On December 8th I finished tracklaying for the Husky Refinery.

Over the next few days I added ties for all the turnouts and installed ground throws. I also marked the location for all the track power feeders.

On the 14th I ran the power buss from the connector that will be under Husky to the one under the marshalling yard a bit farther down into Cody.

After that I pre-installed the feeders for all the Husky tracks and prepared to move the subassembly to the layout.

Then I spent a couple of long days installing Husky. This involved crawling under the layout many times, sometimes on an automotive creeper and sometimes not. It was a lot of work, but by lat on December 17th the refinery was in.

The next couple of days I was busy installing track around the curve from Vocation to where it would tie into the line on the Husky baseboard.

I got the track finished up on the 20th, then I went back and installed ground throws on the Vocation turnouts.

Right after I posted the last update I added the train order signals for Einnarf:

On November 3rd I posted my latest video update to YouTube:

Early in November I added four new boxcars to the layout. The operating session in October showed that I'm still short of rolling stock, which limits the amount of switching that can be done.

Here's a couple of the cars:

Back in February I preordered two CB&Q SD7's from Scale Trains. They arrived on November 10th:

Then I got to work on the Husky Refinery in Cody.

First I prepared the baseboard.

Then I stopped and spent about a week building turnouts. I built seven - four code 70 and three code 55. Two fo the code 70 turnouts are for Lander, with the rest slated for Cody. All but one will be used in the refinery.

With the turnouts ready to go I went back to the refinery baseboard and test fit it under the end of the Wind River Canyon peninsula. That leg near the center of the photo would be a problem, so I decided to remove it.

I decided to support the end of the Canyon on the Cody side of the peninsula with a threaded rod from the ceiling above. I added a 2X4 under the upper deck benchwork and a 2X6 hangar to the ceiling joists, then added the threaded rod. In this photo the rod bottom has yet to be trimmed.

By this time it's late November.

After the threaded rod was installed and properly tensioned I removed the leg, cut it down and reinstalled it to support the Cody benchwork. Now there's nothing in the way when switching the refinery.

You can barely see the threaded rod above the landforms here. I positioned the rod so it's behind the canyon walls.

With the leg out of the way I got back to building the refinery. I'm doing all the trackwork on a table where I can easily get at it. Afterwards I'll move the whole thing to its spot on the layout.

Here I've begun adding cork roadbed for the line from Vocation into Cody.

On December 1st I added the cork sheeting for the refinery itself.

On December 3rd I posted layout update video #73 to YouTube.

I planned on running one of the Scale Trains SD7's with the Proto SD7, and the other one with the Proto SD9. That way I'd have two loco sets, each with one sound engine.

It took quite a bit of time to get the Scale Trains and Proto locos properly speed matched. With advice I got on the Model Railroad Hobbyist forum, I set momentum to zero and deactivated Back EMF for all locos. I switched the Proto units from using the speed table to just using Vmin, max and mid. I had to adjust Vmid from the default value to get the midrange speeds to match the Scale Trains units. Here are screenshots of the Proto settings I used:

On December 4th I began laying track for the refinery. Here the line coming into town has been laid:

Near the end of September I moved legs out of view of the lower level under Wind River Canyon / Thermopolis by resetting them back in from the edge of the layout. Here's how the east end of Vocation looked before I moved the leg (the one near the wall):

It looks like this after moving the leg. I added new leg for the lower level and recessed the upper leg back behind where the lower level backdrop will be.

I did the same thing on the other side of the furnace at Alkali Creek. Here's how it looks now:

Then it was back to wiring train order signals. I had almost all the lines run by early October. Here are the bundles under Greybull:

And here they are under Douglas. All in all I ran about a quarter of a mile of wire.

I wired in each set of signals on the layout as I went.

On October 3rd I posted the monthly layout update video:

On the 4th of October I began fabricating the dispatcher's panel. I used the graphic as the template, center-punching each hole and then drilling it in several steps up to final size. Here the pilot holes have been drilled.

Here's the Masonite backing sheet after all the holes have been opened to full size. You can see that some cleanup of the holes is needed where the Masonite "erupted" around the holes. Cleanup was easily done using a deburring tool.

In order to keep from tearing up the panel face I only drilled the initial pilot holes in it. After opening up all the holes in the sheet metal and Masonite I laid the graphic over the sheet metal and used an Exacto knife to cut the holes to size.

Then I began populating the panel with the switches and LEDs. Here the first two rows of switches are installed.

Once all the switches were installed I moved the panel into the dispatcher's office and mounted it with a couple of screws at the top corners. The panel is level; it looks crooked because the two stair walls are not exactly even, meaning the panel is very slightly canted on the vertical axis relative to the stairs.

In order to power the panel I needed a place to plug in a wall wart. I added an outlet behind the panel on the stair wall for this purpose.

Then it was time to start wiring the panel. I had to crawl into that very confined space behind the panel and sit on a step stool to do the work. I spent a total of probably ten hours back there over about a week. Here the first set of signals is wired in and I'm testing that it actually works before proceeding on with the rest.

Here's the back of the panel with the top two rows of switches wired, on October 11th.

Here's how the front of the panel looked at that point.

I finished the wiring on the 12th and 13th. Here's the back of the panel with all the barrier strips installed and the lines coming from the layout wired to them (those lines come in from the left). Bottom row switches and LEDs weren't wired in yet.

Here's the front of the panel after all wiring is complete.

With the panel installation basically complete, I spent the next week getting ready for the upcoming Operating Session. That was held on October 21st.

Here's Dave from Basin working at the new Dispatcher's desk.

Here a passenger train is getting a consist change in Casper. Bill, in the foreground, is Casper yardmaster.

Dave had to leave before the session was over, so Kevin stepped in and relieved him as dispatcher.

Here's an unobstructed view of the dispatcher's desk. That banker's lamp is pretty small until it was placed in the very confined dispatcher's office. Then it got very large! It has since been replaced by an even smaller lamp.

One late addition to the system was designation of the switch taking the Cody branch off the line to East Staging "Frannie." A new set of signals will be installed for that. Calling that turnout Frannie confused the heck out the dispatcher - that junction real life comes off the west end of the Casper division, so on the layout that would lead to West staging.