Still Stuffing Round with Rocklea Sidings

I had Friday off work this week and spent some time in the afternoon down the shed.  I ripped up the dual gauge track between Clapham Yard and Rocklea Sidings with the intention of relaying this section.  I had a narrow gauge curve point in this section to allow narrow gauge trains to gain entry to Rocklea Sidings.  This narrow gauge curve point had a third rail laid on the outside to form the standard gauge track in this section.  This was always causing some issues.  The reason was that the third rail on the outside was not exactly 16.5mm from the far rail on the inside of narrow gauge point.

So after lunch I ripped up the track and then took to the baseboard with a Dremel with a sanding disk in it.  This was to take a bit of a bulge out of the baseboard at this location and ensure a smooth base to work from.  This had the desired effect.  I then stole one of the points allocated to Fisherman Islands Yard for a narrow gauge cross over and installed that point in the track narrow gauge main line at Clapham Yard that merges with the standard gauge track from Clapham Yard to form the dual gauge via a Tillig gauge splitter piece of track.  I had to add about an inch onto the baseboard at this location first to allo wteh extra track to co exists with the dual track mainline.  So it made a longer narrow gauge lead into the Rocklea Sidings but this now runs very well.  The dual gauge main line track also runs better until it gets to the current dual gauge point that splits off the standard gauge into the Rocklea Sidings Complex.  I have not reconnected the point motor for the standard gauge sidings so I cannot run trains through it.  I did however, relocate the point motor from the old narrow gauge curve point, by extending the three wires to the Peco point motor to the new location of the point motor.  This relocated point and point motor now works very well.

I am once again contemplating scratch building two new dual gauge points for two locations on the layout to replace two others currently in use.  One is a bastardised Peco HO point, that I ran the third narrow gauge rail through.  I feel I can now build a better version of this point.  I think I will need to purchase a couple of lengths of code 83 rail this coming weekend and have to borrow PK’s dual gauge Fast Tracks point jig.  I’ve had one of his jigs for months, but I need it to use it to build one of these points, and I will need to borrow the other jig to build one point of the other hand, with the third rail on the other side of the point.

Let’s see how I go over the next two weeks or so working on that task.