Post #35

 Well after our well earned trip away to Victoria it was time to get back onto the tools and keep on plugging away at getting all the track laid. Model traction is like making a cake you have to have the cake cooked before you can put the icing on. So once the track is laid and ballasted then the overhead wiring can go up. As stated in a previous blog I stopped doing the complicated double junction and concentrated on just the plain turnouts, once you get the hang of doing them they become easier to do. But by making them 2 rail it is certainly harder to construct the turnouts than having live overhead.

Working my way along the right hand edge with a few turnouts this then allowed me to connect up both ends of the barn.  One side has the commercial turnouts and the recent end has the handmaid turnouts. They have been made complete except for the throwbars which I have to work out how the point motors will be connected, that will be in another stage of construction. Firstly I will lay all the track, second it will be made electrically operational i.e. all the printed circuit boards will be isolated so there are no shorts. In conjunction at this stage I will have to construct a control panel so that the  turnouts can be controlled.

 

Both ends connected now

One thing I might regret is that because I had to use the Peco set track points to get the sharp radius, they only come in code 100 which meant the track into the barn was also code 100. But when the track comes out where the recently laid track is, that is laid in code 75 rail. It certainly looks a lot finer and more to scale so where they join 75 - 100 it is noticeable. I suppose when it gets covered in ballast and roadway it won't look too bad.

I also connected up the outside the barn track which allows transit through the area without needing to go through the barn. Also a good long outside track for the Electroliner to stable. As can be seen in the above photo the flooring of the barn hasn't be made permanent as yet, I still have to design the barn. One thing is that it will need to be slightly longer as it was previously measured on two PCC cars which are shorter than some other cars.

 

A start was also made on the balloon loop as the fourth road had to come  off it. The curves are all laid to 11" radius specially for the Electroliner. On the balloon loop there is a mixture of the Peco code 75 track, and where the turnouts are the rail is just laid onto the printed circuit board sleepers.

Looking down on the latest work

At this stage the final locations of the roads hasn't been marked out but the track diagram shows the general concept. One thing that can alter the roads positions is the final location of the buildings. I still have a pile of buildings that require assembly although cardboard footprints have been made as can be seen in the above photo. The track plan was always made first and the roads have to fit around the track not the other way around. One thing you won't find on my track design is that tracks aren't often running parallel (except for the double track sections), I certainly like variation and find traction layouts that have a lot of track parallel to the baseboard edges - boring!

Going to be close to the barn fence!

This last photo shows all the work that has recently been completed. As can be seen progress is happening, and once the track is done then onto stage 2.

Don't worry about the tools on the board, they will all disappear eventually. More next time.