What would normally be two days of playing trains was in reality one day of solid work and one day of playing trains!
After making some minor repairs to parts of the layout, it was time to link the three recently modified boards together for the first time and begin aligning the tracks. Some warpage has occurred and there were difficulties getting the front and rear sections to align. Some minor issues with two of the newly added points, which considering there are now 17 more pairs of electric points, some issues were expected.
Finally completed the electrical work to the turntable sidings - the isolators to allow parking two locos on each track were added when the layout was built but this part was never wired. After building a new relay control circuit, all of these isolators operate from one switch. And it works rather well!
The rear straight section of the upper loop warped badly over the winter so has been replaced with a new, dual layered plywood section. This was also replaced again after I measured the old one wrong!
We've also removed most of the old wooden supports and replaced with adjustable kitchen legs, which will allow better flexibility and height adjustment in future. The combination of these two modifications resulted in much smoother running.
The main lines now run through the centre of the fiddle yard and now complete trains, even the long goods train, can be driven into and out of the sidings and stored without issue and there's still enough space to store all the locos.
The E3002 electric loco, now completely modified and sporting a proper HD pick-up assembly, can be seen. Although it's a very smooth runner, the loco is only driven via one axle and struggled with the tight radius inner curves, the side frames also protrude so far that they were hitting the signals so I've removed them and stored them safely. As the outer loop is predominantly diesel and electric, it fits in really well.
On the inner (steam) loop, access to and from the turntable is now much smoother and easier to operate and whole trains can again be parked up.
The long goods train just about fits and even Brighton Belle, which of course isn't genuine HD or three rail, manages to negotiate the pointwork at either end.
Upper rear section now looking much straighter than before...
The new design incorporates some handy siding space for the diesel locos...
Viewed from the running rails, the new fiddle yard fans out from the centre via the standard HD points, into the modified ones...
And after all that work on the signal aspect controllers, I fitted one as a tester, to the far signal in this picture at the end of the main station. It worked exactly as expected and almost exactly as my Ipad simulator predicted. Next project will be to install them to the remaining signals.
A successful weekend with no loco casualties. We're now ready for some 2015 exhibitions!
I managed to bring the video camera this time. With over 50 video files and nearly 5GB of footage, it will take a while to edit and upload.
Keep an eye on YouTube...
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