Today was exciting because I got to lay the first ties on the layout! While staging tracks will be prefab flex track, the switches will be hand-laid like the rest of the layout. You can see from the photo some of the benefits of handlaying–how else could I make this cool curved staging yard lead on an S-curve!

I wish this meant I was just days away from laying the first rail, but the ties are really just in preparation for the black paint that will be used for the staging level–better to paint the ties black with the rest than to glue them down onto paint.