After Steve left for home I continued right on with the Cody benchwork. It took a couple days to install this section, since it's right next to the furnace and I only had access from the Wind River Canyon side.

While building the benchwork I also was extending the subroadbed further westward from Powell.

At the same time I kept working on the ice house. I cut 600 grit sandpaper into scale 3' wide strips to represent tarpaper roofing:

Then painted it black.

I finished assembling the shell of the ice house on May 23rd. It's been sitting here untouched since then.

On the 25th it was back to Cody benchwork. This next section was much easier to build because I could get to both sides of it after the frame was moved under the peninsula.

This forked section was installed on May 30th. I have one more section to go for the turnback curve at the end, but that won't be done for another week or two, probably.

On June 3rd I posted my latest layout update video:

In early June I began adding the subroadbed for the Thermopolis side of the Cody benchwork. Since part of that area is hard to reach because of the furnace, I built it on a table before moving it into place.

Once built I sat it on temporary risers about where it would go on the layout.

Then I tied it in to the subroadbed from Powell, added the permanent risers and installed the cork roadbed.

The next day I added the remainder of the code 70 track I had on hand. Once I get more I'll be able to lay track all the way to the Vocation siding under the Thermopolis turntable.

That leg on the left side of this shot was moved after I took this to provide an unobstructed view of the lower level.

About a week ago I moved the Thermopolis leg that had been at the edge of the benchwork back a bit to eliminate the block at Vocation.

Then I went back to Powder River to work on the siding for a couple hours. I added a lot more grease drippings, especially just outside the rails where those old truck journal boxes would drip onto the ties.

I also continued to work on adding DCC and sound to the GN Pacific. Here's the tender floor with the speaker sitting next to it.

To attach the speaker I simply applied a bit of adhesive caulk, the same stuff I use to attach track to the roadbed, to the rim of the speaker.

Then I pressed the speaker in place and left it for the caulk to cure.

As of a couple days ago I had the decoder and keep-alive all wire and installed in the tender. The loco should be on the track and operating sometime in early July.

A few months ago I bought this Walthers Ice House kit off ebay.

It will go here.

It's too long for the spot I have on the layout, so I set about shortening it. After measuring to figure out how much to cut out I began on the roof sections. Here the first section of roof has been trimmed and spliced back together.

This shows the unmodified roof section below the one I shortened. You can see how much I had to cut out.

I shortened the long walls of the house and then glued the basic structure together.

Once that was done I took all the exterior pieces out to the garage and painted them white. Next I'll add the roofing paper (600 grit sandpaper) and assemble everything.

The last day of April I began adding power switches to the Casper turntable tracks. To this point all the tracks have been powered all the time, meaning the roundhouse generates a lot of noise from all those sound-equipped locos.

I drilled 14 holes for the power switches in an arc around the turntable controller.

Adding all those switches took some time, as I had to cut all the existing feeders and splice the switches into each one. I was finished and had all of them tested by May 10. Here's the final product. The three switches at the bottom that have green handles power the three garden tracks off the turntable.

About that same time I also did the first layer of weathering on the Powder River siding. Since cars are parked here in the off season, this track gets pretty filthy with grease and oil drippings from all those cars.

Here's a view looking down the siding.

I still need to add the grease and oil to the outside of the rails that would come from the journal boxes of the trucks.

Also on the 10th I finally began preparing the GN H-6 Pacific for a decoder. This is the locomotive - one of my favorite ones.

I upended the loco into the maintenance cradle. If you look close at the tender trucks, you can see that I added Tomar contact shoes to improve power pickup. This was done nearly forty years ago, when I installed an Onboard controller in the loco. This predated DCC by several years.

I photographed every step of the initial disassembly, so I'll be able to assemble the engine properly later.

Here's the mechanism removed from the boiler.

I tested the mechanism, and even though it sat unused for several decades, it still ran very smoothly. This is a PFM model made by Tenshodo. Their build quality was outstanding!

Disassembling this loco sure brought back a lot of memories!

Looking inside the boiler, you can see where I added a lot of low melting point alloy to increase engine weight. The loco didn't have traction tires and Bullfrog Snot wasn't invented yet, so about the only way to improve tractive effort was to add as much weight as possible. Headlight wires are encased in the alloy, so I need to remove it to get to the wires. I'll try immersing the boiler in hot water to melt the alloy and hopefully pour most of it out.

Even though this loco was built in the late 60's or early 70's, you can see that there are holes in the tender floor where a speaker could be mounted. SCC sound wasn't invented yet, but I think this was done to allow for a speaker for the old PFM Sound System. The timeframe is right anyway.

Lots of work to do to get this baby on the rails! I set it aside for now, but I'll probably pick it back up in a week or two.

On May 12th Steve from Evanston came to stay a few days and help on the layout. Top priority was to finish the Lander benchwork to the point that it was ready for track.

First thing we did was remove the angled section of benchwork at the intersection of the two walls and adjust it to get rid of the step that came from narrowing the rest Lander. Here's Steve holding a piece of that section. The angled section goes just to his left.

By shortly after lunch we had the revised section installed. As you can see, that step is gone.

Next we began cutting the plywood subroadbed. Here the first section is laid temporarily in place.

When the day came to an end we had all the subroadbed cut and loosely laid in place.

Early on Tuesday the 13th we removed the subroadbed and began added risers.

Dave came down from Basin to join us for the day. Here Dave (left) and Steve are placing the corner subroadbed onto saw horses in the garage for cutting. Because the risers lifted the subroadbed up beyond the bottom of the backdrop, it had to be trimmed to fit.

Dave and Steve are placing the trimmed plywood back onto the risers to test the fit. After that we lifted the plywood, added glue to the risers, then screwed the plywood down into final position.

We worked one section at a time, moving a tarp along Greybull below to catch any glue that might drip. Didn't want to get that on the tracks!

Here Steve is vacuuming up sawdust from the screw holes that attach one of the plywood splice plates.

Dave cleaned off the subroadbed after we got the last section in place.

I had a doctor's appointment mid-afternoon, but Dave and Steve continued working, adding the cork sheeting to the plywood. Here's Dave smiling for the camera after all the cork was down. What a ham!

Here we're looking down the entire length of the Lander benchwork. All that cork is just begging for track!

Dave left for home a bit after four p.m. Steve and I rounded out the day cutting code 55 rail for the turnouts that will go in Lander. There will be seven code 55, plus a couple of code 70 coming off the line coming into Lander.

On Wednesday Steve and I picked up a couple sheets of 3/4 inch oak veneer plywood for the Cody benchwork. We cut it into 3" wide strips (that was a lot easier - and faster! - to do with a helper than it was by myself), then cut those down to size to make the first section of Cody benchwork.

Here's Steve assembling that first section.

Cody is (or rather will be) located underneath the Wind River Canyon / Thermopolis peninsula. This first section is under the base of the canyon peninsula, near Shobon.

After several hours of twisting ourselves up like pretzels to install the benchwork, the first section was in. That ended Wednesday. I'll have to finish the remaining sections by myself, but this one was the most difficult.

The same day I did my last website update I started on two different projects. The first was adjusting the width of the Lander benchwork, narrowing it a bit to make it easier for the Greybull yard operator. I'll get to that after I cover the other project - "ballasting" the Powder River siding and refinishing the area between it and the mainline.

If you recall, in late February I scraped off all the poorly adhered stuff between those tracks:

In preparation for "ballasting" the siding, I taped over the mainline to protect it.

I keep putting "ballast" in quotes because the siding didn't really have ballast (at least, not that you could see). In the photos I took in 1995, the siding ties are mostly just embedded in the dirt. While this is 50 years past my era, I'm just going to assume the siding looked a lot the same back in the mid-40's, except for the ties being in somewhat better shape.

Over a couple of days I sprinkled slightly tinted tile grout between the tracks and on the siding. Here's what it looked like with only a couple layers of grout on the siding on March 17th:

It took quite a few layers of grout to build it up properly around the ties, leaving a slight depression between the siding and the mainline. Here's how it looked from the other end of the siding on the 19th with all the grout layers in:

Overall I was pretty happy with it at that point. I stepped away from Powder River for a couple of weeks, in part due to other work around the layout, but mostly because I was installing a Starlink cable outside the house and had an incident with a ladder that left me laid up for nearly a week. That also forced me to postpone my Operating Session by three weeks, moving it from March 25th to April 15th.

On March 30th I got back to Powder River. I cleaned off a lot (but not all!) of the grout from the tops of the ties, and cleaned the rails thoroughly:

Then the last day of March I added the grass between the siding and the mainline, and removed the tape:

The next day I added just a bit of shrubbery and longer grass between the tracks. I don't have a good picture of it (because I'm not finished with it yet), but a photo of another project will show some of that later.

Now we'll go back to the other project I started on March 16 - narrowing the Lander benchwork a bit.

I initially built the Lander benchwork (located over Greybull) to be nearly the same width as Greybull. While not a problem with the Lander benchwork being just an open frame, it has become clear over the last couple of years that it would cause a problem for Greybull yard operators trying to read car numbers on the back tracks in Greybull. The trackwork in Lander didn't need all that width (I'd left extra room between the tracks and the wall), so I reduced the width of the center section of Lander benchwork. Here I've trimmed several joists and reinstalled them:

By the end of the day I finished that section, and attached a bit of styrene to the front stringer to simulate the bottom edge of the fascia that will be there some day.

I left the end section unchanged. I wanted to get feedback from the Greybull operator at the upcoming operating session. I could cut things back another inch and a half or so if needed, and I didn't want to do both sections twice.

In late March I clamped more styrene all along the front edge of Lander and stapled cardboard to the top so the operator couldn't just look through the benchwork at Greybull below.

Feedback from the Greybull operator was that a bit more width reduction would be helpful, so on April 22nd I reduced the center section of benchwork by that additional inch and a half. Here it's in work:

I finished up the end section on the 23rd. Here's how it looks now:

I'm debating over whether or not to rework the angled section at the far end in this photo. The diagonal stringer ends at the original width of the straight sections of the benchwork. I'll mull that one over for a bit before deciding.

You might also have noticed the lights hanging under the Lander benchwork. That was another project I undertook late in March and into early April.

On March 27 Steve from Evanston came up for a couple of days, and he brought a couple of 4' LED lights with him for me try out. He's been installing these on his railroad, and since I have some dark spots under higher decks, he thought I might be able to use these.

Here Steve is installing one of the lights underneath Hudson, to brighten up the West end of Douglas below.

After just a few hours of work we had two of these lights installed over Douglas. Certainly eliminated that dark spot!

I don't have a real good picture of Douglas before we installed the lights - the camera tends to adjust for the dark areas and they become less noticeable in photos than in real life. This shot, just as we were getting started on the light installation, is the best one I've got. At least you can see a bit of the dark area:

These lights are made by Burrina, and they're available on Amazon. These are 4k color, which matches the room lights and the light I put over Rocky Mountain Drilling, so they're perfect. They're also only about $9 per stick! They come in packs of six, so I ordered two packs.

In early April I installed them over Powder River and Greybull. Here's Powder River (and you can also, if you close, see a bit of the long grasses and a few bushes I placed between the tracks):

And here's the view of Greybull before I did the final adjustment to Lander benchwork:

I have four more to go over Cody when (if) I finally get that built.

A few days before the aborted operating session in late March I took some high-level shots of the layout from unusual locations. This first one is from the top of the Owl Creek mountains of the Wind River Canyon, back in the corner. You can see Riverton at the top on the right, and Powder River below. At the bottom is East Staging. You can see a bit of Casper to the left.

This shot is taken from right above Shobon. The left side of the photo is dominated by the unfinished Wind River Canyon. Hudson is in the far distance on the top deck. The whole of Casper is visible in the distance on the main deck, and to the right is Riverton, Powder River and Staging again.

Finally, this view is taken from above the Lander backdrop, in the corner. Part of Basin is visible below on the right. Worland is on the opposite side of the not-yet-finished Basin backdrop, and Thermopolis is below the blue backdrop beyond that. A bit of Casper is visible in the far distance, and Poposia Mine #1 is against the backdrop on the far left (beyond the bridge).