Some slow progress on the display. School and work have been taking up a lot of my time recently, so things aren't going as quickly as I'd like, but we're getting there. This week we laid down our masonite panels we bought last year over the black stage platforms. They're painted white, so the snow doesn't look dark as it does when put directly on the black tabletops. They also help smooth out the transitions between the 4x8 tables (unfortunately since the platforms were built over many years, the tops aren't all the same material).
Last night we worked for awhile and constructed a new 4'x6' platform to fit in the area in front of the piano in the orchestra pit. The piano is connected to the organ console, and can't be moved from it's place, so we decided to build around it. In the past, we've only filled the space between the organ console and the edge of the piano. We normally set up a folding table in front of the piano to store unused rolling stock and locomotives. I haven't quite decided what to do with the platform yet, but we've discussed a possible railroad yard, or a smaller town display. Seeing as we gained nearly 20 new buildings for this year since we took down last year's display, we needed a little more space. I don't intend to use all of my buildings since we had a lot of donations, but we will use many of them.
Next work session, a wedge shaped piece will be made to fill in the gap between the orchestra pit railing and the new platform. Working around the curved edge of the pit makes things a little more challenging when trying to use all the available space.
