Lots of irons in the fire

So the last week or has been kind of hectic and not much real progress has been made on the layout.  On a positive note I did receive several reference items in the mail that I had acquired through various sources.  EBay yielded a track chart of the Tucson Division from 1982 and train orders issued at Yuma from the 70's and 80's.  Although Yuma was CTC territory special instructions were issued in the form o train orders and some off these orders were very informative.  For instance I now know approximately when the visual defect detectors were replace with over the radio detectors.  I also acquired Wesley Fox' Southern Pacific Across the Southwest which had some interesting photos of the Sunset Route from my modeling time frame.  As far as track planning goes I have decided to divide the layout into phases following the One Module at a time philosophy discussed recently by Joe Fugate and the staff at Model Railroad Hobbyist http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/.  After talking with Joe and visiting his Siskiyou Line layout during the NMRA National Convention Last August I realized that this approach was probably much better than trying to imagine the exact dimensions of my future layout area.  Also during that convention I was able to visit author Tom Dill's layout and noted how well a layout worked that was centered on one rail yard.  So I have started taking the information I have and am trying to design a reasonable facsimile of the Yuma AZ Main Yard and Old Yard as they would appear in the late 70's/ early 80's.  This will be phase one of my design and construction with the adjacent Dieselville Yard and Yuma East Yards being phase 2 and 3 respectfully.  Following that I plan to design and build a representation of the Somerton Branch Also known as the Yuma Valley Railroad as phase 4.  Phase 5 will be to work east and west of Yuma as time and inspiration allow with the idea of reaching Indio in the west and Wellton in the east.  After that we will see what happens but I do have some ideas.  At the same time as this is going on I decided to actually try my hand at hand laying and building turnouts using the Fast Tracks Jig I acquired in Portland.  So far I am only on step 3 of 11 and have invested at least an hour but I see many places I could shave time off.  Lastly my work schedule changed so we will see how much hobby time I can squeeze in in the next year.