kevinf

I have been busy working on the hillside scenery and ballasting the track. Unfortunately there are no pictures of the rather messy construction of the ‘hillside’. In keeping with the recycled nature of this layout it was built using the rather messy ‘J cloth’, PVA glue method with bits of polystyrene which was using in the original Burton Crumpnold layout.

Next was the track ballasting.
I found the ballasting process much harder in N the ‘OO’.
The ballast is much finer so even with care it was easy to foul up the points.

Everything has been tested and all seems to be OK, just a bit more cleaning to do to improve the ‘look’ of the track bed.

The next stage is to work out the details of roads and ‘the countryside’.

So here is the layout with all the current buildings. The yellow pencil lines is the proposed ‘road’ using a level crossing towards the top left of the layout.

The control panel for Stowey Green is complete..
.. Here it is with its associated GaugeMaster DS controller all connected up.

With everything connected I have been busy testing all of the ‘Cab Control’ switchable track sections and the point operations.
There were a few issues, mostly involving points going the wrong way, which was easy to fix by swapping a wire. There was only one poor connection which was a pleasant surprise, especially considering how many wires there are, both in the box and under the baseboard…

And this is the view at the back with the 2x 25 way connectors (Track Power & Points) and a 9 way going to the DC GaugeMaster controller,

Next job, after a nice period of just running a few trains, is to ballast the track.

I have been busy with a soldering iron wiring up the innards of the new Stowey Green Control Panel.
.. In typical Kevin Fisher style it is probably ‘over engineered’…

I am planning to put coloured ‘caps’ on the point switches to make the panel easier to use.

Here is a view ‘inside’.

The Point control are the Yellow/Orange wires on the top left, and Power control is Blue/Green top centre – both going to 25way DSub plug/sockets.

The input power from the Gaugemaster controller is on the top right next to the Capacitor Discharge Unit (CDU) which gives the point motors an extra ‘Kick’, all going to a 9 way DSub socket.

All the toggle switches (Power control) and centre return switches (Point control) are at the bottom, which is the front of the box.

NOW.. onto Testing it all…
When everything has been tested I will have a go tidying up any overlong wires.
..I like to keep things a bit ‘loose’ initially in case of any mess ups..

I have arranged and glued the track for the removeable section of Stowey Green, the track has been wired and holes drilled for the 3 points on the board.

Next job is to tidy up the wiring and attach it to the terminal block, and of course attach the point motors.

I have added the station halt and goods shed to show how the section works,