A garage, O scale and the Ploughley Hundred Light Railway (was Gawcott & Westbury Light Railway)

[Ray H]

The backboards have all been cut and are temporarily in their intended position. I've standardised on a 200mm or thereabouts maximum height above track level as there are so many things - e.g., cupboards, juicers - fixed to the walls with their undersides around or just below that.

 

It was great fun (not) working out how to cut the stuff to accommodate the incline.

 

Most of the boards are simply pushed against the garage walls and held in place by the tight fit. There's probably no more than a dozed screws securing around 60ft of backboards.

 

I've used up a lot of the plywood offcuts and some bendy MDF - cutting that with a jigsaw is interesting.

 

Today's job is to move all the rolling stock to the fiddle yard/traverser, clear the remaining miscellaneous stuff (excluding the track!) off the baseboards and then show the backboards some blue paint. I'm hoping the emulsion paint will dry quick enough to get a second coat on if required before returning the boards to their correct position probably with a couple of dabs of instant grab adhesive applied to the rear as a safeguard.

 

We made a trip to the Railway Conductor near Weedon yesterday and bought some ballast and some cinders. I also topped up my supply of static grass.

 

Do I do the ballasting first around Westbury or do I fit the lower retaining wall between the BR track and the incline and then do the ballasting in that area?

 

Or do I paint the rail sides first?

 

Or do I do some outstanding stuff for the club?

[Ray H]

Used a roller on the backboards and all was done in a little over an hour including one board that needed painting on both sides.

 

I'll wait until after lunch and then put them back up then I'd better do a bit for the club.

 

One of these days I might actually get round to running some trains 🙄

[Ray H]

Backboards are all in place with little need to resort to instant grab adhesive. I am pondering whether to leave the butt joints between boards as they are or to cover each with masking tape that I then paint blue.

 

I've also managed to add a kind of backboard on the access flap. Its size being determined by what can be accommodated either when it is lowered into or raised from it's "in use" position - largely because the garage door handle gets in the way - and when it is folded back (out of use) where its height is determined by the available space between the fixed boards and the inverted flap.

 

I'm not sure there's a single option so there have been many attempts to get something usable/practicable  (and I think there'll be a few more tomorrow as well).

[Ray H]

In between spells of work for the club's layout, I've been wondering what I could do with the loose end of the lifting flap.

 

I'm not too enamoured with the current arrangement but it had largely drifted from sight as the flap isn't currently used too much.

 

However, Jim was here last weekend and he commented on the awkwardness of the flap's usage - it makes a lot of play on the looseness of the flap's hinges to twist the loose end past the door handle.

 

 

 

The arrow points to the notch in the flap that is there to help get the flap past the garage door's handle. I have moved the keys to the other side of the door since the above picture was taken. The door can't open any wider because the domestic gas pipe is behind it about 6ft from the floor.

 

 

The notch out is clearer here. The blue painted MDF is the backscene, the height of which is limited to that shown to stop it touching the tracks when the flap is folded back/out of use. The backscene has a secondary purpose in that - should there be a derailment on the outside of the curve - it should prevent seriously expensive damage to any stock that makes a bee line for the floor!

 

 

The backscene transition piece is currently removable because of the door handle, but it could be fixed to the flap as it would be clear of the baseboard the flap folds back against.

 

I'm loathe to make too many changes to the door as I'm led to believe it is designed to retard any fires that might arise if the garage was to ever resort to its intended use - and SWMBO has a habit of fully closing the door during the colder months believing that it limits draughts in the house even though as the garage's regular inhabitant, I've never noticed any draughts.

 

I'm not adverse to temporary changes but I don't trust my carpentry skills to do anything major - like drilling a hole into the door from the edge for a replacement lock 🙄.

[Ray H]

One advantage of the garage in this weather is that it is on the cooler side of the house. 🙂

 

The house side handle and the internal bar have been removed from the garage door and put safely in a bag should they be needed again. They're in a drawer that gets opened frequently so I shouldn't have to go searching for too long.

 

I've fitted a barrel bolt and grab handle in their place and drilled a suitable hole in the door frame. The door is either slightly warped or wasn't hung properly so the hole in the frame was a bit close to the frames edge so I drilled the relevant holes in a piece of scrap etch and screwed that to the frame which should stop the frame splintering if someone leans on the door too much.

 

This change means that I can add the equivalent of the (top) angled backscene board that was previously held in place with a bulldog clip, to the flap - in truth the previous one had to be replaced because it wasn't deep enough to be fixed in place. I also had to cut the replacement twice because I cut the first one with the slope going the wrong way 🙄 and, being MDF, I couldn't just turn it around. I did try to reuse the original piece by adding a piece below but I couldn't make the join strong enough.

 

I also discovered that the end of the inclined track on the fixed baseboard was anything but square to the vertical so, having made it square I had to lengthen the track bed on the flap. The evidence of this can be seen with a close look at the image below. This also entailed cutting back the track on the fixed baseboard and slightly lengthening the track on the flap.

 

I still need to slightly lengthen the embankment face on the flap, something I'll probably do tomorrow.

 

[Ray H]

I've had a couple of suggestions with regard to moving the loco shed (at Gawcott) to the back two tracks to make coupling and uncoupling easier on stock in the (currently) two sidings nearest the garage wall. The swap would mean some extra shunting of locos and a bit less with wagons.

 

The layout uses Dingham (and derivative) couplings so coupling should happen automatically and, if the proverbial push comes to shove, a quick flick with a coupling hook should suffice to lift the loop on one vehicle and let it drop onto the top side of the "catch" on the other vehicle to complete uncoupling.

 

 

The above image shows the result of the swap. I seem to recall that any light railway pictures that I've seen tend to have the loco shed positioned beyond the platform. I can't recall seeing anything else in the same space at other locations.

 

The swap would mean that I needn't worry quite so much about the detail around the shed area - anything that means less scenic work is an added bonus for me 🙂

 

The collapsing backscene boards above are currently simply pushed against the wall. they'll be made more secure in due course.

 

The layout's two lever frames will be "hidden" within structures. Gawcott's chosen structure is the station building. The two pictures below show the said building roughly positioned,

 

 

 

The building is a 3D print from ebay seller Railreality. I'd seen a short mention of this complete building in the latest issue of the Gauge O Guild's Guild News and contacted Jonathan to ask the internal dimensions of the building, explaining what & how I planned to use it. I was expecting to be quite busy with the fine toothed saw to remove the bits that I didn't anticipate using. I'd also have preferred a slightly deeper (front to back) model.

 

Jonathon offered to make the relevant changes and sell the modified building at the same price as the complete building. Although the building is designed for O gauge I'm sure Jonathan would be happy to oblige for other scales - I think they already market a OO gauge version.

[Ray H]

A Sunday postal delivery today 🙂

 

A selection of LCut Creative items. A couple of kits and a collection of bits for the Westbury Station Building.

 

A few things to do on the club's control panels first - including wiring one up with upwards of thirty LEDs & push buttons not to mention sorting out some (very - like less than an hour ago) recent changes to the Arduino code for that one and three others that are either already installed on the layout or are about to head that way.

 

At least there's only one club panel to do after that.

[Ray H]

There's been a little progress on the layout since the last post.

 

The open board edges that arise when the access flap is folded back onto the fixed part of the layout have been protected against runaway vehicles as shown below.

 

 

There's a similar protector on the lower track on the other side of the gap - the upper track literally folds back on itself so forms that edge's protector.

 

All three protectors are secured in such a way that the can be rotated through 180º to either allow trains to run or to stop such running trains taking a liking to the floor.

 

The white pieces of plastic currently loosely placed in position against the embankment in the above image will form the basis of the retaining wall. They will most likely be covered with up-scaled Scalescenes engineering brick brick paper and then stuck in place in due course.

 

One of sidings at the door end of Westbury ends very close to the baseboard edge - just out of sight at the bottom left of the above image. I've fitted a short length of a similar plastic to the front edge of the baseboard here in the hope that it too should stop downward travels of rolling stock especially after I've twice accidentally caught a vehicle in that siding with my arm causing it to derail.

 

Edited September 8, 2022 by Ray H
to correct a speeling mistook

[Ray H]

I keep looking at the incline against the garage wall and wonder if I can make the overall effect look better.

 

The backboards against the wall are 6mm bendy MDF, partly because there are a couple of curves to accommodate and because I had some bendy MDF left over from an excessive purchase of the same.

 

 

Although the MDF is currently (and mostly) held in place by nothing other than some tight saw cuts, its 6mm thickness is encroaching on the track bed leaving little room for the cess/walkway. I know this represents a light railway and things weren't necessarily the same as on BR, but I think it would look better if the pathway could be wider.

 

I have a few sheets of 12000mm x 600mm x 1mm plastic which I'm thinking of using instead of the MDF. The occasional daub of instant grab adhesive should hold it in place.

 

I'm minded to go for ID Backscenes vinyl sheets fixed to the above backboard. Replacing the MDF with plastic has the added bonus of being able to use the MDF as a template for both the 1mm plastic and the ID Backscenes prints,

-----------------------

The original thinking was to have a low retaining wall on the other side of the inclined track. This was because I thought the embankment side would be too steep to be prototypical.

 

I've recently been re-reading Peter Marriott's Scenic Modelling book No. 2 in the hope it might engender some enthusiasm into me to get on with the scenery in due course.

 

I happened upon a picture in that book of embankments on the South Devon Railway, the bottom right hand corner of which is reproduced here.

 

 

To my mind the steepness of the embankment in the foreground (and that just noticeable adjacent to the signal post further back) is no worse than what I'd have if I took the embankment side right down to the ground and forget the wall. It would certainly open out the area between the two track levels and would remove the risk of damage to the brick paper covered retaining wall when I am ballasting the track. After all, a retaining wall would be an expense the light railway might be glad to be rid of.

[Ray H]

I've been using the layout in between working on other things.

 

The fiddle yard was originally planned to be just the four tracks on the traverser. This was expanded to include a further two sidings that were a kick-back off the traverser's access line.

 

Puzzel Yard's "puzzle" logic has been expanded to cater for the 39 wagons currently on the layout and the ten "berths" the new layout has.

 

I started using the new puzzle with these two new sidings as a separate location to the traverser but with hand shunting as required between both.

 

Usage of the layout has made me think that perhaps these two sidings could be the terminal end of the BR branch and the traverser the rest of BR.

 

Further thinking has made me consider giving these two sidings their own access and disconnecting them from the traverser access track.

 

I'd retain the through running facility and the traverser's access route and introduce a direct access route to the two sidings off the BR track but facing the opposite way to the traverser's access track - A kind of enlarged single slip arrangement (where the slip track provides the continuous run).

 

I shall start Templot later on and see what's possible in the space available.

 

The idea's downside is that I'd have to remove the upper level boards over the fiddle yard (to do any track alterations) which I hadn't planned to need to remove.

[Ray H]

 

Here's an idea of what I mean. The point on the right will become plain line (passing under the ruler). The ruler shows the proposed alignment of the track to create what in effect becomes an outside single slip. The Derby Lightweight Railcar is on the inside most traverser track in the distance. The following might also give an idea of what's planned.

 

 

Rotating the plan clockwise by about 110º might further help.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Ray H

[Ray H]

I was originally just going to remove two of the upper level boards to enable me to make the above mentioned track alterations.

 

However, making the most of the opportunity, I'm going to look at putting some form of train presence/detection in the diamond crossing area behind the traverser. Currently the layout relies of operators talking to each other to prevent "accidents". I'll need to remove all three upper boards (instead of just two if I go ahead with this).

 

I'm also minded to reposition the upper level's Arduino and associated technology. It is currently all crammed into a tight space and mounted on the far side of the vertical support visible top right in the image in my previous post. This makes changes to anything associated therewith messy. For example, it will all need to be dismantled to remove the upper board to make the planned track changes.

 

I'll need to operate the three new points on the lower level so I'm thinking of removing the MERG Servo4 and using the Arduino above instead. This gives me the option to replace the frog juicers with relays operated through the Arduino if I choose to go that way.

[Ray H]

I've managed to separate two of the upper boards that need to be removed to allow me access to the lower level. I've printed of the Templot plan of the area and stuck same together and am glad to see that everything seems to fit.

 

It took a bit longer than I had expected because there were a couple of securing screws buried under the cork sheet which, luckily, is only held in place by the track pins holding the track down. However, I had to spend time hunting for those screws as there were no marks on the cork 😗

 

The lever frame has also been recovered as has the Arduino and its associated peripherals. These will go back on the layout although I do want to improve access to them for the future.

 

I've printed a second lot of the relevant Templot sheets which I'll use for building the pointwork. I have plenty of (PCB) sleepering but I'm slightly concerned that I may not have enough rail. I don't think I can re-use the three points currently in use so I may have to strip them down to top up the rail supply.

[Ray H]

Here's the new track arrangement.

 

 

Basically, the track access to the two sidings at bottom right in the picture has moved from top right (which leads to the traverser) to the BR track from the diamond crossing (top left) effectively making what was a combined set of hidden sidings into two separate locations with totally independent access. This adds yet another element to the shunting puzzle given that moving vehicles between the two locations by hand is possible (as is doing a lap of the layout with a loco as haulage).

 

 

Here's a close up of the electronics which will control the area and are just visible towards the top right in the upper picture.

 

There is  an 8 relay shield across the top of the lower picture. This takes care of frog polarity switching - the existing frog juicers don't seem to have settled too well on this layout so are being phased out. Just below the relays is a PCF8574 PCB. The pins (on yellow bases) across the top of this PCB link to a similar range of pins (on black bases) on the adjacent edge of the relay shield.

 

From left to right at the bottom of the image is the Arduino UNO which is the brains behind the operation. To its right is a small so called buck converter that drops the layout's 12v dc supply down to around 9 volts which the Arduino is reputedly a little happier about. Finally, at bottom right is a PCA9685 PCB. This one will be used to provide a connection to and between the servos on both upper & lower levels on this side of the layout. The PCA9685 connects to the UNO using 4 wire I2C which is also how the PCF8574 is connected.

 

The levers that can just be seen in the distance at the extreme top right and the two switches for the low level points have been wired into the above (and the various devices connected to each other) since the pictures were taken, leaving just the frog switching wiring to be added to the relay shield. I can then test out the new pointwork !

[Ray H]

The low level's wiring is largely complete save for finding somewhere suitable to position the laser circuitry to detect trains approaching and leaving the diamond crossing behind the traverser in order to switch the crossing's frog polarity. The laser that is at this end of the crossing is in situ as there's enough space between tracks for the "transmitter" - i.e. the laser itself. The receiver is located between the track and the garage wall at top right in the first of the two images above.

 

The laser transmitter & receiver are situated diagonally opposite each other so that the gap between vehicles isn't detected. This will allow me to code the initial appearance of a "train" as the moment to energise the relays that switch the polarity and also detect once the rear of the "train" has passed the other detector to de-energise the relays.

 

I need to remove the still in situ upper baseboard in order to locate the most practical position for the other detector circuit and, once in place, everything can go back together again and I can run some trains to try everything out (once I've worked out the best routing for the upper level's servo cables down to the lower level PCA9685 PCB).

 

I still got to replace the juicers with another Arduino on the other side of the layout but that's all on one level so shouldn't take so long (I hope).

[Ray H]

The final upper board was released once I found the single screw holding it in place and had cut and secured the consequent loose ends of the one remaining uncut track leaving/joining the board.

 

There's a gap of no more than about ½ inch between the two (tightly) curved tracks approaching the now uncovered end of the diamond crossing. Several tests with mock-up arrangements for the receiver - the transmitters/lasers are arranged to point towards the garage wall for safety reasons - revealed that the conventional arrangement of a beam parallel to the baseboard surface was asking for trouble especially if/when a inevitable derailment occurs in the immediate vicinity.

 

In the end I mounted the receiving LED just above the baseboard surface angled upwards in the "6ft" and the laser aimed downwards from about 65mm on the inside of the curve. In the true sense of the word(s) "its a bit of a lash up". We'll have to see how long it lasts. At least I can remove the upper baseboard more easily now should I need to reconfigure things.

 

By the end of yesterday I'd completed the low level wiring and had the longer two upper level boards temporarily back in place - there's a hope that the backscenes might be added over the weekend. This should be easier with the upper level baseboards temporarily removed again.

 

The upper level frog polarity relays were also in place and wired up. This just left the upper level servo leads to be connected to the PCA9685 on the lower level and the (upper level) I2C PCB connected to both the upper level relay board and the lower level's I2C circuitry. And then I started thinking . . . . 

 

I currently need to have two 5v supply wires and the four I2C wires running between the two levels as well as the nine servo leads from the upper level board. I could cut the number of servo leads down if I moved most of the electronics from the lower to the upper level as there's only three servos on the lower level. Mind you, I'd then need to add a pair of 12v supply wires to the mix.

 

On the other hand, having a second PCA9685 board - the board that the servos plug into - on the upper level would only require the two 5v wires plus the four I2C bus wires between the two levels, all of which can have plug/socket connectors in-line making removal of the upper level a simple matter of disconnecting said plugs & sockets at the expense of accommodating the second PCA9685 board on the upper level.

 

That's today's plan (although domestic management want me fit a towel rail above the radiator in the downstairs cloakroom [and I hate drilling holes in "solid" walls as the drill always wanders]).

[eldavo]

Confused of this parish wonders why there are 4 I2C wires?  Surely I2C is a 2-wire protocol.  I understand the 0v wires of equipment have to be common but can't figure why you would need 4 wires plus the power supply.

 

Not critical but intriguing.

 

Cheers

Dave 

 

[Ray H]

2 hours ago, eldavo said:

Confused of this parish wonders why there are 4 I2C wires?  Surely I2C is a 2-wire protocol.  I understand the 0v wires of equipment have to be common but can't figure why you would need 4 wires plus the power supply.

 

Not critical but intriguing.

 

Cheers

Dave 

 

 

There's the +ve & -ve wires as well to make up the four.

[Ray H]

Towel rail successfully fitted 🙂

 

I'd forgotten that I'd taken the picture below a few days ago to demonstrate the narrowness of the gap between the two tracks where the laser transmitter needs to go - the hole in the cork layer was cut to provide a secure base for any mount needed to lift the laser transmitter up.

 

The frogs on the diamond crossing will be polarised in favour of the BR track when the relays are de-energised. This will avoid the need to energise said relays if I'm using the continuous run facility provided on the BR track. The laser will thus only need to detect any train on the Light Railway track.

 

 

The above is very much a worst case scenario because I now have some 4-wheeled coaches for the Light Railway so the railcars shouldn't shouldn't need to visit the LR again. That is unless someone organises a rail tour!

 

The wiring of the upper level was completed yesterday (or was it?). I need to cut and re-join a couple of the servo extension leads where they bridge the gap between the two long baseboards out of picture and to the right in the following image. This will facilitate board separation if/when required.

 

 

I've yet to update the Arduino's sketch (a.k.a. program) to reflect the introduction of the three points on the lower level, the use of the laser detectors and, finally, the use of relays for frog polarity switching to complete the changes on this side of the layout.

 

It is just possible to see the edge of one of the upper level's point operating servos in the extreme bottom left corner of the above image. There are six more of these in a similar position relative to the edge of the two long baseboards. These will require a removable covering from a scenery point of view. That's why I wasn't too concerned about adding the above electronics on top of the baseboard.

 

However, seeing it all in place and noting the height of some of the wires I'm  beginning to have second thoughts.

 

The platform structure could be narrowed - I have already thought that it may be too wide (and possibly unnecessarily long as well). Reducing one or both could allow me to move the electronics away from the baseboard edge. Having done that I could then cut sufficient of the top surface of the baseboard away - a bit like I've done for the lever frame - for the electronics to be lowered by around 20mm leaving the top of the wiring at around the same height as the top of the servos (I think).

 

Whilst the lever frame is self supporting and requiring the layout to be lowered over the lever tops, the other long board has the two signal servos protruding slightly below the outside face of the lower baseboard skin. I could possibly cut any new hole through both plywood skins of the above board and fix another piece of ply to the outside face of the lower skin thus providing an even lower mounting surface for the electronics.

 

Decision, decisions.

[Ray H]

It was time to put everything back together - or so I thought 😒

 

The Arduino, the PCA9685 (for the three servos) plus the 8 relay shield (for the frog polarity switching instead of the juicers) are all on the lower lever with a separate 8 relay shield and the original PCA9685 (for the previously existing servos) on the upper level. The wires from the lever frame are corrected direct to the Arduino with the said frame on its own support midway between the two levels.

 

I needed to find the best/simplest way to drive the relay shields and found another PCB (PCF8574) that could be used to link the shields to the Arduino via I2C bus through the PCA9685s.

 

It was time to check various things out with the baseboards back in place.

 

First, there was a mysterious short circuit that I managed to trace to somewhere on the low level board but I had to remove the middle of the three upper level boards to track it down - a PCB sleeper on the new pointwork that hadn't had the copper track cut.

 

Back to the bench and some Arduino base experimentation with the PCF8574s. These boards effectively provide some extra pins for the Arduino, needing just four wires to link PCB and Arduino. That may not seem much of a gain, but up to seven PCF8574s can be connected in serial thereby creating up to 56 extra pins.

 

I managed to get a couple of LEDs doing what I wanted them to on the bench and even managed to get a relay energising/de-energising. There was no such luck when I connected the same ancillary wiring to the layout mounted Arduino. A bit more "trying this, trying that" didn't seem to do anything meaningful so I gave up for the day.

 

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

[Andrew P]

Hi Ray, Thanks for your PM earlier. Time to have a look in again, and wow, your Layout is coming on a treat, I do like that crossover idea, excellent.

Keep up the good work and stay safe. 

[Ray H]

Things are progressing although at times it feels a bit like two steps forward and one back.

 

The lower three points/servos now respond to their levers but I still have to get their frog polarity switching relays to switch appropriately.

 

The afternoon ended with me trying to get the Arduino to recognise the laser's state - whether they were detecting a train or not. This is because the lasers are connected directly to the Arduino and not through another circuit/PCB.

 

The easiest way to check the lasers was to use the serial monitor to display what the Arduino was detecting on the screen. Unfortunately, the serial monitor didn't want to play ball reliably for some reason. Guess what I'll be searching for tomorrow?

[Ray H]

The problem with the serial monitor looks to have been the result of some of my dodgy coding with the sketch going into a loop awaiting for something to happen although I still haven't worked out why adding command to output something cleared it.

 

The low level points and relays are now generally responding as they should - I still need to address a problem with the frog polarity switching on the diamond crossing.

 

It is a good job that the upper level baseboard is currently off the layout because I found a defect in the track between the diamond crossing and the new pointwork. The diamond crossing was raised by a couple of centimetres in order to ease the grade at the bottom of the incline up to the upper level baseboard.

 

The consequent drop back down to base level for the continuous run section wasn't a problem previously because it was just plain and largely straight track for about four feet. The new pointwork is a lot closer to the diamond crossing so the grade down to (or up from) the first of the new points is a tad steeper than it was so 0-6-0Ts leaving the diamond found the track disappearing beneath the leading axle and as the link track is curved the locos were derailing.

 

I think that I've sorted that now but I will run a few trains around the continuous run tomorrow to make sure before I put the upper baseboard back.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Ray H

[Ray H]

More Arduino fun (?) today.

 

I was having difficulty with the lasers that I'm using to detect the approach to and departure from the diamond crossing behind the traverser. In the end I wrote a small (Arduino) sketch to do what I wanted the lasers to do and gradually refined it as I realised I had overlooked elements of the process.

 

With said sketch (i.e. program) working as I wished I decided to incorporate it into the sketch that works the levers, switches, servos, points and signals only for things not to turn out the way I thought they should. Its OK when all the sketch has to do is check the use of the lasers but its a different story when the sketch has to check for lever movements in between checking for use of the lasers.

 

The replacement 5v relay shields arrived today so I'll be ready to swap one for the 24v version that I erroneously previously installed on the upper level if only I can sort out the laser problem tomorrow.

[Ray H]

I've finally got things working 🙂

 

I spent the morning working with a test program that did no more than read the Arduino pins to which the lasers were connected and displayed the results on the serial monitor. All worked fine.

 

It seemed to work when I copied the same program code sections into the full sketch (program) and when using my hand to simulate the presence of a loco interrupting the laser beam.

 

The Arduino detects the loco/train approaching the diamond crossing and energises the frog polarity switching relays. It then monitors the loco/train leaving the crossing and de-energises the relays once the train is clear.

 

I was getting some strange results initially that I discovered were partly due to me getting the energising and de-energising the wrong way round in the program.

 

With the sorted I wanted to check that the two lasers were working in unison so I stopped using my hand to represent a loco and turned track power on. The program stopped working as designed. 😒

 

I eventually traced the problem to one of interference being unwittingly picked up in the wiring from the laser furthest from the Arduino. Replacing the single wire from said laser to the Arduino with a length of screened cable solved the problem (at long last).

 

The baseboards have all since been put back, secured in position and had trains/locos over both the upper level and the new pointwork in the (truly) hidden sidings.

 

I'll have a day or two using the layout. This will be followed by catching up with work on the club's control panels and once that's sorted I'll swap the frog juicers at Westbury with relays.