I seen a front porch swing, heard a diamond ring
I seen a polka-dot railroad tie. . .
–"When I See an Elephant Fly," Cliff Edwards, Hall Johnson Choir

With the position of the new turnouts sorted, I needed to install a lot of new railroad ties.

The location of the new locomotive service track set, I loaded up the piano jig and laid out the required ties.



While I was at it, I went ahead and laid out the standard gauge ties for the transfer tracks. I do not have a standard gauge piano jig, so I turned a piece of ME O scale flex track upside down and used it as a guide to space the ties.



The O scale ties fit pretty precisely on top of the cork roadbed.



I stained the ties and roadbed with a heavy coat of Minwax Ebony. Once dry I sanded a lot of the stain off the tops of the ties.



Hunter stains were applied to the sanded ties, with a thin wash of light gray acrylic craft paint as a final coat.



Time to mix up some ballast.