Exton Quay's wired

I think you realise, that it really is, all worth while,

You have built the baseboard (with the help of a friend)

You have built the track and laid it.

You have held off trying anything until the whole layout is wired.

You have fitted all point motors so the frogs can be switched.

You have wired the control panel.

You have spent hours channeling wires in nice neat lines.

You have coloured coded them so you know what does what.

That day when you attach the last wire.

You turn the knob and blow me down it works.

Well, it wasn't quite like that, a couple of points threw the wrong way, Two check rails needed a slight tweak and while turning the knob the loco travelled the wrong way. Just a case of swapping Two wires over.

All in all, not bad really for a new layout.

It works.

Loco's trundle backwards and forwards, points change. Even got the frog polarity the right way round. 

There are Two catch points on the layout, and they work, i even wired them so the catch point throws before the main relating point.

Is this prototypical

Impressed Doh!

Here's some pic's,

 but hold on, how many people actually take photo's of the underside of their layout.

When did you last see the underside of someone else's layout?

Enough arsing about, 

Here's my underside.

 Looking at the picture above, notice the number One mistake that you are told to look out for in the planning stage.

Cross member in the way of point motor. We shall overcome thee and make up a handy little linkage. Did you not learn anything at Model Railway Collage.

Please refrain from planning layouts on backs of fag packets.

Making contact.

 The plug on the left is for the points and the one on the right is track power. Notice they are different sizes so no issue of plugging wrong transformer into the wrong socket. 

Easy access, i could have hid the wiring behind the control panel, it would have been a bit tight but then the layout is operated from the front so the fiddle yard will be on show so why not some nice tidy wiring

Well, i think we are beginning to have something that looks like a layout.

A couple of pic;s so you get the idea.

My favourite wagon, the Drovers Brake Van

That's the South Eastern Finecasts 02 kit,

It runs like a well oiled machine.

    A long way to go yet but it's idea's in my head and all is beginning to make some sense now.