Graham and John had a great day at the Show yesterday. The limitations of crowds was more than made up for by the interest in the layout with possible further Exhibition invites and even a possible Magazine appearance.
Photos by John Barnes
This morning Graham, John and myself put 4000 Yards – Area 5 up in the garden for a final run and check before its appearance at this Saturdays Show.
As well as checking everything out and a general clean, we also added two more trees and added some Shells and Boxes to a wagon. We also checked out the latest traction for the layout, a simplex open frame unit that Graham has 3D printed and assembled himself, my task is to now get it painted in 2 days!!! fingers crossed.
The wiring is now complete on both boards. With my Sons help we joined the boards and tested every aspect for running. Thankfully it all worked very well with not a single problem. Below are some photos of the joined layout and the Locos used to test it.
Spent all day yesterday on board two. All isolating sections have been added and just need soldering to the on/off switches. The isolating switch box has been added and switches put in place, albeit two more need to be obtained.
All back boards have been added.
I thought I had finished board one of the new layout – but I decided to add shelves in the fiddle yard. Below are three photos of the finished items, they will hold wagons and small to medium Loco’s when not running on the layout. This means at smaller Exhibitions I can do away with a table.
Board one is now ready for scenics, the wiring and back boards are all in place and tested. The first engine has been run and all works very well. The next task I hope to do is to move to the second board and bring that up to the standard of the first board.
Between showers today I managed to continue with work on the Stabling Point – board one. I have drilled the hole in the On/Off switch Box, added another scenic back board and started on the bridge that is the start of the fiddle yard/sector plate.
I have designed the fiddle yard so that as well as storing/switching on the sector plate, I can also store two Locos on tracks one and four inside the fiddle yard.
It was a really nice day today, so I test fitted the two parts of the boards together after fitting the joiners. Thankfully only a few slight track alignments were needed and was then test run with a few wagons. I am now happy to work on the boards separately.
All track has been laid on the new O Gauge Stabling Point. The layout will stable up to 15 Mainline Loco’s and 3 Shunters. It will be DC as I cannot afford doing all my Locos DCC, let alone sound. Besides I already have a small Fuelling Point that is DCC and holds 6 Locos. The overall size of the new layout is 12′ x 18″. The main running period will be 1960 – 1970.
Today I sorted the track going into the sector plate. I always spend a lot of time on this ensuring everything lines up and the rail height is level on each section.
You can see how adding the extra strip of soft wood on the front of the layout ensures that four tracks fit comfortably. The four sidings in the stabling point will end in different lengths to allow a car park, huts etc.
