Having run up against the Law of Sod, I powered up Templot to see what could be done with the under floor clashes caused by moving to sub-board turnout operating units instead of wire in a tube on the surface.. Clearly moving a couple of turnouts either left or right a few inches would cure the immediate problem, so I did that and then printed up a full size version to check out the clearances etc. This was done by populating the stuck together full size sheets (13 in all) with rolling stoc
The first uncompleted version of Staplegrove Road used wire-in-tube for turnouts, the nylon / neoprene tube runs being glued into routed tracks on the top surface of the boards, and the slide switches operating them and the vee switching being set into the edge. But the edge mounting of the switches compromised the location of proposed low-relief buildings at the rear, as I needed to get my fat fingers in to operate the sliders. With the decision to use sub-surface mounted Blue Point units
Todays effort has been to print up a full size Templot run of the revised trackplan and UHU it all together. This is because I need to check that the under-board turnout operation units, which will replace the wire-in-tube of the original, will fit in the spaces available; also to plan where isolation breaks, electrical sectioning, track feeds and the additional three uncouplers to go with the orignal ten will go. Here you can see board three printout, and for perspective I have placed on
About a dozen years ago I attended a meeting of the NE area group of the 2mm Association where someone had on display a tiny shunting layout built onto an IKEA two drawer unit. Whist lt was too small for my liking, I noticed it was bult on top of a 2-drawer IKEA unit, about 80 cms by 28 cms, and which seemed to be built of a high grade 7-ply birch plywood, and sounded cheap. It occurred to me that three locked in a line would make a baseboard area of 2.4 metres by 28 cms, big enough for a
