A couple of days drift by... Much excitement! All four sets of points turn up, so up to the loft with a gallon of coffee. First to be laid was the curved points that connect the the, er, 'West' end of the double slip, forming the exit to the main line. This straight forward really, drill assorted holes as outlined earlier and there we go. Here's a picture.

Above : The first curved points in place. Some sleeper shoving to do, see later. Next I decided to lay the link from the reception road. This goes from the home-brew points to the Y that switches the end of the reception road to allow running round. This was previously been joined to the home-brew points, so it was just a question of alignment and fixing the Y points to the end, all straight forward. Except for the point motor hole - straight into a baseboard timber. At some point I had moved the whole layout six inches 'west'. It was easier to adapt the baseboard than move the track, so that's what I did. Bogitt & Runn strike again.

Moving on to the link from the Y to the reception/fueling point road, I did it yet again... Yep, nice mesh of the sleepers there - but forgot to remove the webbing between sleepers. Again. So, brutality...

This should have been the easiest sleeper sorting session on the layout (well, bar one), but I forgot to cut away the webbing between the sleepers to allow them to slide under the adjacent rails. To avoid lifting everything I resorted, somewhat nervously, to good old applied violence to cut them away. What I did do was remember to cut the webbing away at the other end of the link panel. At last.

Above : So much easier when I remember to do this before mailing stuff down.

Above : This was as it should have been. Pity, that looked really nice.

Having cut the panel to length, that six inch move came back to haunt me. Yep, baseboard frame exactly in the way again for the point motor for the reception to 'Y' panel. This time hacking a bit out wasn't going to work, so a coffee and ponder ensued. I had to move the points, which the gronk's garage comes off, quite a way 'west' to get the geometry to work. A side effect was that the the gronk's parking space is now more accessible than before. One I'd got used to the idea I think it's actually a plus from the doing scenery stand point. Anyway, the points went in, again all marked out for when point motors are available, never mind affordable.Then the bit where it all usually goes wrong, the last bit where it has to be right.

Above : At this end the timbering gets really interesting.

As can be seen in the photo, drastic measures were needed to sort out the sleepering where the reception road meets the main line. Rather than faff about I took the whole lot away. The point bearers were 'extended' and chairs cut in half and pushed into position. Sadly this just makes the Peco 'bent' sleepers look even more wrong! So, tomorrow's exiting adventure is going to be cutting the bent sleepers away. I'm not going to hack them away completely as the webbing under the rails is of industrial proportions. So I'm going to cut away the bits between the rails and fit correct width bearers cut to make them look like they go right through.

Above : The (in)famous Peco bent sleepers are going to have to go - this looks awful.

Before going any further, I concluded laying the other set of curved points on the lower exit road would be a plan. The original idea was these would come straight off the slip then slew away to get (at least) the 10ft clearance from the running line, so I eyed it up.

Above : This would have looked pretty sexy, effectively a double junction with a real reason to have a double slip for the crossing. But, alas, it wouldn't really fit in with the spirit of the thing.

The rest of the day, well more night really, was all about laying the last set of points below the other set on the other exit of the double slip. The Great Plan requires that these points give access to a headshunt for the Long Siding. It crossed my mind to lay them parallel to the others and have a double track main line, but in the end stuck to the latest version of the plan and put a short panel in to push it away from the running line. It was somewhat nerve wracking to hack up £200 worth points, but they didn't explode. The vee is one large moulding under the rails and cutting it would be risky I think so I left it and joined the long bearers either side of it. After much cutting chairs in half and gluing either side of the rails it was all done, including the lead out to the Long Siding. The plastic joiners will replaced by dummy plastic fishplates. I'm aware that ideally there should be more very long bearers to do away with the cramped exit road sleepers top and bottom, but two things : very long timbers were being avoided by the 1980s (because there weren't many to go at) and; I laid it out like that and it looked bloody awful - prototypical doesn't always scale in a visually pleasing way. The short panel been the lower points and slip was tackled in two halves to keep the rails where they should be be, but when I'd done it has none of it's original sleepers. So..

Above : I'm right pleased with that. Took a lot of work but the Peco-ness has gone and the result looks more like hand-built than propriety. Now for the rest... And that's essentially it track wise. The rest of the bent sleepers have gone and two and bit yards of plain track remain to be laid - and then wiring it.

Above : A couple of not very good photos of the layout - it's not possible to get it in one shot without braining myself on a rafter.

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