Have been hard at it this week getting some of the big things sorted out as promised, and as with most things, has taken far longer than I expected. Started off fairly simply with doubling up the connections to the point motors. The plug in connectors are handy but just don't seem to hold the wires well enough, so have doubled up with a second wire to the soldered tags. I may be my own worse enemy here as eventually came to the conclusion that the wire weren't holding in because I had used too hefty a grade. Ah well, two connections has to be better than one. I readiness for the control panel I then took all the auxiliary connections to tag strips near the edge of the board. After an afternoon of soldering the first board looked like this;

Organised spaghetti! Then on to another job that I have been putting off - relaying the fiddle yard. I just wasn't happy with the three way point and the Peco motors so relayed them with two standard points and DCC Cobalts to match the rest. This is how it started off;

Firstly the track gang went in;

Then I spread on some of the chocolate ganache left over from Birthday cake at the week end;

Well that is just what it looked like! Then some work on DCCifying the points. OK, mybe not strictly speaking necessary but am a firm believer that every little helps when it comes to smooth running;

And then here we have it;

Downside of this is that I have lost a couple of inched but only other option was another point, another motor and after everything else another fifty quid or so! A much cheaper option will be a small extension board at the end if I find it necessary. What then followed was another afternoon of wiring to get this board looking remarkably like the first picture so didn't bother taking another one!

Have also been trying to get to grips with the control panel options and have decided on a plan of action now and a great number of connectors, switches and LEDs are on order. I have already come to the conclusion that there are various things I should have done differently when starting out and are contributing to making things far more awkward than they needed to have been. More on this (and hopefully at least one completed panel!), later.