Some incremental progress on the layout as a whole.  As mentioned in the previous post, some major trackwork was necessary for operations to continue in any reasonable manner.  Namely, I had to elevate the crossing tracks about a half inch above the roadway to eliminate a peak in the rail joints that was causing all sorts of mayhem.

  As work was ongoing, I took the opportunity to rearrange the office structures around the main entrance.  I also made some progress in replacing the manual snap switches with caboose industries hand-throws.

I am planning on having a small corn field on my layout. I plan to use JTT ho scale summer corn stalks. I am trying to calculate how many corn stock that I will need. What is a good spacing that I should have between plants and how much spacing should I have between rows?

With the shell done, its time to start managing the details that make this go from a bunch of plastic shapes to a realistic looking building.

1949 Mercury Coupe just finished for the layout.  My era is 1969 so this one is aged accordingly.

Sorry about the hood alignment!