I managed to find some local power transformers that make
the servos run really well, so after a bit of experimentation (fun!) with that,
I dove back into the finishing up the branch line junction.
I kind of got to this state before Thanksgiving, which took
a slight bit of time out of my free-time pool. Getting decorations up for
Christmas, etc., well, you know how it is. This was the last "shot"
of the work in progress:
All well and good, right? Not quite. One of the turnouts was
not behaving properly. And if it was being a pain now, it could only get worse,
right? So I decided to pull it out and attempt to fix it, when this happened:
Well, I can salvage the rail, frog, and guardrails. The project
wrapped up in this state, kind of a regression:
Until today! I got home a bit earlier than usual from work,
no major crisis causing me to connect back in from the house, so I decided to
get the replacement turnout in place. So I did; back to where I was a few weeks
ago!
It doesn't feel so much like lost time, since it does seem
to work better, so I'll stick to that. I also decided to start on the foam
"shaping" that would be needed prior to scenery.
I used the Woodland Scenics risers to elevate some of the
track, but it is just too wide for an N scale industrial area, so I sloped the
edge of one section down to the base:
The sanding tool was making kind of a mess of the cork as
well as the foam, so I only used it to keep a smooth line along the rough
shape. I then used the course sandpaper to finish off the shape. Later, once I
have hooked up all of the feeder wires and powered up the turnout motors one
more time, I cover this with paper, and paint that over with PVA prior to
applying the scenery.
One more challenge to face: the smoothing of one of the
"transitions" in height. Gluing the track to the cork left a rather extreme
elevation change, so I may resort to using ballast to fill in under this
stretch to support it, in a more even grade change:
The track seems to find its own level, so I may trust in its
choice on this one occasion, and let it be.
Off to do the wiring, both track and turnout motor SPDT
toggles, so won't be much more to show tonight. Hopefully this weekend I'll get
trains running on this again, which has
not happened very well in quite a while...
