Entry posted by MinerChris
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Firstly I should mention that it was great to meet and catch up with many familiar names at the supermeet in Tutbury last weekend. Sadly, I didn’t spend as much time as I should’ve speaking to folks, as I was busy screwing up D869’s shunting tractor while he wasn’t looking. Still I’m told that one of the objectives of the day was to test the reliability so that in itself can be looked at in a vaguely positive light.
So back to Callington Road, when I arrived back at the beginning of the roster break, with around a year to go to the Expo, I felt it was time that I really should have some trains running by now. The last couple of breaks have been used up with getting all of the various bits of woodwork painted in a suitably garish shade of green, whilst trying not to contaminate all of the areas needed to be painted white.
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The full templot plan was then printed out, stuck together and then traced over onto the baseboards, ensuring that the stencil wasn’t moved in the process. Following this slots were cut out of the baseboard top for the tie bar positions, and holes drilled for the PM2 uncoupling magnets.
The pointwork was then sliced off the hardboard shelf with a steel ruler standing in for a palette knife and the whole assembly dunked in a bath of water with a little bleach mixed in, to soak the templates and to try to bathe off any remnant green label flux from soldering. The sleepers were then gapped using a semi-circular needle file and droppers soldered on with SWG 33 Nickel Silver wire, a departure from using 5A fusewire, as I find this to be a little too flexible. The hand drill was brought out once again to punch more holes in the baseboard tops for the for these to passthrough, with only a couple having to be re-sited as they went straight into a spacer block. Then, there was nothing for it, but to grab the solvent PVA and bring the beer out!
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Actually this is a bit of a lie, I quickly figured out that this wasn’t a great way to hold the track firmly to the baseboard as there were spots where it was lifting up, particularly the pieces of easitrack at the end of the pointwork, so I had to resort to balancing heavy lumps of brass and steel over each section as the glue dried. While this was all going on, Brasso was applied liberally to the rest of the easitrack sleepers and once dried, the plain track panels were assembled, more droppers soldered on, more holes drilled and these in turn glued onto the layout, with lots of prodding during drying to ensure that the straight bits are straight and there weren’t any kinks in the curves.
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The board joints provided to need a little head scratching for, if I was starting this from scratch I’d probably just do away with this and build the whole 900mm as one baseboard, but for some reason I decided it was a good idea back in August... Long rail sections were glued down over the joint, and cut with a very fine (0.2mm) razor saw to ensure consistency in the curve, the same being done to the points laid down over the joint. PCB sleepers (and chairplates) were then inserted and soldered in to provide some strength against the inevitable snags on jumpers.
The coal siding that goes off the front of the baseboard also presents another quandary, this is one of the tightest spots on the layout at 450mm radius, or in other words, less than the 600mm recently suggested as what the minimum radius ‘should’ be. From what I can see from the maps and photos, this is in fact kinder than it was on the prototype, as it was laid originally in the 3’6” East Cornwall Mineral Railway days, avoiding a couple of stores to access an area of the yard beyond. With the track going up to the edge of the baseboard, and being keen not to send any stock on a one way journey into the abyss, this siding will not be powered after the break at the baseboard join, which will mean that it needs to be shunted with barrier wagons to reach onto the tighter part of the curve. I may yet still resort to fixing a wagon down on the end of the siding too, so to prevent a whole rake of wagons being sent off to their demise, before the loco reaches the dead area. The cast brass sleepers on the end were put in so that the rail ends would be secure, and so I could take a big file to them to match the baseboard front edge.
Whilst we are on the subject of the prototype some photographs that I had found after I had built the trackwork, inevitably showed that the yard entry point should be tighter, and both yard points should be ‘Y’ points. Oh well, this is going to be Callington Road after all then, not just Callington.
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More PCB sleepers have been glued under the layout along with the modified filmstrip tiebars housings, and the droppers soldered onto these ready to land the wires from the control box. Of course, I’d really meant to get these all wired up too but then, I think we all could do with 26 hours a day.
Finally, the mousehole was cut into the backscene view blocker to allow everything to be put back together for storage again. In doing so, you get a full view of the layout in DJLC guise, with the DMS of the Class 118 DMU which I’ve been building forever, plonked on for scale.
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Until next time, when there might actually be some movement to write about… Chris.
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