Author

Tom Cunnington

Date

9th June 2016

Reading Time

3 minutes

Work continued, with more track laid, and the wiring following closely behind. The connectors are 3-pin XLRs, with wires linking directly between the sockets on the boards and then to each section of rail. There are separate jumpers between each of the boards. The wire is thicker than we’d normally use, to make sure it can take the current and not have a voltage drop over the length of the layout.

The team that had been making baseboards moved onto some legs. The idea was to provide support along the undulating floor of the venue, with some sort of representation of an American trestle bridge. Following a prototype leg, to check the concept, I got some 70m of timber baton to Keen House from the trusty timber merchant on the roof of the car, and we set about cutting it into the sections. We made a jig to help speed up the process, and in the pictures below you can see the jig next to some half constructed legs, halfway through construction and with Tom S and David screwing in the leg height adjusters. I’m not sure why the screw driver is that long either.

 

Before we finished for the day, we managed to get a few boards erected in our lecture room, and run the loco up and down, then loaded up the car to take it to the venue. And yes, I know we have a board with no track in the car. I underestimated the amount needed, so we arranged a quick trip to Kent Garden Railways to get another length the following day

At the venue, we set the boards up along the yard. The 65′ long track worked fine, although we realised that it’s actually quite difficult to judge when it’s go to the end at that distance. The good news is that our client was really please, and we ran the first “Django Express” down the length of what would within a few days be a Goldrush themed restaurant in the heart of Vauxhall…