Track and Wiring

I have been busy laying track and wiring it all up in the last few months in preparation to show progress to date at the 2mm Association AGM held yesterday.  A deadline always seems to make things progress a little bit quicker.

I had such an enjoyable day talking to fellow modellers that I forgot to take any photos.  I have therefore taken a photo when I arrived home to have a record of how it looked on the day of the AGM.

60022 with 18 SPA wagons travels towards Doncaster as 150144 is just arriving at Swinton

Easitrac

Overview of progress to date

I have been busy laying Easitrac for the last few weeks,  I have now completed most of the track for the scenic section except for the area around the turnouts. All has gone reasonably well though I do find that the Easitrac glue dries very fast which can make laying the track difficult. Thankfully most of the track is straight so I aligned the track against a ruler before pushing it into the glue.

Test running track with a selection of locomotives

The electrical feeds are provided to the track via brass sleepers.

Electrical feeds

It was pointed out to me recently that the sprue that holds two sections of Easitrac sleepers together are actually set to the 6ft way.  I have taken advantage of this by assembling the Easitrac with sprues in place every two or three sections to maintain the 6ft way gap.  Once the track has been glued I then cut through the sprues to remove them.

Sprues ready to be cut once glue has dried 

At baseboard joints I have used brass sleepers to provide extra strength.

Brass sleepers at baseboard joints

Turnouts

I have finally finished the three F20 turnouts that I need for my layout. The single right hand turnout is around 500 mm long and the right hand crossover is around 750 mm.

The turnouts are constructed from flat bottom rail soldered to my own custom etched chairplates on PCB sleepers. It took around 6 months to draw and etch my own chairplates and then a further 6 months to construct the turnouts. I have calculated that I have soldered over 900 chairplates in total; I am glad I didn't calculate this before I began soldering!