Operations resume

This weekend I was invited to see Anthony's wonderful Border District layout.    He has now implemented "dependant" signalling on the main line, so if one signal displays a yellow, the following displays a red aspect.  This greatly increases the realism and enjoyment level when driving a train as one has to pay attention to the signals.  The effort to implement this would have been incredible.  We ran a few trains until the night became late.  I think Anthony has his layout to a very satisfying plan now where a profound level of operation can be achieved.
I always seem to come away despondent when seeing the Border District!

On my own layout, trains have resumed operations.  The last time any operations were carried out was just before the storm.

However, one thing still bugged me.  Most VR track layouts are designed such that they are straight and seldom the yards are curved.  Due to space restrictions, I began my yard on the curved sections and having wagons stationed there on the curves just didn't look right.   It was 4pm Sunday evening and disillusionment settled in !  I pondered the situation for several minutes, even contemplated to reconsider the track plan!  Suddenly it dawned on me about moving the make-shift gantry I had which resembles the signals for the time being.  Moving the gantry just before where the curves begin to take affect seemed to resolve my dilemma.  Adding another one on the other-side gave me appropriately 300cm of "yard" track.  I think this will do for me!  The only draw back is that the section of "no-mans land" has increased some what but I can live with that :)

Here are some photos.

 Till next time.

Disaster Struck!

Following the huge downpour and storm we experienced a few weeks ago, a check on the layout revealed moisture had gotten into some of the ply.  On one section of the layout there was a pronouced dip of about 100mm and no matter what I tried to resolve that, with numerous attempts at packing material to even the dip,  it always bugged me and looked bad, it looked even worse after the storm.  The only way to rectify the situation was to rebuild the entire benchwork on that section again, raising the benchwork to the same level as the adjacent one and then continuing the decline to 1375mm from approximately 1385mm.

Lets just say there were alot of expletives used during the process.  I had to rip up track. move the entire 6 or so metres of benchwork to get to the other-side to raise that side and basically start building that section all over again.  The following photo shows the pronounced dip which just didn't look right.

The disaster area!

Shows how much I had to raise this section

Problem Area

Solution :)

I also took the opportunity to increase the radii of my curves.  I just like those lovely broad curves.  The far track - road 5, shows the original curve, with the tracks in the foreground, the new radii curves.  Track 5 will also have the new broad radii curve. 

 One advantage of large radii curves is that you use less track!  The obvious drawback is that you lose space.

I guess the storm was a blessing in disguise.

Till next time.