Living on the Edge - Not Good

Been away for awhile but mostly due to job and work on the layout.  Today's lesson - living on the edge isn't always a good thing ........

I was moving along really well on the servo installations and had the upper deck servo installed and moved on to the areas along the far left side and back of the layout.  This required a little move of some room furniture as well as pulling the layout away from the wall.  Things seemed to be really rocking along until it came to the two servos for the turnouts along the back of the layout.  Atlas had the back track about an inch from the edge of the layout.  I followed suit and felt like I had made good use of all the layout board real estate.I drilled the holes for the turnout actuator wires and was glad they missed the edge framing of the layout ...... or so I thought.

One note about the servos controlling the turnouts.  The servo needs to be perpendicular to track so that when the actuator wire moves from side-to-side, the turnout will likewise move from side to side.  When I started to install the servos, I realized that there wasn't enough clearance for the servo mounting bracket.  I pondered that for a few minutes, looked at options and realized I had no choice - I had to cut clearance holes in the outer edge frame of the layout!!!!!

Ugly I know, but it was a tough job to actually get in here an get the hole cut.

View from under the layout.

So - living on the edge didn't turn out so well. Fortunately, and it's a lame excuse, I'm the only one who knows the ugliness is there.  The back edge is against the wall and will always be, even when the layout moves someday.

Ironically, Living on the Edge is my cellphone ting tone - no joke........