After several years of building freight cars and a locomotive, it was time to start constructing and laying track. I had debated between building a storage yard into my shop area or in the basement to the north of the garage and guest room. There was much more room in the basement, but it was an additional three feet higher than the backyard. As I started looking at how much space any kind of yard would take, the basement became the obvious choice. Building in 1" scale is HUGE! Even a sharp #3 switch is almost 30" long.
Fortunately, we have a lot of underutilized space. However, the first order of business was to clear out a lot of junk and unneeded construction. This involved tearing out an unused half bath, which was never connected into the city sewer system. After removing everything, I laid paver slabs to cover the raw dirt areas, and added lighting. This left the two main house heating ducts.
I then started building benchwork, and laid a plywood base for the track.
I put up drywall along the south edge, and painted everything.
At some point I realized that the north wall that defined about half of the area I was working in didn't really need to be there. It wasn't load bearing at all, and opened up the entire area once it was removed. In its place, I built a short wall that supports an additional long spur. I had been building track parts, started laying down track on the freshly laid plywood. At the far east end you can see where the track goes through the east wall of the house, out into the rest of the world.
The west end wall has been opened up for access and a good view along the entire yard.
Here is the track plan as it now stands. This is a "behind the scenes" storage yard, so there is probably never going to be any ballast on the track, or a painted backdrop.
