An introduction:

So some years ago I had a chance to build a new house with my Parants.  I am a bachelor and they were elderly at the time (last 60s early 70s).

So we build a largish house of about 2000sf and because they were elderly we built a ranch.  It is a pure coincidence that this gave us a basement of about 32’x68’ inside dimensions.

My father models logging railroads in general and settled on the Mower Lumber Co in Cass WV.  (Home to the prototype of the Bachmann Shay)

I model the C&O in the New River gorge.  Circa Late Summer Early Fall 1943.

The layout is a mushroom design.  It started off as a conventional design.  But my father wanted a lounge area as well as our rather large shop space.  So by raising the end of the C&O from Prince to Hinton up and tucking the Mower section under it I gained about 6’ turning the 4’ aisle into a 10’ space for a lounge.

Turned out to be a good thing as we eventually joined a group a bunch of our friends were part of that met on Friday evenings (until Covid).

Over the years we made reasonable progress on the layout.  However when my mother had her Bypass and my father had his knees replaced then my mother passed away and I had my minor health issue we all but stopped working on the layout for about 2 years.    Then we got back to work but about 2 years ago my father took ill with a chronic terminal illness so he does not work much (if at all) on the layout.  So we are in out second down time. In the 12 years or so we have been building the layout.

Add in that I find we were working much slower and less on the layout once we joined our Friday group in part because one night a week we were busy.  And part because we got our “fill” of trains working on or running the other layouts in the group.

So to make a long post a bit shorter.  The progress has been much slower then anticipated.