Reply to "16.5 x 7 Layout"

Hey guys,

I'm back stateside after an 18 day work trip down in Melbourne, Australia. While down under, I spent my time researching and planning as well as purchasing a few new locomotives - the wife jokes when she and I are separated I fill the loneliness with trains... she's not wrong.  Locomotives purchased online while I was abroad:

1. MTH Premier 20-3056-1 ATSF 2-10-4 Texas
2. MTH Premier 20-2713-1 Amtrak F40PH
3. MTH Railking 30-20290-1 Burlington Northern SD45

While in Melbourne, I did stop by Hearns Hobbies in Flinders Street Station to check out the local hobby shop:

I had been there years ago, but figured I'd drop back in to see if I could find any uniquely Australian accessories or model cars.  Unfortunately it appears O gauge is hard to come by or non-existent in Australia - it's all HO, N scale.

I've made quite a bit of progress on the layout since being back (jet lag does have its benefits) - here's what I've accomplished:

1. Level 1 track laid
2. Transformer, DCS TIU, DCS WIU, and TMCC wired up
3. Tracks wired using home run to a distribution block and 16 gauge wire
4. Track 1 isolated from Tracks 2 & 3 for conventional operation
   1. I have yet to isolate tracks 2 & 3 from each other, as they are connected via fastrack O-48 turnouts which don't have an extension piece I can use to isolate the center rail.  I don't really want to cut off pins or disassemble the turnouts, so for now these two tracks will remain one circuit
5. Lionel Fastrack Command Control turnouts programmed
6. Installed track lighting
7. DCS TIU updated to 6.10
   1. Fixed power-on behavior of DCS-equipped locomotives
   2. Fixed ability to run lashups - hooray!

@Ken-Oscale and @Moonman I came back and measured my turnouts - I see the O-72 and O-60 turnouts have the removable 1-3/8" piece, however if I remove that piece, the "V" plastic roadbed between the straight and curved section would prohibit the ability of the next piece from connecting to the turnout - if I were to remove the extension piece, does this "V" roadbed need to be cut?

Here are some pictures of the layout:

I've been playing around with ideas for the second level and have revised the original plan to make the elevated line a bit more interesting and better accommodate buildings and scenery:

The plan is to use Atlas O track for the elevated line since I don't want the roadbed for the bridge sections and I have an existing Atlas O deck girder bridge.  Thoughts?