Not quite all new. The yard rail is old mainline rail. We replaced main line rail with newly purchased. The mainline rail had historically weak bars and we replaced a lot each spring. this rail was moved to the yard. Any leftover may go into 34 track when we rebuild that track. I can have broken bars in the yard forever. Never on the main line.
Just curious... what is the plan for the open space between Barn 11 and Barn 13? Is it not a suitable site for a yard and/or barn as well, or is that slated for construction at a future date contingent on land acquisition east of Boot Creek?
That is the future site of Yard 12. We own the land across the creek, but it would be necessary to build a bridge over the creek at South Jct. (where the track goes east to nowhere) and at least a decent length lead for switching on the other side. (This would also reduce the amount of land we can rent out for farming.) Meanwhile, there's no point in building a yard we can't get into.
The mention of "not paying to purchase used ties" takes me back to the 1960s and some of the track salvage jobs I worked on as a new member of Orange Empire. Some of the rails and ties we picked up were rather pathetic--we wouldn't even send a truck for such junk nowadays.