Last track painted

Today I air brushed the last unpainted track on the layout. It is the town of Craig. You will notice I sort of went over the top with tracing paper shields for over spray, but did not want to take a chance.  This is what I get for waiting to lay the track in Craig until recently, after much scenery was in place.  But it worked out OK.  No overspray on finished models.

The blue painter tape over the turnout switch points and the hinge area is to prevent painting the blades to the ties and/or hurting the electrical connection for the blades. Not fun when that happens - I know.  All I have to do is go back and take off the tape then use a micro brush and paint to hand paint the rails and ties that I missed. Way easier to control.

So after the photo the rail heads are cleaned and tomorrow I will ballast the rails where I can - at least between the rails and along the edge where I won't be adding scenery later.  I like to do the ballast after the first layer of scenery is down so the ballast goes on top not visa versa.  

It feels great to be done with track work.  I also replaced the two faulty switch motors under the layout. Of course, while I was installing one of the motors I broke off the wire lead of another one.  So I got to solder underneath the layout over my head.  No burns!  Go figure.

And - Happy New Year and on to 2017.  Hopefully it will be better for the US than many of us expect.