Further Work on the 12mm Empire

A new week means more building projects.  Monday started off with me laying a lot more wires for Yeerongpilly station.  In particular the control panel for the points here.  I ran out of wires.  I was also installing the baseboard for Park Road Station and ran out of screws.   On Monday I also reinstalled the fascia for the nolix between Clapham Yard and Dutton Park, or at least the section in front of Yeerongpilly station.  I also made room for the new control panel in the fascia.  I also ordered a stack of push buttons for 5 new control panels and some toggle switches that allow me to isolate each of the panels.

Tuesday was replenishment day.  More wire and more screws were purchased.  When I got home I added the baseboard for Park Road.  This was three separate boards that take the layout an extra 2.7m and will allow for the station to be installed at Park Road.  I then reinstalled the staff machine for Dutton Park-South Brisbane Interstate and the headset plug in points to the layout.  I'm thinking that I will need to add some more headset plug in points at Yeerongpilly and Park Road and maybe another one at South Brisbane.  These jobs can be the last ones done, as the track will not be in use at the next Operations Session in December

On Wednesday the plan was to lay a bit more track through Park Road Station.  That was easy.  I have identified the two points and point motors for this location.  In doing do, I realised that I need two more point motors for the Dutton Park.  Luckily there is a Buy and Sell next weekend, so I'll hopefully pick them up there.  As a background task on Tuesday, I cut up my last string of pallets into 27 individual ones.  On Wednesday afternoon, I painted 20 in Blue and 20 in Red.  

Yeerongpilly Platform laid.  A future headshunt will potentially be installed here at the end of the platform

Park Road Platform laid in front of Park Road Siding

My delivery from Australian Modeller rocked up early on Thursday.  So I quickly installed my QSnap up to 3 sets of points.  Two work perfectly.  The third set which was an existing set at Dutton Park for the dual gauge, is now not throwing in one direction.  I will get around to looking at that later on.  Given that I have laid all the track I am going to lay now, until my points and crossing turn up from QSM, I will switch modes to jump back onto my railmotor and motor drive setups.

The new Mini Panel installed

Dutton Park about to be upgraded with a separate narrow gauge trackage and a narrow gauge triangle included.

On Friday afternoon I plugged my Procab into one of my NCE Mini Panels (Loco Pilly) to check out that the locations in the Mini Panel that appeared to be free were actually free.  Bugger!  They were not.  I had previously used them and I had not updated my hard copy of the code in the Mini Panel.  Now I need to run some wires a huge distance from where the panel is to Fisherman Islands.  That particular Mini Panel is basically three quarters empty.

Loco Pilly Mini Panel exposed after removing the fascia here.

South Brisbane Mini Panel is also full up.

Fisherman Islands Mini Panel, has lots of space free.

I also investigated how I would get some track to a future Sunnybank station, a passenger terminus of my future passenger empire.  I investigated the trackage through Rocklea Siding.  By slewing the tracks over by up to about 3cm.  I think I have enough room to run a narrow gauge line (Rocklea Siding to Sunnybank) next to the current dual gauge line (Clapham Yard to Acacia Ridge Yard).  Also in doing this work, I will consider also changing the standard gauge entry into Rocklea Siding.  This is slightly problematic with the standard gauge point operation.  I can just move things around and have the standard gauge entry just a little bit closer to Clapham Yard.  What this means is that the narrow gauge entry onto the dual gauge will be after the standard gauge entry to Rocklea Siding, and not before it.  A much simpler point arrangement in this area.  But a future project for implementation.  I want to get Dutton Park completed and operational first.

The top of this picture shows Rocklea Siding's point work.  The layer below Rocklea Siding is Acacia Ridge Yard.  I have laid some new track over the top of Rocklea to get a bit of a view of what it will look like once it is redesigned.

A standard Peco 12mm crossing, was split down the middle with a dremel tool and made into a standard gauge - 12 mm crossing.  It seems to work.  It will go into the new Rocklea Siding point work.

On Saturday morning I tried to lay out the actual point work needed to rebuild the Rocklea Siding entry and make allowance for the new Sunnybank narrow gauge main line.  So I made a wish list for purchasing.  At the same time, I thought about running wires from the new panel at Yeerongpilly Station to the Mini Panel at Fisherman Islands.  I think just purchasing a roll of 4 core alarm cable is the way to go.  I still need to run a single cable as well as I will need 5 cables for the 2 point motor controls with 2 positions each and the common wire running from the control panel to the Mini Panel.  At this stage I am not thinking about the South Brisbane Mini Panel required for new narrow gauge crossing at Park Road.

While I was in the shed, I plugged my Procab into the other 4 Mini Panels and verified what locations were spare.  I found some more locations that had not been kept up to date.  So everything has now been updated.  But the Fisherman Islands Mini Panel is half empty, so I will run my cables from there to Yeerongpilly for my new crossing Loop at that location.

Hopefully this week I will get a delivery of some push buttons for 3 control panels and some point work, that I will then start installing into Dutton Park.  NMRA meeting next Saturday and a Buy and Sell on Sunday and then Armidale the week after.  Hopefully I will pick up a three lengths of standard gauge flex track and three point motors at the Buy and Sell.  I wonder if I can get this all completed before I head off to Armidale on Friday week?