I can paint the room. One of the items I have been debating back and forth on is what to do with the electrical outlets. They are higher on the wall than a typical bedroom and Lisa suggested mounting the layout right above the outlets with a hole cut out in the 1" x 4" to access the outlet. Turns out I would have to install the layout an inch higher than it currently stands and lately I have been considering lowering the layout a couple of inches. I like the perspective of it sitting at 52" off the floor but E. McKeesport is 30" deep and you really have to stretch to reach the switch to access Stetson Convention Service. I am thinking of 48" - still high enough for a good perspective but more workable.

Anyway, I was talked to Eric D about lowering all 3 outlets and covering the existing outlets with a blank plate that I would paint sky blue. With his background as an electrician, he pointed out my idea would create 3 new junctions which increases the potential for a problem. He suggested adding a new junction before the 3 outlets split off the line and then run my own line where I need it but I told him the outlets are on 3 separate walls and may not share the same source. We were sitting on Eric's patio, using a kid's chalk board to sketch our ideas when Lisa says, "Can't you just leave the outlets where they are and cover them with trees or something?" Bing, the light came on. She was dead on to a great idea. Mount the layout on the wall at whatever height I want (in fact, may try a couple to see what works best), cut a 2"x 2" hole in the layout surface to run up power cords and place a 1/2 building or removable hillside in front of it. Perfect!

Damn, she's good!

Back to the track plan, I am getting better at manipulating XtrkCAD and the plan for the new layout is starting to take shape. I've measured and remeasured the room space and it is definitely 10' 4" square. I am trying to keep the extra 4" as a margin since I know things will shift a little from the plan to the actual implementation. I really like using offline staging to simulate traffic going beyond the layout, so I am planning two narrow shelves in the garage to provide this. In addition, I want to move the P&LE staging to make it more accessible and expand to 2 tracks if possible. Finally, I would like to reuse as much of the current layout that I can. I like the east-west flow (Greensburg offline east staging, Herminie-Irwin-East McKeesport online, and Pittsburgh offline west staging). Below is the current plan with some placeholder curves to give me an idea of where the 4 corners will fit to make the loop.