Clapham Yard Upgrade Continues

On Tuesday this week, we ventured over to Arthur’s place and took a look at his excellently sceniced QR/NSWGR dual gauge layout.  It truly is a masterpiece.  The layout has been on the receiving end of some fencing along the railway right of way over the last few weeks and it does look nice.  The contractors are still in the process of finishing off the job.  There was also a clothes line installed complete with washing and a young lass swinging on it.  I hope the parents don't see this or all hell with break out. 

I picked up a LH curve point from Shelton to allow the installation of a set of crossovers at the northern end of Clapham Yard between track 2 and track 3.  This will allow the running round of the Railset train in track 2 without it having to get access via North Coast Control to the staff machines at each end of the Clapham Yard – namely Clapham Yard to Dutton Park and Clapham Yard to Acacia Ridge.  Darren Lee also picked up a couple of second hand points from Shelton.

On Saturday morning I went down to the shed to spend a couple of hours working on the southern end of Clapham Yard before we went down the road for my son’s afternoon cricket match.  For those interested we got the opposition all out for 88 after having them 8 for 38.  I think they reversed their batting order.  My son took a good catch, almost ran someone out and took the last wicket for bowling figures of 0.1 overs and 1-0.  We then got the runs in the 15^th over with the score ending up at 3/90, when the coach pull the pin.  My son top scored with 17 retired.  This team is a little ripper.

Anyway while down at the shed I spliced in one of my large radius Y points and stole a narrow gauge LH point from somewhere else on the layout and I had the dual gauge head shunt in place.  I still had to relocate the dual gauge diverging track about 2-3 feet further down the mainline back towards Acacia Ridge Yard.  But when this was completed I was pondering if I would replace the Y point located on track 4 that I just installed with a double slip point and then move the Y point to track 3, I may be able to have an extra track having access to the headshunt – namely track 3.  Again this will keep a loco away from having to take a staff to move around with the yard.

After Tuesday night, I knew that Shelton had a couple of spare double slips.  I’ve also had  a few of these previously but had sold them at various Buy and Sells.  I thought where would I use one on the layout now so I sold them?  Anyway I left a voice mail for Shelton and sent him an email asking if I could drop buy after cricket and borrow a double slip to see if would fit geometrically into where I was pondering. 

So after cricket I detoured via Shelton’s house and picked up his double slip.  So when back home, I was straight back down to the shed and ripped up the large radius Y point I just installed that morning and spliced the double slip in, and moved the large radius Y to track 3.  Hmmm!  It looked pretty good.  I ran my railset train through the various tracks and it had no issues.  So we will call it a success and I just need to score a few 12mm sets of points and another large radius Y and I think I will be done remodelling Clapham Yard.

Today I went down to the shed and reattached the point motors and track power feeds that I removed yesterday.  I also installed one of the points required for the crossover between track 2 and track 3 at the northern end of Clapham Yard.  I am still one large radius Y point down in order to complete the cross over.

I then fired up the layout and ran a 44 class loco through the various standard gauge tracks.  Whoops!  I have lots of insulated joiner around my electrofrog points, and I have no power feeds.  It looks like that is next weekend's job before I can finally complete this task.

The before shot of the northern end of Clapham Yard.  The railset train is visible in this shot.

The after shot when the curve point has been installed at the northern end of Clapham Yard.

The before shot of the southern end of Clapham Yard. 

The after shot of the final rearrangement of the track work at the southern end of the yard. 

This is before view of Clapham Yard.  The southern crossover is shown here as well as some narrow gauge QR wagons.

This shot shows where I may have temporarily borrowed a LH narrow gauge point from so I can complete the lead into the yard for the narrow gauge trains.