The layout room now looks very different because I’ve finally installed all the backdrops on the upper level. All unfinished areas are now covered (except the ceiling), and the sky blue paint makes the room look very bright. In addition to the backdrop around the walls, there’s a short backdrop atop the helix that forms the backdrop for the Benedict loader reached via switchback. I underestimated how much this would change the feel of the layout. Because it blocks the view across the layout, it makes the layout feel a little deeper because you can’t see it all from any one spot anymore.

I learned a trick for hiding seams in the hardboard by accident. Like all my other seams, I covered them the best I could with lightweight spackling compound sanded smooth, but it’s nearly impossible to get everything perfectly flat and even across both boards. It just so happened that all three joints in this section were right behind lights–with a light shining directly only the seam, there’s no shadow on any of the uneven joints making the seam a lot more difficult to spot.

The next step is to build the last four bridge sections and put some DCC bus wires in place so I can start laying track in the final section. Exciting!