Layout Design and Initial Progress Photos - January 2018

I've spent the last month or two on my roughly 30' x13.5' layout, so I have at least a loop to run stuff around and show my friends and coworkers what model trains are like.  I tried to photograph various parts of it along the way to show what I did to build it.

I am unsure how long I will continue to live where I am, so I did not want to have too complex of a layout, but enough to stretch the legs of new and old purchases and tweak some Loksound Full Throttle decoders.

Here is the general layout diagram. It is generally followed, though the industries in the top left are not going to happen, and some curvatures ended up different in reality.

The original concept was to model the Southern Piedmont Division in and around Atlanta, GA.  This allows me the opportunity to model two interesting areas - Pegram Shops and Inman Yard.  Pegram Shops will be the showcase of this layout and allows me to complete two concepts:

1. The first is a standard place for roster shots. A lot of photo's were taken of locomotive power outside the shops over the years, so I will do the same.  
2. The shops allow me to more realistically roster a large variety and amount of the power. Since Atlanta was perhaps the biggest hub on the Southern, and almost everything came through there at some point in time.

Inman Yard is an interesting two-level yard that grew over the years, and even has photo evidence of some sort of icing station for reefers.  Some neat photos out of there.  The bottom two tracks will be elevated for the bi-level aspect and the rest of it will be used as typical classification yard, when completed.

A future layout may contain some sort of version of Terminal Station, but due to the nature of not wanting to make a layout more complex than it needed to be for now, I forego this in my design.

Height - 48" off the floor.
Track - Atlas O
Roadbed - Midwest cork
DCC - Digitrax (DCS200/UR92) w/ DCC Specialities PSX-1 and RRampmeter.
DCC Wiring - 10AWG bus, 18AWG feeders

Initial test train - 3rd Rail SD9 and various equipment from Lionel, Weaver, AtlasO and MTH

Below are some initial photos of the layout in benchwork stage with one loop of track completed.

 The first piece of track being laid on the right.

 Base area for any electronics. You can see the Digitrax Power supply, DCS200, UR92, PSX, RRampmeter.  The bus bars are for the 10AWG bus.

 View of layout down the length of it.

 Hinged area for easy interior access.

Front view of Pegram Shops Trackwork. Sorry for the mess.