Quinntopia Expansion! Again!?

I've been struggling with the idea of expanding for some time.  My original intention for my 'Version 3' (building off of "Version 2" naturally) of my layout was the trolley, viaduct, downtown expansion, and a 12" extension to the existing yard to add more storage and a passenger terminal.  Below is the previous "Version 2" and those planned changes to "Version 3"

The above Version 2 was my expansion of "Version 1", what was where I was at when I started this blog!  The new stuff, sort of highlighted in yellow,  3 is below:

The good news is that three of the four 'big items are, if not complete, at least at the stage where buildings, wiring, and the other final details need to be complete after major construction.  The challenge I was facing with the final addition, the Passenger Terminal Extension, was that an additional 12 inches would make some of the areas on the 'southern' side of the layout more difficult to reach.   I also started to think, or at least convince myself, that this layout doesn't need to be as 'temporary' or portable as I have - to date - been designing it.  So I decided to push out the boundaries and expand.  Below is my plan for "Version 4":

And what continues to keep me away from running trains or wiring all the buildings I've been working on has been this fundamental obstacle.  The good news is that this summer I decided to bite the bullet (and overcome some interesting feelings of futility and doubt!) and move on to "Version 4" construction!

There were some nerve-wracking moments....smashing out the foundation on a section of my viaduct was not fun, although recalling the interesting stuff I can do with the extended main line kept me going!

Something else which will add more enjoyment to operations, is that the Red Line, which was pretty much land-locked within the green line on the lower level, now gets some elevation and a cross over.   Just out of view on the left is  really nice bridge I got from a company called "Hack" in Germany.  Decently priced metal bridges!

The above explains my rather limited modelling posts over the past several weeks...I've been spending whatever precious hobby time I can get in the dust trying to move this along.

I've also realized something about my planning process with this project.  I tend to create my plan in Rail Modeller as more or less a guide, but then plan on improvising or changing the actual plan once I start laying things out.  I've got a more less 'fresh canvas' now so I don't know if I know for sure at this stage of planning what exactly I want to do. 

I do know that I'll be using a bit more flex track...the beautiful sweeping curves that these afford compel me to bite the bullet (partly inspired by Pascal's beautiful work)!  I'll also be converting my existing yard and installing the new Passenger terminal tracks using Minitrix's track rather than Unitrack (which was inspired by this).  The reasons for this is that Unitrack - despite its great looks - just doesn't look completely right to me for a yard.  Perfect for main lines and routes but-in a yard- the high ballast wasn't working for me.  I chose Minitrix track as I really like the simplicity of their switch machines which allow them to be more or less 'hidden' from view without the complexity of installing under-table motors.  We'll see how that goes in the future.

That's all for now!  All I have to say is...goooooo N SCALE!!!