Hi,

Work has been continuing on the fiddle yards over the last couple of weeks.

The boards have been primed, painted with gloss and the ends / legs have been varnished. End protectors have been made so that the boards can be stored safely when not in use. The decks of the modules have been covered with 1/16" cork in preparation for the track laying.

The Fiddle Yard will have 32 points on it and these have been modified in a similar fashion to those used on the scenic boards. The frog has been isolated from the point blades and the blades themselves have been linked to the stock rails so that we are not dependant on the blades providing the electrical contact.

Our initial track plan for the fiddle yard has had to be modified slightly as the outer two lanes were just too close to the edges. To draw the outer lanes in slightly, we decided to replace 8 of the points with small versions rather than using mediums throughout. Changing these points draws the outer lanes in just enough to provide a good 3-4mm clearance between the board edges. We also had to have bit of a re-think about the throat of the fiddle yard, we are going to use Seep PM1 Solenoid motors to drive the points and with the initial left and right points in the throat being parallel, there wasn't enough space to fit the PM1s side by side. The solution to this was to simply stagger the point work for the Up and Down line by 2 inches which then allows the PM1s to be fitted without any issues.

This is the revised track plan for the Fiddle Yard end.

This is a picture of the cork being laid on the decks, it was so nice, work had moved outside ;-)

Finally a few views of the modules with the revised point work laid out to ensure we have a good fit.

And here are a few shots of the points being modified.

Cheers.