Back to the future!

I am now back to where I was about a year ago, maybe a little further on, and with some important mod's!

Firstly, the latches are in place, and make the whole business of connecting the layout together much easier.

Secondly, I now have adjustable feet for each board, which makes leveling the connecting tracks a lot easier.



Third, and most importantly, I have placed a cork underlay under the track. This will hopefully make the ballast stand out more, and make for smoother running. This involved taking up ALL the existing track and placing the cork bed underneath... time consuming, but worth it!

On the progress front, I have laid and wired up the return loop for the 3 existing boards.





Finally I decided on doing a test run of the mainline :) I am happy to report that eventually, after much cleaning, both the diesel and the steam loco went around forwards and backwards without derailing! And the narrow curve was navigated with collision.






Cooking on gas...!

Restarting soon...

So, I am married! And its brilliant. The wedding was one of the best days of my life :)

However, to business! Now the wedding is done I can start again on the layout which has remained dormant and neglected for 3 months - bigger things to worry about! The garage needs a declutter first (again) and I need to assess how the boards have faired over the harsh winter. One of the unused boards was looking a tad uneven.

Honeymoon first, with a little inspiration from the NYMR, and then back to trying to do something each week....

Slow progress

With Christmas, new year and continuing wedding plans and busy at work, progress has been slow. Not to mention the snow and cold weather making the garage a very inhospitable place to be!

But some progress has been made!

The rewiring and relaying of the modular boards is now complete on the existing boards. The yard section has been removed in favour of a future industry and sidings. This will either be a brewery or harbour (more likely a brewery).

Each board how butts up to each other and is held firmly in place with latches. The power to each section is soldered directly onto the track on a board by board basis. This means I ma no longer reliant on power being passed via track joins.

The power connectors between the central board and the two side sections have been replaced with 24 pin power connectors, putting all tracks together in one single connector and leaving room from expansion (lighting circuits, point motors etc). The connectors they have replaced will be reused as controller power plugs and power connectors on the final board.

The plan for the final board is that it may not now be the final board! I am considering redesigning the layout in that section to allow for a fiddle yard to be added on the end. The fiddle yard would be accessed via a single track that connected to both main line tracks. This would allow for a scenic bridge over water next to the sea side scene I'm planning.

Finally, the return loop on the four existing boards is beginning to take shape. Just need to get my finger out one day and finish it. Then its onto the 5th board.

Cleanliness before...

After seeing photos of people's hobby rooms and work areas something has occured to me... I need to clean up the garage! :P

New Latches

Hooray! The new latches are a success and hold things in place nicely. And I've sussed out how to 'join' the rails together as well. A part from that I got nowt else done. Roll on next weekend...

Rewiring

This weekend proved successful, I managed to rewire and relay part of the track so the wiring and power distribution is correct across all boards. The isolators have been removed from track 1 and 2 on the main board increasing the scope of the crossover section an allowing the station section to be isolated completely.

I also took the opportunity to change the station slightly, by relaying the far station lane and bringing it in a little, making the station section symmetrical. I had been bugging me for a while that I had made the station platform in that section far to wide for the scale. Now it is in line with the other side, plus I have more scenery space.

Finally I have come to the decision that I cannot avoid the rail joining issue any longer. It will not work the way I thought I'd try, as trying to line up 6 tracks (and thus 12 rails) is virtually impossible. Unfortunately, fixing this will probably involve relaying part of the track in the station and yard, but I think a step backwards will probably end up with two steps forward!

On the up side my local cash and carry has some good latches to replace the temporary ones currently fitted to the board. And I found some copper tape to experiment with! :)

Busy busy...

I have taken a slight break from my modelling due to being incredibly busy, and having a bad back... I'd like to find the person who has the voodoo doll of me and keeps stabbing me in the back!

However, I'm hoping to get on with fixing the wiring on the station board [1] (the main control board) this weekend, and expanding the control of the yard board [2] as well as piping the power onto board 5. If I just get the power on board 1 fixed I'll be happy. I came to realise when testing the tracks that I had made two major mistakes on board 1.

Firstly the 'cross over' set up with controller 4 and one of the main lines was in fact reversed, causing a short when the loco crossed the insulators. Not sure how I managed that, but it's easy to fix by swapping the two supply wires underneath the board.

Secondly, when the points are set to move the loco from the mainline siding to the yard there is no power on one rail. Doh! To solve this I have decided to rearrange the power in the station and extend the scope of controller 4 by removing some of the isolators. This unwittingly solves another problem - it means I can use the switches that change power from the line controllers (1-3, mainlines and branch) to controller 4 as power isolators for the entire station.

During my break I have also been and bought myself a woodlandscenics incline set for the branch line. I have come to the decision that a height change would look far more effective for the layout than it being totally flat. I may incline the main line on the other side if this works. We'll see.