Its great to see all this progress, but to be honest Roger, switching equipment into the barns should only several days, not several weeks, considering our crack-team of switch crews seem to get stuff done overnight, literally. Remember what they did when Transformers 4 was filmed on property? They filled Barn 9 and cleared the carline in one night, working for over 11 hours straight, so that we could have Members Weekend the next 2 days. And that included taking about an hour break from switching to let one of the actors have a Take-the-Throttle session!
Honestly, I think you both are off. I fully expect it to take nearly a couple of months to make all the moves for these barns and the others. There is going to be nearly 9000ft of equipment moving from place to place, probably more, and many are one car at a time moves.
i can tell you this, IRM has land to boot. so i wouldn't be surprised if they built a roundhouse with back shop behind the new barns. similar to the shops at Steamtown.
I'm not involved in planning, but I believe the area inside the trolley loop east of Barn 9 was designated for the roundhouse and turntable. There was a disassembled turntable in the grass there for several years, which was moved further south when an episode of "Chicago Fire" was filmed at IRM. I don't believe there is room south of the new barns for a roundhouse complex, and track curves to access that area may be too tight for the larger steam locomotives to negotiate.
so your saying that when the new trolley loop is complete, some of the track will be re arranged to hold the roundhouse? similar experiences say you modified Yard 1 into 50th ave. station. or is there something else planned?