Day 20: On the right Tracks
Back to work today and the plan was still to start the track laying! Unfortunately, I had not been able to get the ballast material yesterday, however this wasnt an issue as we probably weren't going to need it today anyway.
To start the day, the trackbed needed to be brushed down, as the blocks have gathered various bit'n'bobs on them over the week or so since they were laid. It was also decided that the DEVIL plant should be moved now so we didnt end up with loads of soil in our newly laid track. It is now located in the corner, thus...
The first track related job done today was to move some of the point switches to the other side of the point. This should be as simple as undo 3 screws, slide it out then slide it in the other side and reattatch the screw. The first of the points didnt want to play ball! It was not allowing the rail to go far enough over, so a little bit of filing needed doing on some of the holes for the screws and I finally got it to work. Thankfully, the mega expensive point didnt have the same problem!
Now the thing with the Fairfield Railway is that it is primarily for track powered, with Live Steam as its secondary purpose, so it is essential that the track is electrically sound! Because of this, most of today has actually been spent removing track joiners and cleaning them, plus cleaning the end of the rails. This being Aristocraft G Scale set track, each rail has a tapped hole at the end and when joined the fishplates are screwed tight. Not a very good description. These pics probably explain it better. The first is of 2 pieces of track before joining, showing the holes in the rails and the fishplates.
This pic shows the assembly once joined.
Mid afternoon, PTLRcecil popped round to see how things were going. He seemed quite impressed seeing it in reality rather than in photos and on here!
So today we have basically cleaned up loads of bits, reassembled them, then joined quite a bit together and laid it in place to see where we need to make a few alterations. Some bits of track however need to be cut, which means drilling and tapping new holes. This requires a special tool (an M2 tap)which we didn't have. Fortunately, Bay models in Carnforth had one, so the boss sent 'his boss aka the authorities' on the train for an afternoon out in Carnforth! By tea time we had this much done and needed to wait til the tool arrived from Bay Models.
With time to play with, it was decided to test the conductivity of the track we had managed to join using this loco...
At this point everything was ok (well, after giving some of the track a bit of a rub down!)
Whilst on the phone to Bay Models earlier in the day, Bill (shop owner I believe) tried to convince the boss that fine scale 0 gauge will run ok on SM32 as long as there are no points. So we decided to test it,
including a set of points, with these fine specimins...
Tests of this seemed positive with no problems, however the boss has 2 live steam 0 gauge locos on order, and whether they will run over the points ok will determine whether sm32 or finescale 0 gauge is used for the inner loop. Only time will tell. I've got my fingers crossed for SM32 as my 16mm locos are not regaugable to 45mm!
I hope to have a video compiled of todays tests up by tomorrow night.
After a bit of playing trains, the tools arrived. Drilling and tapping holes was a new experience for both myself and my boss, and because of this we managed to snap the tap on the second hole! We managed to get 2 more holes drilled and tapped before it broke again and was totally unusable! Fortunately, my model engineer landlord/housemate has the appropriate tools, so i'll do a couple more bits of track that we need to do some time tomorrow, ready for going back to the FR on Monday.
Having fitted the couple of bits of track we did manage to get tapped, the whole back loop got joined, as did the vast majority of the mainline, plus a couple of other bits.
So nothing got pinned down today, and it has been a learning curve for all involved.
Next Time, on Building the FR:
Joining the bits of tracki'm hoping to get tapped tomorrow
Pinning down some (if not all the currently joined) track
Setting the cant on the curves
OR
Block laying[/i]