The first thing I had to do was clear the room of the previous layout. I used the book "How to Build Model Railroad Benchwork" by Linn H. Westcott to determine which benchwork design I was going to follow for this layout. I decided that the layout could be a more permanent one, so I decided to install brackets along the walls and used the L-girder method of construction. The first photo shows one of the bracket arms I constructed. They were mounted on a 2"x2" board that was bolted to the wall studs.

The L-girder concept is simply two pieces of wood glued and screwed together. One piece is 1x2 and the other is 1x4. Initially they are glued and screwed, but once the glue dries, the screws can be removed. These constructed boards are almost impossible to bend or sag. They are then placed on top of the bracket arms. They can be moved around until the track's sub-roadbed is ready to be installed.

To make sure that the benchwork will be able to handle the weight of the railroad, I recruited a test subject. Here, the Inspector is not as convinced about the front l-girders.

With me standing close-by, the Inspector is a lot more confident.

Before I installed 4-foot fluorescent lights all around the perimeter of the room, I installed the backdrop using 1/8" Masonite boards.

After that I put joint compound and smoothed all the splices between the boards. Finally, the whole thing was painted with several layers of white primer.

I finally started building the sub-roadbed on March 17th, 2001. The sub-roadbed was made from ½ inch plywood strips spliced together (the clamps are holding the splice to the wood while the glue cures).

The sub-roadbed was held in place by risers (vertical blocks of wood) and everything was checked for level and square before the risers were screwed to the benchwork.

When all was final, the sub-roadbed was screwed to the block using angle brackets.