The poly stuff for RBO turned up, so much spraying of dilute PVA and sprinkling of leaves, and light leaves too, has ensued. It's sitting with the glue drying while the Engineering Dept. ponders on actually planting it. It all gets a bit real when your actually going to have to try The Plan out. It will work. He says.

Here's a coupe of pics of the Permaway fishplates, which highlight the quality of the fishplates and the not-terribly-goodness of my track laying skills. Fitting them to existing track complete (both sides with the web in between the rail ends) doesn't appear possible due to getting them over the rail head, but chopping them and glueing is simplicity itself, they fit nicely into the web. Fitting them to the blades end of the Peco crossing vee points requires cutting away some plastic where the rail ends meet to match the rail profile. I'm always a bit nervous hacking away at ready made point because I kind of suspect it'll all go sproing - but it didn't. A really sharp blade probably helps here. Also, in the 'inside' of the vee there's a plastic base bit - to get these fishplates in I had to file the bottom off to about halfway along, taking off maybe 1mm or so as the plastic rises above the bottom of the rail a bit. On the 'outside' there's a square plastic moulding under the rail - a slight file along the bottom of the fishplate and it sits in just fine.  As I go I'm cutting away the Peco insulated joiners that were necessary to stop joints kinking. There's a few halved metal ones, for those I'm just filing a bit off the bottom of the fishplate as they then serve to hide the joiner. The mould marks aren't worth getting excited over - I suspect paint will hide them easily. Very pleased with them, slightly grumpy I didn't pay more attention to where they would go when track laying. Hey ho!