The plan for the Middle Division was to use the entire basement, once the kids were both off to college... another five years. But even then, the plan was to traverse room to room via a window cut in each wall. Not the ideal situation, but...
View of original 10' end wall of layout room.
Hurricane Lee was about the fifth time some amount of water hit the basement walls. The wall between the train room and the rec room spans the lowest point in the basement and Lee proved to be too much for it. The drywall had sucked up enough moisture that mold was developing and the wall was soft to the touch. Instead of replacing the wall board, the wife told me to just take out the wall... "We're not really using the rec room so you might as well go ahead and make use of it." She didn't have to say that twice!
So this weekend I took the hammer to it. Made a heck of a mess, and had to re-route two electrical circuits. I still have to haul the debris away, and then I probably have a few weeks of work to patch the remnants of where the wall was, and an overhead beam that needs enclosed.
The layout room had been 24' by 10', plus an 8' by 8' nook, creating an "L" shape. The removal of the wall increases that side from 10' to 32'! What will really be nice will be the lack of the wall for the continuous view... versus have the tracks go through a window.
I'll post an updated view once the cleanup is complete.
View of additional 22' of layout room once wall was removed.
#039 of layout space available after removal of wall.