During the week of February 24, I attached diagonal braces to some of the peninsula supports in preparation for installing the first peninsula in the layout room.

On Saturday, March 2, 2002, we completed quite a bit of work on the layout. I spent time that morning attaching more diagonal braces to the peninsula supports, and I have now completed this work for 9 of the 11 supports in the South Salem peninsula.

Marcus and Larry arrived in the early afternoon for a work session. The three of us formed an assembly line to build all of the wall bracket supports for the Salem/Carpenter area as well as the supports for the Roanoke Junction section. Marcus placed wood in the assembly templates and glued the wood, while I drilled screw holes and Larry drove the screws home into the wood. After completing these supports, we took a break to enjoy some of Cherie's fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies. :-)

We then spent a couple of hours attaching glue blocks to the horizontal joists for both of the narrow decks in the main layout room. 

We took a quick break for dinner at the Remington Grill, and Marcus and Larry wanted to do some more work before heading back home. Instead of continuing the assembly-line work, we started to install the first of the benchwork in the layout room. Armed with the layout benchwork plan, the drawings of the room stud walls, and a stud finder, we proceeded to locate the studs in the Roanoke Junction area of the plan. Larry would hold the brackets on the wall while I made sure they were level and plumb. When I was satisfied with the location of each bracket, I would drill #8 countersink holes in the vertical portion of the bracket, and Marcus would screw it to the wall using the #8 x 2 1/2" screws. We managed to attach five brackets to the wall in the Roanoke Junction area. We were going to start installing the South Salem peninsula, but after some discussion, I decided I wanted to double-check some things in 3rd PlanIt before proceeding.

Installing the first benchwork bracket was indeed a major milestone on the road to being able to operate the new CSXT Shenandoah Division. I'm excited about the progress we made Saturday!

Marcus points out the first blood drawn by a Shenandoah Division work crew member after Larry accidentally scraped his hand across the exposed ends of track from the first layout--not even a construction accident!

Quotes of "Safety is job #1 on the Shenandoah Division" and "0 safe days since last accident" could be heard for the rest of the work session. :-)

Bruce and Larry making sure that the brackets are level while Marcus waits to drive more screws into the wall.

Larry holds the last bracket installed in this work session while Marcus waits for Bruce to figure out what's going on.

Here are the first four brackets to be installed. We started with the one on the left and worked our way to the right. On the lower level, this is the Roanoke Junction area of the layout, while the south end of Covington will be on the upper level here.

Bruce drills the final hole in the bracket to which the South Salem peninsula will be attached eventually.

Larry, Bruce, and Marcus discuss the installation of the South Salem peninsula. The first peninsula support has been temporarily placed for the discussion.

Larry and Bruce are standing in what will be the aisle between Salem and South Salem, while Marcus is standing approximately where the staging return loops will be.

Another view of the first five brackets that have been installed.

Overall view of the room with the first brackets installed. Portions of the old layout and additional brackets for the current layout are visible.

Another view of the first benchwork for the CSXT Shenandoah Division.

Close-up view showing details of brackets.