I re-wired bits countless times, and followed along with my multimeter but couldn’t fathom it. Then I suddenly noticed what was up:

Can’t see it? No, neither could I. Took me a whole week to suss it. Basically, the curved point at the bottom is not set to turn out; i.e. the top blade is touching the top rail, making both the rails leading into it the same polarity! Because there’s insulating joiners between it and the double slip it’s all fine until the loco runs over onto the curved point. As soon as two pickup wheels are on it, there’s a short.

So once I spotted this, I flicked the point over and ‘lo and behold, it magically works! Well, the loco will run until the wheels are all on the curved point, at which point it stops dead, as there’s no power that end yet. I’ve been slowly working along, ‘debugging’ and fixing before moving onto the next bit.

I just need to add more power feeds, then wire up the point motors. Then wire in the CDU. And make the point control panel. But then it’ll be operational, and it’s on to gumming up things with glue and ballast.

After working it out, I realised I needed 20 power connections! I’ve found the easiest way to accomplish this is to bare the end of a wire, and bend it to 90 degrees. Once tinned, it can be attached directly to the underside of the end of a rail, OR a metal joiner. A carefully drilled hole below it takes the wire away. The theory being that once ballasted, it’ll be unnoticeable. I did attempt to fix one to the side of the rail (a technique I know is perfectly valid) but in N gauge it’s just not do-able. In OO perhaps, but N is far too fiddly.

So far, I’ve got power into a siding. Woo! My carefully drilled hole wasn’t so careful though, and as a result the track doesn’t fit properly. I’m not worried though, as I’ll just re-drill the holes.

I’ve managed to knock quite a few random holes into the board, and I’ve decided I’ll get around those just using some sort of filler. There’s a couple of bigger holes which a piece of card would be able to bridge. I’m intending on adding a little bit of undulation to the whole base, so I’ll probably do that with a mix of filler and other fun things.

But there’s still another 18 power connections to do yet…

I got rather fed up with the scissor crossings. The wiring was ‘fun’, but no impossible, but that wasn’t the deal breaker. The real issue was that I couldn’t get the point motors to align in a sane way. They either clashed with eachother, or with the board framework. So, I decided enough was enough, and they have now been replaced with ordinary points. The motors for those fit in fine, and the wiring issue is gone; now I just need insulating joiners to work with the electrofrogs.

The joiners ended up costing me a lot more than I planned. It seems Dapol have had a class 67 model coming for a while, and whilst looking around on the web for the joiners, I found the pre-orders for these fine new models. So I’ve got a 67 in EWS livery, and, the one I really wanted, a 67 with MK3 coaches and DVT in Wrexham and Shropshire livery! So that’s pleased me no end. Hopefully it’ll fit in the platform.

Progress overall has slowed a little, but now my issue with the scissors is gone, I can plod on far more easily. I need to solder power connectors onto some more point motors, and re-lay some of the track, but I’m not a million miles from wiring up the power. Next it’ll be onto ballast, and we’ll actually be getting somewhere.

Point motors

Going with Seep, as they can mostly hide under the baseboard, they’re very low profile, and they’re simple. Peco’s motors require hacking great big holes in the board, whilst the Seep motors need a tiny hole for the armature.

Wiring

Colour coded, naturally. I found some stuff in Maplin which looks like it’ll do the job.

Power

I’ve got an old controller in the loft (I think it’s a Gaugemaster, or something) which has an accessory supply, so I’ll bring that down and use that for now. Or at least, until I look into DCC. I’ve also got a Gaugemaster Capacitor Discharge Unit (CDU) which will help fire the motors. For the scissor crossings I’m planning on making up a couple of push-button diode matrices, with relays switching the electrofrogs, but I’ll do that after I’ve got the basic points working.

Connections

I pondered this for a while. The above article mentioned using terminal blocks, which is a nice idea, but I’m not a great fan of them. I pondered some more, then realised I already knew of a perfectly great connector. The Molex Hard Disk connector! They can take the amperage, and the wattage I need, so they’re quite suitable. Plus, pretty easy to fit (crimp on pins), and it all just pushes together. If I want to remove something, I just pull the connector out. For bigger connections I can use the motherboard connectors, or multiples of these.

I’ve made up eight point motors so far with the female Molex connector on (technically, it’s back to front to how it goes in a PC, but I’m not fussy), and they look pretty good.

The screws I bought to fix them on are just the right length – they’re a bit long actually, but with the thickness of the point motor’s PCB, it should almost fit without sticking out the stop. So what if it does though, it’ll all be hidden under scenery!

I might have a bash at screwing one of them in and testing it out. Once I’m happy with all the point motors I’ll move onto the other electrics.

I started at the back, and slowly worked around to the front on the longer sections. Laying the curves wasn’t too bad, but they’ve taken on more of a ‘D’ shape than the original plan.

Not really a big issue, as it means a more sweeping curve, and not only that, it lines things up a bit more nicely for the scissor points.

Notice the slight bodge on the end of the curve though:

I should have started with two lengths from either end, and trimmed them down. Then I would have had a nice join the middle. But no mind. I’ve run some wagons over them, and they go over fine. Due to the fact I’ve pulled the baseboard out and sat it on the bed, it’s a little inclined. I was having great fun sending a little wagon round the full length just by pushing it hard at one end, and letting it make its own way round under its own momentum. I figured if it was binding anywhere, or likely to derail, it’d definitely do it then, and it went round fine each time, even crossing the points when I set them to crazy things, so I’m reasonably happy it’s OK.

There’s a light pencil line which marks a 275mm diameter curve; my curves are a bit more than that, so I’m well within tolerances I think.

Unfortunately I need to wire up the electrofrogs before I can actually get anything running around. I think I also need to look into point motors and their fitment before I go crazy sticking down track. The curve is nailed down, but only because I have no plans in ballasting or doing anything with it (you can’t see it anyway). Long term that might change if it moved to a location where you can see it. The fiddle yard at the back has also been nailed down.

I’m quite pleased with the high difference between the code 80 and code 55 track. I don’t envision it causing a problem as is, but if required I’ll file it to fit. So far, so good though. I might lay a bit more track today. At least my little Woolies Dremel-alike drill is coming in useful for cutting the track.

Yeah OK, it’s not great. It took me about four hours to put it together, but I was speeding up a lot once I got a feel for how the kit worked, and I was stopping now and then to do other things. One thing I learned was I need to pick up some sort of proper glue spreader/spatula. I was just squeezing out a blob of glue on my finger and smearing it about a bit. Ahh the wonders of PVA!

I intend trying to make some of the bridges in future though. I’ll do a MUCH better job on those.

An explanation is required. The blue section at the top will be the back of the layout. That will be mostly Code 80 track (stuff I already have). The scissor crossing is a nicety for two reasons. Firstly, it’ll be the conversion from Code 80 to Code 55, and it’ll give some flexibility in switching on the up and down lines. It’ll serve as a fiddle yard, and stock storage.

The red section on the right is the new extension. It’s a 300mm section which will be bolted onto the end. It’ll also hide under an adjacent shelf, so it won’t really be visible. Hopefully there won’t be too many derailments there. The track will be Code 55. There’s not a lot of difference in price on the flexitrack, so it was easier to extend it up.

Lastly, the main section down the front is the actual ‘live’ layout. The two straight lines down the bottom of the plan are down to the ‘station’. It’ll be a simple terminus. The scissor crossing allows switching across onto the up and down lines, and also up to the sidings. The left hand side should be a depot of some description, and the double slip allows one of the sidings to act as a sort of head shunt for the two shorter sidings. They might end up being some sort of loading bay, or something. Not really sure yet! They might be pulled around a bit more so the run more diagonally. That would give longer running lengths, but it’ll mean more of a twist – I already have a pretty tight radius in there.

The leftover space will have the usual assortment of buildings and other miscellanea. The exit point for the track will be a bridge of some description, and probably a raised roadway along the whole right hand side.

As far as realism goes, I’ve tried to keep to the spirit of things. I’ve had a look at some satellite photos of depots and stations, and I’m trying to do things as well as I can in the space confines I have. To do things properly I’d probably end up with a layout about ten times longer. What I wanted to avoid was a full loop system – I wanted something vaguely plausible. Hopefully when dressed up nicely, any oddities in the track layout will be solved.

The track has been ordered, so I’m committed now. Or should be.

Incidentally, I’ve gone for entirely electrofrog points. Probably going to end up being a really stupid idea, and require a ton of wiring and switching. But hey, that’s what makes it fun!

There’s two options I’m considering – Peco Code 80, and Peco Code 55. When I modelled in OO, I used the bog-standard Hornby stuff (or Peco equivalents). Whenever I saw other layouts, I was always struck by the fact their track looked so much better. I often put that down to the fact they had probably hand-built a lot of it. I never appreciated the fact there were different scales to chose from.

I’ve been reading up some differences, and the consensus seems to be that if you want something to Just Work, go for Code 80. If, however, you want it to look more realistic, go for Code 55.

At present I’ve not got a lot of track. I’ve got the Peco starter set, and the oval that came with the Graham Farish set I bought, and some sections of flexitrack. Naturally, that’s all Code 80, so not entirely compatible. Some people said to use Code 80 in hidden sections. It’s cheaper, so that’s a fair use for it.

There’s pros and cons for both:

Code 80

Code 55

Pros	Cons
More realistic	No catch point available (that I can find)
More flexible (flexitrack being the only option for straights)
More points available

Having mulled it over, I think I might go with the Code 55. Given that my layout is pretty small, I can use the shortest points, but balance that with using flexitrack everywhere. I can cut it to exactly the size I want, and also use it to make my curves at the end of the layout. This way I can have them at some fairly tight radii, and get more in behind the scenes, where I can use the Code 80 stuff. Well, hopefully anyway!

I’m going to go have a look at some more track tomorrow, and decide. I might change my mind and go for Code 80, but it would be nice to use the finer stuff, just to make things look really nice!

I also bought a couple of battens to fix to the underside. After a bit of cutting about, I’d managed to make a few lap joints, which I glued and screwed, then the whole thing was screwed to the top. I’m definitely no expert at woodworking, so it was a case of working slowly and carefully. The end result is below.

It’s sitting on top of a small shelving unit I bought in Wickes some time ago. The centre battens are oriented such that they sit across the top of the shelving unit, and hold it up. It leaves me (hopefully) enough room underneath for point motors, and cabling.

On the whole, it’s pretty sound, so I’m happy with it.

But this probably raises the point, why bother building it before any concrete plans? Well, it’s pretty simple – as I said earlier, there’s only a finite space, and I’m happy to work with a nice, flat base. As far as I was concerned, it made little difference, and it gives me the ability to lay things out and play about more.

It’s a good start, anyway!