I went along to Dean Hall yesterday evening, for the first time since last month. I took my camera and this time it had a memory card in it so I took a few pictures.

I'd better leave Andy or Craig to explain how the big template was produced and printed - I'm afraid the "dark arts" of templot and template production are a bit beyond me at the moment but they were putting it together last night and trying it out for size on the layout. I have to say that I think it looks pretty impressive. So here are a few pics showing this with Andy, Craig, Ralph and Dick.

Note one of Craig's wagon etches cunningly placed in the corner of one of the photos. I have to say I think this looks pretty good in the flesh :thup

John (knottyjohn)

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A bit of an update as we've not reported back for nearly a month. Progress has been a bit slower than expected but we need to get this part right. The fiddleyard throat to the first six roads has been lifted and cleared as has the old double junction. The old droppers and wiring has been removed allowing the trackbase to be filled and sanded, this is nearly complete but needs a bit more work in some parts of the fiddleyard - PVA can be very stubborn.

The main cause of the slow progress has been the need to do further work on the track design. The loop has now been cut back so that it joins back in before the junction, the previous arrangement was incorrect due to the repositioning of the junction and also the canal bridge. Unfortunately this means that the turnout I'd previously completed needs to be rebuilt. :wall The crossing and slip arrangements have also been very slightly (but it still altered nearly all the crossing work!) to give a better and more prototypical arrangement. The drawing work for the front at least is now complete and last night saw Craig and myself crawling around Dean Hall's floor sticking rather large sheets of paper together, hopefully KnottyJohn will be along with some photos. This wasn't the easiest of tasks trying to get everything to line up but we think we've got it near enough and the alignment when placed over the layout was satisfactory. This now means that we can get on with the small amount of woodwork required and start putting the balsa back into place.

We've lined up an electrician to rework the fiddle yard control panel, though with interlocking required on the front now we may well have a look at the Merg CBUS system. This, hopefully, will give us the flexibility to be able to modify the fiddle yard later without having to completely rework the control panel again and also enable interlocking to be incorporated on the front. It's early days and we've no idea of the cost yet. Also on the electrics, New Hey's outing to the Members' Day has brought the realisation that the layout needs to be sectionalised (don't confuse with isolating sections etc) so as to prevent a short in one location stopping the whole layout and also to protect the controller. The shorting issue has always been a problem but until people started putting solutions forward for Andy C's issues we weren't aware that there was anything that could be done about them. The solution in the short term is to use car brake light/indicator bulbs though an electronic solution may be implemented later. Most of the track feed wiring needs to be redone anyway so designing power blocks (sections) in at this stage is not a big issue.

Hopefully next week will see reconstruction work begin in earnest.

Andy G

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Last night was good as it both marked a successful sign-off on a newly finalised track layout which fitted without issue as well as the first night in a while of forward progress where we've now reversed the layout as far as it needs to go and we can really start going forward again.

The car bulbs were a nice revelation, i'd always wanted to put a breaker in the fiddle yard anyway but also knew of the problems my Dynamis had with them. Nice simple engineering that I sometimes overlook works anyway and it just beens we need to be careful what we connect our dropper wires too when the track is relaid to ensure we can put bulbs/breakers on different parts in the future.

Plenty of track to get on with although in my case a finished wagon etch is the priority so we can build a few ready for the October show (and people stop nagging to buy some ).

The plan also means the scenic guys now know the new boundaries of all their hills etc.

Craig