The layout is used to having climate control along with the rest of the house, so it got well into the 90's in the garage during the afternoons. This morning I noticed that the layout did not like seeing those temperatures, as a string of boxcars in the new staging yard were leaning significantly to one side from some severe expansion issues. I have to do a thorough check on how the whole layout fared, but so far only appears to be that one Atlas flex track section where a rail popped out of the ties. I was worried about the slip rail in all the sections of my Atlas code 55 flex while installing it, as that rail was excessively loose compared to any other flex I had dealt with before. Fortunately I was able to carefully push the rail back down into the spike heads, so maybe that is better than the whole track section getting distorted and ripped apart.... a little track cleaning with a few test trains should verify if all else is well.
Meanwhile been working way too much overtime at work to get much progress on the layout as I had hoped, but on the brighter side still been able to tinker with a few more sound decoder installs. The sound fleet now is up to six units, with 2 Cadillacs (SD9's), 3 Tunnel Motors, and an SD40-2 ready for programming. The PR3 is here, but have yet to actually load any sound projects. Here's a couple pics of the latest install into a UP Kato SD40-2 that will be used as a pool unit:
Getting ready for the PSR layout tour here in September, but not sure if I am going to make it putting the sound units into service with the constraints... maybe they will give me a break at work :)