Trains Roll!

Well, I've finally reached the benchmark that just about every model rail looks forward to--running trains for the first time.  There is still some tweaking to be done here and there, but things are running smoothly for the most part.  I credit this to not only making sure that all the rails are tangent, parallel, and smooth--but also the running of power feeders to every segment of track (except sidings where I want to park an engine). 

As mentioned in the last post, the idea was to run all the feeders to a common bus line, and then out to the throttle via some quick disconnects.  After soldering up my wires, I buried them in a trench and ran them out to the edge of the layout.  Looks like this:

Here are some pics of the first operating session:

You will also see that I have done some preliminary scenery work in the form of the creek bed.  I figured that it was a good time to add the creek and trestle before track laying.  The trestle is nothing more than some distressed styrene bar and small trestle bents lifted from the Walthers timber trestle kit.

It feels good to finally be running some trains.  Until next time, high ball!