I've managed to round a corner of sorts. By the end of last week I'd finished all the "tear out" work and actually started to put things back together. Although I originally planned tosave a lot of existing trackwork, in the end it made more sense to simply scrape the track up and put it aside to reuse later.
Here are a few views showing how things looked in the layout room before Thanksgiving, and how they look today.
The peninsula lobe has been removed, and the peninsula benchwork now connects to the around the wall benchwork.
This had been the location of the Williams Creek bridge crossing scene - located on
the upper deck. The bridge, piers, and abutments will be reused, but the scene itself didn't make it:
As of today, here's what the view down the aisle is - the upper deck is gone, and the lower level track will be raised about 5" (when I install the new subroadbed):
The helix, at the "front door" to the layout area is gone, replaced by the framework for a new, wider peninsula (with aisles on both sides).
The benchwork that looks like it's "floating in air along the far wall is the former upper level staging yard. It's still there since frankly, it keeps it out of the way. The plan is to remove it, spin it 180-degrees, and reuse it as the new south end staging yard. It will end up along the same wall it is now, only about 20" lower and slightly to the right of its current position.
Once the staging yard is moved, I'm going to install new backdrops down the center peninsula.
