One of the downsides of laying C&L track is that you need cash! With two of our group economically inactive, we are having to progress at the pace at which we can afford to buy track components. Coupled with a shortage of GWR 2-bolt chairs at C&L this hasn't helped. However all the sleepering (well almost all) has now been laid for the goods sorting loops opposite the down platform, and a start made on rail laying, starting from the fan of turnouts at the road overbridge end.

Mark made up the spacing jigs for the sleepering for both 45 ft and 60 ft panels, he and Keith have been laying the sleepers on the templates and this spacing shows up clearly in the photos. The templot templates have been printed on 'Toughprint' waterproof paper, they are given a coating of Shellac after laying to be doubly sure. When we start 'wet' ballasting, the last thing we will need is water seeping through into the cork, causing it to swell.

We are using Exactoscale fishplates, but these are a bit flimsy compared to the C&L ones. Their benefit is that they fit the bullhead rail web section! The C&L ones which we would have preferred are sized for code 100 track and we are using code 75 from the Scalefour Socity stores. Dave has been the main abs chair 'threader', producing most of the rail lengths with chairs threaded on. Keying practice for the sidings is alternate right and left hand keys as the loops are bi-directional running. The main up and down lines will be uni-directional. The rail comes in 500mm lengths for posting purposes. Two 45 or 60 ft panels can be made with short lengths of rail left over, these are being used on the turnouts for wing rails, closure rails and check-rails.

Scalefour Society filing jigs for both vees and the switch blades have now been obtained, although the vees for the first three boards have been hand filed and checked with an exactoscale vee gauge. Being stainless silver, vees can be soldered up in the gauge, but the new filing jig also provides for soldering up and will be used in the future. I am modifying one of their superb wing rail spacer jigs to suit our flangeway spacing of 0.9mm If you are building 4mm track I can really recommend these Scalefour society products to make your life easier. But you still need to source (or as we did - make) track gauges to suit your track standards. Meanwhile I have been laying in some of the board joint pcb half-depth sleepering strips and Keith and I have been solderiing up the track power droppers to the underside of the rails as we go.

The first turnout to be laid failed the quality control test - we could not get an 8-coupled loco round the curve without loosing all free play on one axle; so it has been relaid to ease the curvature into a smoother radius. Also the superglue used to hold the copper-clad reinforcing strips under the crossing failed under heat from the soldering itself, so we have reverted to using a 2 part high temperature epoxy called Bisonite for this. I had hoped a modern industrial superglue would take soldering temperatures, but no.

Once the up and down main lines have been laid across the board joint between the first and second boards and the rail soldered across, all tracks will be cut through to allow the boards to be separated again and work on any two boards to be progressed, three together simultaneously makes movement round the conservatory a bit tight as there are still various plants, not to mention two lathes and a milling machine in there.

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Here you can see some of the jointing strips with their half-depth milled sleepers already fixed in position over the board joint. The screws are temporary and will be replaced with much smaller countersunk ones which will disappear under the ballast. The PCB is stuck down so the screws are belt-and-braces. 2mm Association chairplates will be used to bridge the gap under the rails and solder the rail to the sleepers - the extra height of the chairs lifts the rail above the sleepers.

Once tracklaying is complete a basic brown acrylic will be painted over the templates before we ballast. Various track gauges are in view with the two brass types being turned up in quantity on the lathe. The nearer one is the type also used for setting the flangeway gap (0.9mm) and the checkrail gap (1.1mm). The flat milled on one end allows it to sit over the 'vee' and the rebate between the rail 'grippers' allows it to go over closure rails. Plain rail with chairs threaded is waiting to be attached.

The sleeper spacing for the 45 ft panels shows up well here. On plain track we only print the rail on the templot printouts, the sleeper spacing being set by the panel jigs. For turnouts full sleeper printing takes place. The alternate left and right hand keys on the chairs are visible on the nearest rail, and there is a fishplate just to the left of the right hand track gauge. Once the rails are painted to represent rust they will stand out more. Cosmetic fishplates will be glued on where the rail is not cut through, the rail head only being slit with a slitting saw in a dremel to make it look as if there is a real joint there.

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