I have now got the trackwork up to a running standard, trains go all over it and don’t fall off or stall. The odd bump on pointwork, but I need to go back over the stock and check the wheels are true, they have a habit of shifting slightly over the years.

Time for a sweeping generalisation; prior to the grouping the scottish companies mainly used 8’ 11 1/2 “ sleepers and laid them in an interleaved pattern. ( Now watch all the references to where they did otherwise emerge. ) CR practice was to board over all the cranks and locks, so that does make life a bit easier. "Signalling the Caledonian Railway" by Jim Summers has detail pictures and dimensioned drawings.

Of course the only way to model such track is to build it yourself. Much as it would be nice if Peco suddenly produced interleaved sleeper 4 bolt chaired EM rtr I suspect that it is unlikely. The good news is that all the bits are available, I used C+L parts for mine. There are good threads on track construction on here and elsewhere, my methods are very similar to those.

I know a lot of modellers are put off by the idea of trackbuilding, but it isn’t as hard as it looks. A decent set of gauges is half the battle, most folk would have all the other tools.

Anyway, this is how it turned out, still needs some detail painting and ballast tidying.

One of the c7 point at the crossing.


The long curved crossing.


A working catch point.



All are driven by tortoise motors, so no excuse for not getting on with the signalling.