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In the layout room, nobody can hear you scream

Glen Park is coming back to life!

My good buddy, Joe, has an awesome N-scale Burlington Northern layout. No, awesome doesn't do it justice, but once you hit 'awesome', any other adjective just seems superfluous ('Super-awesome'? 'Awesome-squared'? 'Awesome times infinity plus 1'?)

Joe's great layout is centered around Kansas City, and he has shown the good taste and wisdom to include the MKT's Glen Park Yard in his design.

After much begging and cajoling from the local MKT fans (excluding your humble correspondent, who is WAY too cool for such things), Joe, starting last fall and continuing over the holidays, commenced construction on the Glen Park design and track.

During original construction of the layout, he had set aside this portion of the benchwork for the yard, so every time I ran a train south out of Murray Yard toward Lenexa, I cried bitter tears at the bare homeosote that should be filled with sweet Katy love. And now it is! Or soon will be.

The pictures below show the Glen Park track in its current state - all track is installed; the magnificent Kasper MKVII, Rev 2 turnouts have been built and installed; the torti are installed and connected to some awesome Kasper MK III diode matrices. The area is awaiting fascia and car card boxes. Then we can rock out with our sock out like it was 1990 all over again!

Take a look at the track and Joe's handiwork below:

Glen Park - East End
The east end of Glen Park. The BN double main is to the right.

Glen Park - ladder and engine service
East end of Glen Park, including locomotive service tracks and the east ladder.

Glen Park - West end ladder
The west end of Glen Park, showing the Ash Grove industry tracks in the foreground, and Bunge Elevator tracks in the background.