It has been a couple of weeks since my last blog entry, and progress has, to coin a phrase from a previous entry, been back on the slow line. The post school report round of parent's evenings have led to some very long working days, and much reduced time to work on Skaleby West.

I did find some time to finish pinning down the last few lengths of track which I did not have time to do before the layout's public outing at the school's birthday event a couple of weeks ago. These particular lengths had moved in transit and led to some stalling problems when the railway was tested upon arrival back at home. A quick relay, test and these final pieces were pinned down and things ran smoothly. Sadly things were not so smooth with the final point motor! The hole has been drilled slightly in the wrong place and I could not get the extended arm to switch the point fully in both directions. A large amount of filing managed to open up the hole and the motor was test fitted again. This still would not work properly. Although the arm could move freely, it still would not switch the point. It proved to be a very frustrating Saturday afternoon. After several attempts and a lot of cursing I decided that the small joining piece was faulty, and would not hold the two halves together strongly enough to allow it to switch the point. It looks like I will need to buy a new one!

The need for a new point motor has meant that the next job has been put on hold. I had planned to get stuck into ballasting the track. My home layout, Skaleby, is ballasted using the Gaugemaster ballasted foam underlay. This gives a fairly good effect, but I had found it difficult to cut and shape the underlay to fit underneath the points. I had not been too happy with the final effect of this. With Skaleby being a home layout I can rather live with it. As Skaleby West is being built for exhibiting this "make do" attitude would not do, and I have decided to hand ballast this layout using Woodland Scenics materials. As I have never ballasted a layout like this before I have dug out some old Hornby magazines for bedtime reading and have read up on the method. Once the problem with the final point motor is sorted I hope to have a good idea how to tackle the ballasting!

The show

There seemed to be a good response to the posters and leaflets during the school's open day. A few people were also interested by the floor plan which was attached to the layout's backboard. This remains in place at the moment, and the couple of gaps give me a constant reminder that I need to find a couple more layouts for the main hall. The list of smaller layouts also need to be placed, which reminds me that I need to measure the other rooms.

This week has also seen me update the posters and leaflets to include directions to the show. This will allow them to be sent out to traders and distributed around local events.

Until next time........