Fairlight Works

The Dining Table Deal

Yesterday the deal was, if I cleared off the dining table and scaled up a corset pattern for my wife, I was allowed to get the trains out on there afterwards.

I used the opportunity to get the track cleaned up after the ballasting work and temporarily wire up the station board to check everything worked. It’s a lot easier to work on the track and wiring in this kind of location than when the layout is on the shelves.

The electrics are going to be very basic on Fairlight – on this board there will be one section for the headshunt and left-hand loop track and another controlling the platform side of the loop and the bay siding, with an isolating section at the end. This simplicity suits my abilities, for the time being.

For similar reasons I’m also using wire-in-tube point controls, although cost also had a bearing on this decision and thirdly the fact that it would have less impact on the shelf baseboard which can’t really have holes cut or drilled into it.

I’ve also managed to massively improve the running of my WWI Baldwin loco by lubricating everything and getting a few sticking points out of the running gear. It’s now a lot smoother, but still takes off a high speed at the lightest touch of the controller.

This photo reminds me that, although progress on Fairlight is modest so far it has provided a number of personal “firsts” in layout construction, including mechanical point control (or indeed anything beyond Giant Finger), track weathering and ballasting. Prior to this I’ve always stalled at the “track on baseboard, trains running” stage. Next step: the soldering iron.

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