I always said that my micro-terminus was an experiment - and the whole point of an experiment is to learn lessons. I quickly realised that my layout had two major faults:
(a) the foamcore baseboard was so light (250 grams including rails and fittings) that I had to put a finger on top of it every time I changed a point to prevent it moving about on the tabletop, and
(b) the traverser, driven by a rod under the baseboard, suffered a bit from friction and it often needed some finger-poking to get the rails to join up accurately with the rest of the track.
There was also a minor irritation that the wiring, point controls, etc were all underneath the board, so that the layout had to be turned over to work on them. This wasn't a problem when the layout was being built, but it did become inconvenient when I added some rudimentary scenery.
So when I found a piece of wood 50 cms by 15 cms that weighed a hefty kilogram, it seemed a fine opportunity to build a replacement layout (in foreground below, with original layout at rear):
This time I started with the traverser, rather than leaving it to the end of the track-laying process, because I had learned the hard way how essential its smooth operation is for the track design.
I made a 12 cm base for the traverser from a couple of freebie plastic Lottery cards (after checking that the smooth plastic coating of the cards did run smoothly over the surface of the wood). The paper envelope shown in the photo below provides a covering surface for the top of the traverser, while the base (which glides over the wooden baseboard) is left as the smooth plastic coating advertising the lottery:
A length of PECO flexitrack glued on top gave the traverser base a bit of rigidity, and I added sides from wooden coffee stirrers mainly for cosmetic effect:
I also used the coffee stirrers to make guide rails for the traverser along each side, and when the connecting track was laid I put strips of stirrer at the front and back to make sure the traverser stops in the right place:
A copper rod (actually Mercontrol tubing) is used to operate the traverser from the back of the layout. Since the traverser only rests loosely on top of the board (hence the guide rails) it can be easily operated from the front of the layout with a finger tip.
Points are operated by stiff copper wire above the board. The wire and the plastic brackets I used came from PECO's 009 uncoupler kits, but similar homemade brackets could easily be made:
Electrically, block connectors and PECO pre-soldered fishplates cater for my Can't Solder, Won't Solder phobia.
So far I'm very pleased with the second attempt. It seems to work well and it was cheap to build. The next stage will be a bit of scenery ...
* Note for overseas readers: when British politicians are caught doing something especially deplorable they always say "I can assure the House that no wrong-doing was intended, and that lessons have been learned". This mantra is seen as an acceptable alternative to actually learning anything or trying to do things any better in future.
Edited by Ian Simpson
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