Overdue Updates and Open House Preps

 It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted an update - 
1. Benchwork: All the layout framework and fascia are complete. And the fascia has been painted with two coats of "Riverway" - the same dark gray/green that's painted on the walls beneath the layout. 
2. Trackwork: The mainline loop is complete, in, and operational - including the track across the swing gate. Roadbed is in place on the paper mill peninsula, and I've been finalizing the track arrangement on the large Richford peninsula. 
3. Structures and Scenery: I will do a separate post to show the latest on the Farm Implement dealer to continue that series of posts. And while there's no progress to show on scenery as of yet, I have been positioning some structures, mostly leftovers from my previous layout, in various spots. Some of these will be permanently installed, others will serve as placeholders - helping to get the layout to a "finished" or semi-finished state for our open house later this month. 
Yes, the first public showing of the layout will be later this month. The event is a neighborhood holiday open house. The stated purpose is to show off the Christmas decorations in the houses around the neighborhood, but everyone, and I mean everyone, has heard about the "train set up" in our basement. Even people we've never met. So we fully expect we're going to get a bunch of visitors who won't even glance at the decoration upstairs as they make a beehive for the basement! 
I will try to do a video update at some point in the near future, but frankly "getting the layout ready for visitors" is the top priority!