If last week was busy then so was this one... er. I have reasonable soldering skills but apart from baseboard construction and track laying it is the worst bit of a new layout. I know how to make it all neat and lovely but it still ends up as a bit of a rats nest as time is precious and I'd rather be doing something else anyway.
So then, out with the soldering iron and on with the job.
All the other control panels on the layout are track diagram types but having bought the wrong size plastic box (buffoon) I decided that I could fit enough switches and an LED on if I just put them in two rows, so that's what I did.
This is the Rock Beach halt panel which has a CDU and 12V DC supply available to power the Upper Bay panel too so first job was to run some wires from one to the other and connect them up to the CDU and 12V supply.
Meanwhile on the lap tray a couple of nice 3D prints arrived from Shapeways. The loco is a Dave Malton mini Manning Wardle with tram skirts designed for a KATO 109 chassis. The other is tidy little version of the Dinorwic Quarry yellow carriage which was used to carry visitors round the quarry. A bit random but it should be a good partner for the inspection saloon.
The Ashover coach bash had run aground as I'd buggered around with the ends and made a right mess. Then I found I had a spare end from a Dundas VoR coach kit which just about was nearly the right size and nice and plain.
With a bit of styrene added here and there it made a huge improvement, I couldn't find a spare one but did have a full kit that I'd already nicked the roof from so now it light one end too.
The chassis arrived and was an excellent fit, predictably it also ran like a dream. Even with no weighting it happily pushed and pulled the tram train which it was intended for.
The as yet still white, yellow carriage with the inspection saloon
The new loco and coach in the new station. A waft of primer has revealed a nice looking loco.
Back in the garage I found a way of clamping the control panel upside down to make it easier to do the soldering. I started with the 12VDC supply which basically just goes to illuminate the sole platform lamp and the LED on the control panel.
Et voila! Illumination.
After a couple of hours of concentrated work it was all working apart from a mysteriously reversed point. All colour coded and apparently in the right place so i don't know where the swap has happened; easily solved and so all working simply. The new style PL1000 point motors are very simple to install and work just as you'd hope. There is nowhere to install a motor for the second fiddle yard point as the loop is too close on one side and the next siding on the other. If I'd realised it would be like that I would have installed another underboard jobby but it's too late now. Not sure what to do, I might just make some cunning manual thing... watch this space.
Here is the end of the line at the close of play. Some sky is the next big job and another lighting gantry which I have all the parts for and which won't take long to build.
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