More track. And some wiring
I decided against going to the Warley show at the NEC yesterday. I considered paying £8 to park, and then a further £10 to get in a bit steep. Plus the fuel to drive there (I’d guess about £10) then it’s the best part of £30 just to get in the door. The RMWeb forums suggested it was also very busy at the event, which whilst not neccesarily a bad thing, was something I didn’t really feel like doing, so I vetoed the plan and drove over to A&H Models in Brackley.
Fate had conspired against me though. I’d phoned ahead to make sure they were open (having wasted a trip over before to find they were shut). I drove over, and found they didn’t hactually have everything I needed – they’d taken a load of stock to Warley!
DAMN!!!
I managed to buy two points, and some set track, and slinked home with my purchases. I took a scenic route, which added about a million miles to my journey, so probably spent almost as much on fuel. But never mind! I later ordered the other bits I needed online, so they should arrive in the week.
Today I got into some more track laying, and cabling up. The extension board had no power, so I soldered wires onto the copper strips that form the join. I then joined them up to some Molex connectors, to allow for easy removal. I did a similar thing at the back in the fiddle-yard area. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking, and wired these back to front. I’d been using Black wire for the furthest rails, and Red for the closest. I did the same in the fiddle yard forgetting that it flips seeing as the track forms a circle. Rather than re-soldering, I just swapped them round in the terminal blocks, and all was well.
I finished off with laying out the other sections of track as much as I could, and pinning things into place.
I ran a few tests with my two class 67 locos. I ran the full W&S train around the end curve, with the EWS 67 going the other way with a couple of wagons. Thankfully, neither struck eachother. One issue cropped up with the join between Code 80 and Code 55 track causing the W&S train to occasionally de-rail. I beleive that can be filed down to make up the difference. Also, the fiddle-yard track seems to be dirty as it has gained a few dead spots.
One thing I have decided on, is that the rear fiddle yards will be partially obscured by a low-profile multi-storey car-park, modelled on the one in town. Along with the depot building, that’s two buildings I now need to scratch build. I just need to learn how to scratch build now!