More Progress

The new board is ready and I'm now laying track. This time I've used dark gray EVA foam as an underlay rather than the hideous yellow stuff of old. Of course being so dark meant I had to use a white crayon to mark the centre lines and sleeper posistions. Previously I pre-stained the cut sleepers but this time I glued them down as bare wood and then painted them - with a dilute mix of black and burnt umber acrylic inks.

Track laying then progressed using my standard method with staple spikes and cosmetic fishplates etc.

I've decided to change my approach to ballast. Previously I used crushed cat litter and chinchilla dust glued down with dilute Copydex, however this has proved to very durable. I'm now trying crushed walnut shells in various grades.

Three grades of crushed walnut shells, grey dye and liquid latex

I wanted the ballast to be a light grey like the crushed cat litter (the PLR used a lot of clay-tip waste) but the dye didn't really work. I then retired an old kitchen mixer and added slightly diluted matt paint (old white primer slightly darkened with some black) whilst it was running. Then turned it out onto a cloth to dry. It has worked rather well.

The first batch (medium grade) is in the bag and the coarse and fine grades are drying

Once the track laying is complete I'm going to refresh any loose ballast on all of the older boards and get it wired up ready for operation.

A Selection of shots

 Here is a selection of shots taken before the move.

Ex L&B Manning Wardle hauls clay up to the exchange sidings

This originally had model track but it got removed about 20years ago after a change of plan. 

A down train passing the quarry.

And further down the line crossing the quarry road.

A up works train hauled by K1 (This was sold to the PLR by Beyer Peacock after repatriation and when the PLR finally closed in the 1960s it went to the NRM). 

Progress at last in the new home

When the loft was completed last year it was far too hot to do anything apart from get the boards up there. I spent a long time trying to work out the optimum config. It was clear the two main sections would need to be separated and came up with a design that I thought would work but would have involved a lot of extra hidden track. I built the staging for the spiral/quarry and then realised it wouldn't work so decided to rotate it 90degrees. With temporary extra bracing added I slowly shoved it round from underneath. I got it about half way round and realised that was a far better position. 

With a little bit of shifting to-and-fro I've now completed the staging for the exchange sidings and positioned all the current boards. There will be one new board required  of about 5ft long which needs to accommodate a  6 inch change of datum level (I'm used to doing that). Track will be laid on raised trackbeds built the J H Ahern way (still be best book I've got).

The fiddle yard will be beyond the lower tunnel in a similar config as in the last house. The traverser built for ExPong is going to come to Devon too now David J no longer needs it. There is even the potential to join it up to get a continuous run of close on 90ft and then simply watch the trains go round. The grandchildren may get to race their engines (which I've promised to build).

Some photos from today:

Note the gap for the new board in the background.

The fiddle yard will be behind me.