The Station

Next part of my model railway was to lay the track for the station area.
Before I could start this I had to alter one set of points. The reason for this, was that past experience of 'N Gauge' had shown that the very small locos have difficulty in negotiating certain types of points at low speed.

Peco produce two types of points, 'electrofrog' and 'insulfrog'. The latter have an insulated frog (the web area where the two tracks diverge). This simplifies the electrical installation, but it means that there is an electrically 'dead' area on the points. Below you can see an example of an 'insulfrog' point. The black plastic area at the diverging point is the frog, small locos sometimes lose electrical contact when passing over this area at low speed.


I had decided to use all 'electrofrog' points but I was one set short. So rather than spend around £10.00 on another set, I thought I would convert a set of 'insulfrog' points that were spare.
Below you can see the 'insulfrog' point at the bottom with the frog carfully cut out with a razor saw. Three of the sleepers have been removed as well. At the top of the photo are a set of points that I am trying to match. Note the all metal rails running throughout the point.


Below, I have cut out 3 new sleepers from paxolin copper-clad circuitboard material. I have made a small electrical break on each side to prevent a short circuit, though these are not really visible in the photo. The paxolin was then soldered to the outside of each outer rail.

Next, using some spare bits of rail pulled out of some offcuts, I carfully cut, bent and positioned the new frog and check rails. Once again these were soldered into place. Some minor filing and grinding to get the correct clearances, and the end result can be seen below.
The cost of the conversion in materials was zero, and it took about an hour from start to finish. Since the original points only cost me £3.00 at a swap-meet I think they are a bargain!

So armed with my new points, I set about marking out the station area more accurately. The baseboard was raised using a frame and the corner unit was glued, bolted and screwed to one end. This ensured that the rails would join correctly, and that the entire scenic area of the layout could be built as a single unit.
The station area board was then moved upstairs to my workshop. Below you can see the initial placement of the points to establish where the baseboard needed to be worked to fit the point motors.

Below you can see the trackwork has been laid and glued in place with impact adhesive. Also in evidence are the power feed markers (red and blue triangles), which were all calculated in advance.
What is more difficult to see are that some of the points will be operated directly by the point motors and some use a rod in tube method to connect the motors. This was done to hide the motor connectors under buildings in areas that were difficult to access.

The final photo shows the general arrangement of the station area with its simple track plan.
The control box is in evidence in the bottom right hand corner ready to take the electrical connections. This and the other electronic bits will be described in the next installment.

That's enough for today, it's been snowing heavily here for two days so I made a lot of progress whilst I couldn't get out of the street.

More to follow.....

Track Laying

Instalment two of the model railway.

I started in earnest on the fiddle yard. Below is the baseboard showing the frame used to raise the track level to match the corner unit.



Installing the track for the fiddle yard was relatively easy since all the runs come off points and there are no cross-overs. Work began from the throat end and the points were joined one after another, then the runs were simply joined off that.

The electrical plan had been designed in advance, so it was simply a metter of drilling some small holes to pass the feed wires and some 8mm holes to allow for the point changing motors to be installed beneath the board later. The electrically conducting joints were all soldered, and the insulated sections had feed wires added so that certain areas can be isolated using SPST switches.

Both the image above and the one below show that the upper and lower runs have wide aluminium plates used instead of sleeper beds. This is to allow for quick and easy railing of rolling stock to assemble / dis-assemble trains. Far cheaper, easier and quicker than using a shop bought re-railer.

The aluminium strips were left over from a job, and would have gone for scrap.

At the joints between the sleeper built track and the aluminium strips, the rails are soldered to paxolin / copper coated circuitboard strips, these allow easy solder connections for the feed wires and ensure that the rails don't move out of running alignment.

All the runs were glued down using contact adhesive, slightly nerve racking, but better than using 'track pins' which are terrible to use and look unsightly on a scenic section.

Apart from final finishing off of the sleeper sections and wiring up, the fiddle yard only needs to have some dressing strip added to hide the frame, and a cover made up to keep dust off the rolling stock.

Next - the station section....