
 On  vacation  this  week,  and  have  been  busy  around  the  hose  doing  some  clean  up  projects,  and  my  wife  and  I  have  had  the  kayaks  out  on  the  Cumberland  river  a  couple  times.  Tonday,  after  some  furnature  moving,  and  some  extrior  trim  repair,  I  got enough  out  of  the  way  I  was  able  to  work  on  the  layout.
I  am  considering  a  major  rebuild,  so  work  in  my   Southern  staging  area,  Harlow,  Camp 6, Montgomery Furnace, Terrapin, Perry's  Gizzard,  or  Ridgemont,  is  not  on  my  short  list,  as  those  areas  may  be  removed  and  replaced;  Leaving  only  Crooked  Creek TN.,  Murray, TN., State Line,  GA .  and  Gegokayoossa, NC.
of  those  areas  the  biggest  unfinished  project  is  my  attempts  to  add   a  return loop  to  the  narrow  gauge  @  Georgia  staging.  Since  I  have  a  narrow  gauge  return  loop  in  Gegokayoosa  ,  this  will  allow  me  to  have  loop  to  loop  operation  on  the  narrow  gauge.    The  narrow  gauge  main  between  them  is  currently  too  steep  for  my  tastes.   Most  of  my  locomotives  can  pull  appropriate  trains  up  the  steep  grade,  but  the  Blackstone  C-19  W  sound  isn't  stout  enough  to  get  much  up  that  6%  grade  with  18  inch  radius  curves.   So  if  I  do  a  rebuild,  the  narrowgauge  main  will  be  lenghtened  considerably,  giving  me  a  much  longer  run,  and  the  ability  to  get  the  great  sounding  C-19  up  the  hill  with  a  respectable  train.
I  had  put  off  putting  down  the  flex  track  up  against  the  ceiling  because  there  wasn't  much  room.   When  I  had  built  the  Georgia  staging  I  put  the  last  track,  an  Ho  standard  gauge  track,  close  to  the  ceiling,  with  just  enough  room  to  get  my  fingers  between  the  car  and  the  ceiling  to  retail  a  car  if  needed.    Later  I  realized  this  gave  me  just  barely  enough  room  to  sneak  a  narrow  gauge  track  between  the  standard  gauge  track  and  the  sloped  ceiling.      It  was  a  bear  putting  that  track  in,  but  now  I  have  it  hooked  up  to  the  other  side  of  the  loop,  witch peels  off  the  outside  track  of  the  Georgia  staging  yard,  which  happens  to  be  a  narrow  gauge  track.
The  Georgia  staging  return  loop  has  a  17  inch  radius,  unlike  the  Gegokayoosa  loop,  which  has  a  16  inch  radius.  My  Keystone/NWSL  shay   cant  negotiate  the  Gegokayoosa  loop,  and  I'm  hoping  it  can   deal  with  the  Georgia  staging  loop.
Most  of  the  loop  is  in  place,  I  do  have  two   Narrow  gauge  switches  I  have  to  get  the  ground  throws  and  wiring  in  order  for,  and  then  I  have  to  cut  out  a  section  of  dual  gauge  track,  and  rebuild  it  with  a  switch  to  split  the  narrow  gauge  out, for  the  back  side  of  the  return  loop.    I'll  have to  build  in  the  polarity  reversing  circuit  as  well.  It  is  always  a  challenge  to  build  switches  in  dual  gauge  track,  and  I'll  have  to  be  sure  the  polarity  reversing  for  the  Georgia  staging  loop  doesn't  ****  up  the  Georgia  staging  staging  tracks  too  much. 
great  fun;  I  have  had  so  much  fun  with  the  return  loop  in  Gegokayoosa,  having  another  will  be  nice.    The  hollowed  out  space  allows  acess  to  the  back  track  to  be  merely  difficult  instead  of  impossible,  I  am  working  on  a  Styrofoam  mountain  filler,  that  will  ma ke  a  big  chunk  of  lift out scenery  that will  extend  all  the  way  up  to  the  iron  mine  A  gegokayoosa.
over  in  the  work  area,  Sir  Toppum  Hatt  is  busy elsewhere,  and  so  Taz,  The  pink  Panther,  and  Crang  the  evil  brain  are  supervising  the  work in progress  .