Happy New Year everyone! It was a busy December with a lot of work travel and family time, but I finally got some time to work on the layout. I was able to work on my O-60 switches and have them working pretty well. One is stubborn and doesn't want to switch, but I don't have the problem of them jumping tracks now. One of them needed to have the switch indicator tab adjusted, and both took a little brute force (i.e. bending with pliers) but they're now true!
After an unexpected detour to take my mom back to Pittsburgh after Christmas (*shakes fist at Southwest*), I was able to pick up 99% of the buildings I have for the layout. The last thing I really want to bring back is my Lionelville Fire Station. The one thing I'm missing is the bottom plug / connector and Lionel nor any of the places that would have the parts have been able to help me out 
I may need to figure an alternative system out for it, which I'm open to.
The next phase of the layout is urban planning and scenery. I've been buying some scenery materials in prep for this phase, but I want to make sure I have a solid plan for where things are going to go. I've enlisted the help of my wife, who is an urban planner, to help plan where the buildings will go. We have a rough plan of where the city area will go and how to build the upper urban area (leveraging a lot of building flats and a road to build depth). Thats probably going to be my next phase of construction. Here's a rough overview of where things are going to go. The elevated city city area will be along the back wall under the window.
I also got some new motive power over the month! Big shoutout to @Sid's Trains. He offered up an awesome MTH Premier CSX AC6000 and 4 Lionel rotary hoppers. I was able to pick this up for my first modern consists. It is what my dad and I used to watch around the Connellsville Yards growing up.
I squeezed in a trip to the College Park Aviation Museum in College Park, MD to see the National Capital Trackers in action! Great group of folks with a fun holiday layout.
Finally, here are some pics from around the layout with some of the trains I brought back from my parent's house, including the new friend that popped up while I was working on it.
