Author

Peter Mann

Date

12th April 2019

Reading Time

2 minutes

Not much will happen during April since in Keen House Copenhagen Field is being erected for the Open Day on Sunday 28^th April, and Mike Randall is adding the ramp on the lines to Fenchurch Street.

The Plan is that all our boards will return from Mike’s workshop before 28^th April.

On the 28^th April Bow Junction will have some boards on display in the Library. I will bring the track back , which is being stored in my workshop.

Copenhagen Fields will come down and be put in store on 2^nd or 3^rd May. From that date Bow Junction will be erected and remain up until the end of June 2019.

During these 2 months,  hopefully, we will complete all the track, excluding the lines into the Loco Works. The most important item is to build the track across the board joints. To do this we will erect all the boards with a 1mm spacer. We will then build the track across the joints. On either side of the joint the rails will be soldered to copperclad sleepers which will be screwed to the base boards.

When this is done we will cut the rails over the joint. We then take out the 1mm spacer and retighten the bolts and the joint should close.

Once we have the track continuous across all the boards we can carry out future work with out having to erect everything

I am working on the design of the fiddle yards which will probably be sector plates. Mike Randall has agreed to build these.

We will also be able to start the wiring of the layout by fitting droppers and ‘busbars’ ( these are the longitudinal cables connecting up the droppers)

George Morris has said he would like to build the trackwork infront of the Loco works . This will all be inset track like tram lines .

The group as a whole will build the base boards that hold the Works building and all the buildings behind the main running lines. Because the works building is so large and because of its structure it is difficult to introduce transverse stability, I am planning to build the walls integral with the base board upon which it sits. The cosmetic finishes , which may be laser cut ,will be added afterwards.

One surprise that I had at Alexandra palace is that I learnt that the Bow Station building sits on the bridge at the lefthand end of the layout and is very prominent. It is very big.

We are also continuing with planning the building of some NLR tank engines and in particular the outside cylinder 4-4-0s. We now have some drawings

In conjunction with a member of the S7 group we are planning the production of parts for building 4 wheel NLR coaches One set of etches has been produced and work is continuing with the substructure.