We found ourselves with a bonus day out with the layout, attending our home club's bi-annual open day, so we decided to use this as a day to continue work on the upper loop, running minimal stock.
Prior to this, I managed to wire up the centre section and the points at the control panel end, I also managed to adapt the control panel. Rather than replace all the graphics, a new piece was cut and stuck into place:
One of the issues with cutting track to size is that the fixings for the centre rail are often lost. Here we've had to glue the centre rail, hence the tape measure being used as a weight!
After some track cleaning, all four sections were slowly tweaked and brought into life. The 0-6-2 tank on the left being the first loco to complete the maiden lap...
The blue EMU followed (the blue & grey one is still awaiting repairs) then Duchess of Montrose and Silver King...
Duchess of Montrose storms through the second track, no derailments and far smoother than ever before!
And finally, the best test of all - the most temperamental item of rolling stock in the entire collection - the Hornby VEP. On the previous upper loop it slowed almost to a complete halt on the bends due to the tight radius curves. Now it runs without fault and may actually see more use in future!
The only remaining job is to wire the points at the far end, currently waiting for more components to arrive from China but the top loop can be used by manually operating the points. We now have a fully operational top loop that's easier and quicker to assemble and less likely to warp.
Job done (nearly)
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