Grafton Track 8

Again a very slow week for modelling and anything model railway related.  With Cricket on the TV on Friday and Sunday that is where I spent most of the afternoon and evenings on those days.  I did get to the cricket nets with my son yesterday afternoon and I was amazed that he has really developed his outswinger.  I had me caught behind about 3 times.  So he is consistently pitching it in the correct spot and everyone was swinging about a foot.  He even got a couple to go the other way and also had a few cutters going.  Just nice before the start of cricket season on Tuesday this week. 

On Saturday morning I did a round of some of the local hobby shops to see what was up.  I ran into a couple of people and had a good natter.  I also happened to pick up a second hand Peco medium radius point for a good price and when I got home after lunch decided to splice it into the Grafton Yard.

The location was the in track 7 to make a new connection into track 8 in Grafton Yard.  The aim was to make track 8 a complete loop.  I went through the other points that I had in my unused pile and found a couple of others and tried to work out what would fit the geometry in track 8.  The best fit was another right hand medium point.  It seemed that both of my two other RH points were slightly damaged and I did want to try and use them as a run around in Fisherman Islands Yard at a later date.  Anyway the best out of those two was resurrected and used to be spliced into track 8 to join up to track 7.  Track 8 was then re-laid around the loops in Grafton Yard.  I then spliced in another length of flex track between the two separate ends of track 8 and now it is a loop.  Mission accomplished.

I had my fruit train sitting in track 6.  So I backed the train out around track 6 and then reran it through Grafton Loops via track 7 to see if the new track work had not compromised the running.  All was good.  So I did this again.  I then backed the train out of track 7 and then re-entered the Loops via track 8.  Again no issues.  I tested both exit routes through track 8, the one via the main lead that tracks 1 through 7 feed into, and then the route into the single ended sidings from track 9 through 12.  I then backed the train out again, and left it back in its proper staging track, track 6.

So this was a good day's work.  I will still be on the look out for a number of medium radius Peco points that I need to install into Fisherman Islands,  That is one of my next tasks.  I also need to look at a short that occurs when I come of the entry to Acacia Ridge Yard from the south and into the dual gauge yard.  I'm sure  the solution will be a simple bit of work.  Maybe an insulated joiner has been missed.  Again a task for next weekend.