What lies beneath

The last time I mentioned my model railway on this blog, it was a tale of woe about hamfisted drilling and the sudden and unwelcome mutilation of some of the track.

It took me quite a while to work out exactly how to fix this self-inflicted wound, but I did eventually come up with a workable solution and shortly before Christmas, I successfully cut out the mangled section of track, re-attached the upper layer of baseboard and fitted a new section of rail where I plan to construct a girder bridge.
It was a hell of a lot more difficult to repair than it had been to lay the track the first time around, so to prevent another unexpected separation of the upper layer of baseboard, I've added some extra woodon spacer blocks which are screwed, as well as glued in place.

Now, I don't do New Year Resolutions and I'm particularly wary about trying to stick to any hard and fast regime or daily activity. Anybody that follows this blog will already know how erratic and fickle my level of commitment can be, so I have amazed myself by actually doing something on the model railway every day so far this year.

Of course you'll now be expecting it to be almost complete.

Well, it isn't.

However, the good news is that I've fitted all the point motors and finished wiring them up, which was an extremely finicky process. I've also made a start on the operator control panel

Here's a quick peek at what lies beneath the baseboard. A handfull of point motors and a bunch of multicoloured wires.

I guess it may not seem like a lot of progress, but it is a strangely satisfying way to pass the time.