Hi,

Another few good hours spent on the layout today. After getting the point motors working yesterday it was time to look at laying some track.

We planned to start with the Up / Down lines and the Down siding which all run off to the right of the centre board (as you would view the layout). Our first obstacle was to mount the copper clad sleepers to the board. These sleepers will eventually have the rail ends soldered to them and needed to be stuck down with epoxy resin.

While we were waiting for the resin to harden, it gave us some time to cut and form the section of track which is the entrance / exit to the scenic sidings. We then added droppers to the prepared sections of rail to provide the electrical connections. We have decided that we will not rely on fishplates to provide an electrical connection, so each piece of rail will have at least a pair of droppers added to it. The intention is to place droppers every 30cm to provide track power. The droppers themselves are 26awg florists wire which we then solder to the bottom of the rail. The florists wire is pretty flexible and is very difficult to see once the rail has been laid and I would say impossible to see when ballast is added.

Droppers ready to be tined

When the resin had hardened sufficiently, we started laying the rail. We've decided to use pins to secure the track to the boards at this point, but when the ballast has been added we will be able to remove the pins should we want to. I guess for me the decision to remove the pins will be down to the visual impact they have when the ballast is down.

Here are some pics of the results.

Up / Down and Down Siding laid to the end of the board showing the copper clad sleepers

Cheers.