Catching up on track work posts...

This turnout has been a pain in my neck for some time; some days seems like everything is happy, then on tiger days nothing seems to make a full circuit without hitting dead track.

Turns out my choice of location for a frog power feeder was all wrong (and it was a poor job of soldering!). Just past this connection, between it and the frog, is a manufacturer supplied owner gap. So no power was getting anywhere near the frog. Since I bought the turnouts second hand, I did not gave any documents explaining things.

Here's the offending part:

 You can just barely see the gaps about two ties down from the soldered connection

While preparing to replace the turnout after a soldering mishap (to bridge the gaps) I discovered a metal fitting on the bottom, presumably to hold the frog assembly in place. I managed to attach a feeder wire to it, and job done. Solid, working electrical connection completely out of sight!

Armed with new knowledge I proceeded to the next instance of trouble; in this case, bad advice from the Internet, about cutting gaps. As I have learned, the gap is already there, so they, and the insulated rail joiners on the frog rails, are not necessary.

Also, part of the plan is to swap the Cicuitron Tortoise motors for servos, making storage a lot easier as the vertical footprint is significantly reduced.

So I set my sights on replacing this entire crossover:

Removing them was the easy part; removing the track and scenery while trying to preserve the scenic features away from the track was a pain.

Getting back to a connected loop:

I replaced all of the removed trackage, and secured it in place with PVA well away from the moving parts. After everything dried I installed three new sets of feeder wires, one at each of the two point ends of the turnouts, and the third on the main rout of the front turnout. There are four blocks on the lift out, but all are connected with other track off the lift out. It's logical, and saves me running extra wiring and the bus for power. Four sets of connections for track power, and one for the turnout motors is complicated enough. Besides, the next big project is motorising the crossing gates...