Before I press on with the construction of the other points on the Paynestown 2 project, I felt I'd gain a lot of confidence if I could test the first one thoroughly.

To that end, I've begun building a small section of the final layout on foam core, which - if all goes well - can be integrated into the rest of it later on. Provided

it's treated properly, foamcore is exellently stable, as the scenic modules I built for my American layout 10 years ago are still perfectly straight. So i've no qualms

about using this material as the basic foundation for the track. In fact, I plan to go further and build much of the baseboard from the same material, albeit

with strengthening against damage.

This point is the entry into the bay on Paynestown. Immediately preceding it will be a right hand turnout, but for testing purposes I've lightly glued in a short stretch

of track to give the loco a run-up to the point. The intention here is that all the wiring and point control will be arranged above the board, with operation from the rear.

There'll be a steep retaining wall between the loco and the wiring here, with a hillside on top of that. Strips of copper clad serve as "north" and "south" rail buses, 

which should keep everything reasonably organised.

Point actuation is to be manual, using wire in tube as shown here. I've added an Omega loop to absorb any extra travel, with the intention being to work the point via an SPDT sliding

toggle switch, with the actuating wire going through a small hole in the sliding switch. I'm copying this from Marc Smith's layouts which I've operated and which work well. I like

the idea of keeping this layout as simple and clean as possible, so no under-layout wiring and no point motors etc. Although there might end up being electromagnets.

At the moment the frog polarity isn't switched, but touching the frog wire to one or other of the bus rails proves that the frog is working as desired. The Dapol pannier shown here

won't traverse the point unless the frog is live. In all other respects the point seems to be working properly so I'm confident about building the remaining ones.

The little Dapol engine has barely been out of its box since I bought it about 8 years ago so I was pleased when it whirred it life very happily. Together with the 56xxs it will be an

important part of the operating roster.