Hi Di Hi Campers

Well today's update is bringing us closer to the current status. As I explained before Newark Northgate was chosen as it fitted a number of criteria. Major features for me was a full length station but a little yard for shunting and leaving interesting items of stock was also an important feature for me. Newark has some somewhat overgrown sidings that I have decided to revive as an enterprise yard using a little licence. I don't really have enough space for all 5 sidings and am debating including 2 or 3 sidings. 3 looks more prototypical but more or less fills the board with track. 2 sidings allows a bit of space for container loading/unloading using a reach stacker which is what I am thinking of doing. I could use some advice on this so may be posting in the help section as well.

So anyway, some pictures:

3 siding option

2 siding option

I have also started planning the tracklaying, starting with the two fast lines. I havecut out some of the webs from the code 55 track and soldered the drop wires to the bottom of the rail which will be hidden by the ballast:

I have also bee experimenting with methods for securing the track on the baseboard joins. I used copper clad PCB and this seems to work very well although I have not glued and soldered down yet.

Plan will be to glue up the track, when it has set I will solder the track onto the PCB and then slit with my Dremel and the should result in perfectly aligned tracks.

Thanks for watching - be safe out there!