Some Wiring and Still More Progress.....

We spent a fairly quiet Anzac Day holiday. In the afternoon, I drilled the holes through the joists on the new section for the Main Bus wires. I also cut up some 3 mm MDF board as templates for the footprints of a number of the laser-cut craftsman wood kits that we have.

Raymond had the next two days off, although he was still “on call” for work. He spent his spare time installing the Bus wires and also several more Cobalt motors on the turnouts.

He then connected the track power supply wires to the Bus wires and started wiring the Cobalt motors. These require an NCE “Switch-It” decoder but we had bought all the ones that Ray had at Austral Modelcraft. He has ordered some more in but that will take a few weeks. I am hoping we might be able to get some at the model railway show over Labour Day Weekend.

On Saturday Raymond connected the Bus wires on the new layout section with the original layout section. He made a temporary Bus wire connection across the future high bridge using some nylon electrical connector pieces either side of the gap. Unfortunately, we did not have any screws of the right gauge or length to secure these connector pieces to the baseboard framework. We needed 4 Gauge screws and the only ones we had were 12 mm long – not long enough. I went down to Bunnings at Browns Plains and bought a pack of 4 Gauge screws that were 16 mm long which we thought would be long enough but, just in case I also bought a pack that was 20 mm long as well. It was just as well as it turned out as the 16 mm screws were still not quite long enough to properly secure the electrical connector to the timber framework of the baseboard whereas the 20 mm long screws proved ideal (and we had thought they would be too long).

We now had power to the new section of the layout but not all the Cobalt turnout motors had been wired as Raymond had run out of decoders. This meant that the mining branch loop and loco shed loop for the mining branch could not yet be used as there were still five turnouts to be wired in.

K-37 No.499 meets a Porter with two Pulpwood Wagons in the new yard. Two of the MDF building "footprints" can be seen leaning against the wall. The one on the right is Aladdin's General Store from Raggs to Riches. It gives some idea of the size of the buildings in O Scale.

WE test ran a couple of trains over the wired track and tested the turnouts that had been wired up. Everything seems to be okay so far.

That was all we managed to do as I had to mow the back yard including the area between our back fence and the Uniform Gauge Railway then after lunch I had to peel vegetables and cook some roast pork for dinner as She Who Must be Obeyed was going out in the afternoon. Raymond is getting his Garden Railway live steam locos ready for the model railway show next weekend.

I was looking out the sliding glass door in front of my computer in my study and started thinking. Hard to believe I know.

I thought what if we had another Titan Shed built on the left-hand side of the yard to allow a future Garden Railway track to enter for storage sidings. What if? It doesn’t need to be as big as our current Titan Shed but say about the size of a single car garage. I will have to think on that one further.