Yesterday, I hit the 1,000' feet of track, mark.  I've almost completed the east spur to the big ditch. 

Rented a backhoe, with a front end loader, today.  Started building the earthen ramp to the north end of the bridge, and did the preliminary leveling for the yard at the south east corner of the property.

I've found that the west leg will probably have to be shifted more to the north.  I got the backhoe stuck in a boggy area where the west leg was planned.   It looks like it is just too soft an area to be practical.  It would take way too much fill to get it solid enough, or would require a very long trestle to pass over it.  That leg is way off in the future, so I'll have to do more surveying to see where it will end up.  It took over two hours to get the backhoe winched out of the bog.  I'm getting way too old for that kind of manual labor!

The main loop is completed and ballasted.  Here's a pic of the shop area. 

NOTE: My web publishing software crashed on me and I may have lost the web pages.  When I get back on the tug where I have a decent web connection, I'll see if I can recover everything and update the site with the new pictures.