(copied from old forum)

Slattocks Junction is the 18 x 13ft P4 layout being built by the Manchester Model Railway Society. The layout is being built to provide an antedote to the continual stream of P4 shunting planks. Yes, they are very good and very needed but large P4 layouts are very rare and those running large steam locos at a realistic pace are even rarer. Basically the group was bored with shunting layouts and wanted to prove that large P4 locos can work at speed on a reasonable size layout. The layout has had one outing at Scalefour North a few years back as track and bare boards and has so far proved that the large locos can run at speed and reliably. More on the layout's background can be found on the Society's web pages,http://www.mmrs.co.uk/layouts/Slattocks.html.

However, we have had continual problems with the trackwork and particularly ballasting. At Christmas we had one last push to complete the ballasting. This was achieved to a level that we admit wasn't perfect but were prepared to accept. This however was followed by a complete let down with the sleepers failing to hold paint reliably, as described here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=39794&hilit=painting+sleepers. The decision was taken to replace all of the trackwork as there were now just too many issues with it for it to be acceptable.

As the group had already committed to host the Scalefour Society AGM last Saturday it was decided to start replacement in the goods yard and leave the main lines until after the AGM. It had been hoped to have the goods yard track replaced by last weekend but as will be described later there was a major change just as the track was about to go down.

Following the AGM the opportunity was taken to photograph the layout before the demolition team moved in. The AGM was the first time that all of the scenic boards had been assembled together with the layout.

As can be seen the scenic work is still very much under development.

So with the last rites completed it was time for the demolition team to move in on the trackwork. The goods yard had been ballasted with sand and laid on top of paper Templot templates stuckdown with cow gum and this proved to be very easy to remove. However, the mainlines had been PVA'd directly to the balsa track base and then ballasted with Woodland Scenics and many applications of PVA so it was with some trepidation that the team set to. In the hope that we hadn't used waterproof PVA and that we might be able to dissolve it water was liberally applied.

This was followed by the unceremonious ripping up of the track as Leo is showing

Finally Ralph and Tony W demonstrate the removal of ballast and remaining sleepers by use of the chisel

We won't really know the condition of the trackbed until our next meeting on Monday but so far it seems to be going better than we'd hoped for. What we have learnt is that firemen, water, chisels and trackbeds don't mix, the chisel takes on a surrogate role of the axe! He'll be sent back to the scenic department next week to continue his fine work there.

I'll update with news of the new trackplan and construction progress tomorrow.

Andy G