4. What Might Have Been
While in storage, the layout was damaged, so I discontinued the project. Which was a pity; of all my mini- and micro-layouts, this was likely my favorite. And I was quite close: all of the bashing was done; I merely needed to add windows and paint.
For a while I was tempted to start over, replacing the Atlas Code 55 track with Kato Unitrack (primarily for its robustness):
However, given my prognosis (as well as other issues), this will never come to pass. Perhaps the documentation on this layout will inspire someone else to take it all the way to the finish line.