Having built all the signals it seems like a good idea to install them. The first step in the process is the baseboard waltz. Way back I was asked about my baseboard construction, and I said I would post some pics when I shifted it all about. Much has been said about baseboard building over the years but it basically boils down to designing them to suit the type of layout you want to build in the space available.

So firstly, castors. All the boards and for that matter the workbench and various cupboards in the railway room are all on castors. Why ? Well, I am no spring chicken and I am not the fastest modeller about. Building it all from kit or scratch takes a bit of time, and there is nothing rtr out of the box for the followers of pre grouping Caledonian. ( well pre group anything really, in fact if you are EM or P4 the chances are that the boxes rtr comes in are more use than the models ) Anyway, back to castors. I expect this will be the last serious layout I build, I will be well into my dotage by the time I get anywhere near finished, whatever finished is. So to get at things and do maintenance I need to be able to move things about easily. Hence the castors and the lift up boards. Note that they are all on levelling screws; you would not believe the way these big old tenements move about unless you have lived in one.

So castors on levelling screws.



All the boards have 2 sets of connectors . The blue ones are 4 pole 20 A lighting connectors on 4core 1.5mm flex to give the bus for the up and down lines. The whole lot can be switched to DCC via the main controller if needed. At that size you are not going to suffer volt drop issues. The grey connector is a 25 way D type for all the control side stuff. You can buy the connecter and wire them ( yes I used to ) but really there are folk out there on the internet that will sell you a male to female 3 m one already wired for a few pounds. They might as well sell them to modellers, who needs a parallel printer cable extension these days?

So, heres the two curved boards out and rolled back. They are really light and easy to move. I intend to keep the scenery light too.

I have gone for a policy of local control. Making the baseboard framing 8 inches deep give room for all the control panels and more than sufficient sufficient depth for all the underboard stuff. Makes the control panels easy to wire and maintain.



The signal control panel ready for installation.



Bonnets up. The rear face of the boards are hinged, so they can be lifted and propped like a car bonnet. Again I did this looking forward to ease of maintenance in the future.





Backscenes are held on with bolts and wing nuts. The photographic images I will use are going to be easier to apply on the flat, so having them come off easily is a good idea.

These radio controlled plugs are a great idea, no grovelling about under boards to turn all the power to the railway on or off.

So there we are. I appreciate that this is just one way of building baseboards but I do see modellers making layouts that will just be impossible to maintain as time goes on. I have done exactly that in the past and can testify that it is really frustrating to damage stuff while trying to get at something that has gone wrong, hence all the castors and hinges.