Wow! Time does fly. My last entry was April!!!!! I am not sure why I haven't written anything for many months. You would be forgiven for thinking that I must have finished the layout by now, but alas no. For various personal reasons and a busy business life, there has only been a certain amount of activity. But here goes with an update.

Newton Purcell, the junction station midway along my line, was finally laid and tested for smoothness of the running, but with no electrics fitted. The issue is that the storage loops are located below and this makes wiring up almost impossible. So the station is arranged over two boards and once the track was glued down, the boards were split and one by one removed and stood on their edges for wiring.

These shots are of the track layout.

There are the two mainlines which will have platforms. Off to the left, the line heads down grade to the continuous run and then on to Banbury (the storage loops). To the right, the line travels round to Buckingham West. There is a down bay on the far left, serving the branch line which leaves to the left on the far side and travels round to Brackley Road. In the far right, there are two private sidings. I have yet to decide what factories or facilities these will serve. Does anyone have any good ideas for some rural trackside industry for 1930's Buckinghamshire?

Forward of the mainlines is a goods through road and then 3 sidings and a kick back forming the goods yard. The through line crosses the mainlines on two single slips to the right and branches off to the ironstone quarry. I have kept all points as trailing apart from the double junction to the branch.

This is the right side baseboard on its side having been wired up and with the servos in place for the points.

I am using the MERG Servo 4 boards to control the servos. You programme these via a pc (or you can build a dedicated box of tricks to do it). You programme the two end positions for the travel and also the speed of that travel. This gives the points a slow movement, but at a fraction of the cost of tortoise motors. It also only needs a simple on/off switch. I have yet to see how well the servos last, but of course this is meant to be a permanent layout and not go through the rigours of an exhibition layout.

I have also used servos for the signals. This is the first attempt, and in situ as the up starter. I bought the signals from someone in France via ebay and whilst not immaculate, they serve my purposes. There is a version of the MERG firmware for the Servo 4 boards that allows you to programme a bounce into the signal arm and once I have the layout all up and running, I may well get that installed too.

In the meantime, I have installed three of the Servo 4 boards to control 12 items. The 2 servos needed for each single slip are controlled as one, using Y leads.

The left side baseboard is now being worked on. The track wiring is in place, but the droppers need to be soldered onto the rails. One Ratio bracket junction signal is part made with another waiting. I need to work out how to fix two servos to the baseplates. I also need to build three more Servo 4 boards to control this side of the station.

In the meantime I have worked out the wiring diagram and made the control panel for the station. This has 45 switches: 15 for the power to the track sections, 2 to switch the panel in (for multi operator mode) or out (for single man operation), 27 point and signal levers (set out like a traditional signal box lever frame) and a spare. There is quite a lot of electrical interlocking and pre-selection going on. For example, the junction signal boards will not pull off if the road is not correctly set (although the lever can be pulled - but we can't all have everything!), and setting the right road and pulling off the signals will select the correct controller to that section. That was quite hard to work out for the branch, which can be controlled by the Up main, Down main, Buckingham West or Brackley Road, depending on the settings. On this layout, the eventual receiving station drives the train for the whole journey. There are three bell push buttons as well. I was toying with the idea of buying morse code tappers, but they are too bulky. I have also avoided block instruments. It will all be down to memory.

Next steps are to make final checks to the running on the storage loops (they will become covered by Newton Purcell), complete the wiring of the left board and then reinstall the two and connect the control panel. Hopefully it will all work first time (!!!!!). Once tested (and no doubt fettled), I have the task of building the incline down to the existing continuous run. That will be fun with part of the incline being on a curve and also needing a lifting section just before the bottom double junction. I have decided I am getting no younger and ducking under a 700mm high (low) board is just asking for trouble. However, if a lifting section is also too much trouble I may resort to ducking. Simple is starting to sound attractive!!!

The most annoying thing is I will also need to build a slightly simplified version of the Newton Purcell control panel so I can "play trains" on my own, sitting on the other side of the loft.

Rich