Light running ...

A loco with guards van makes a last tour of the railway for this year

'power' to the track (3) - track feeds in place

Yesterday I finally got round to getting the power feeds to the track. I soldered on the wire to connector block tags for the two track sections I had prepared

 Laid a feed wire from the control box ...

 out to a connector that sits under the lineside hut, from there two feeds go off to the track, one in the station approach

 and another on the far side just down from Rockery cutting.

I've left the wire out on the surface for easy access, so if I have any problems during run testing I can get at them easily.

Loads for tipper trucks ...

In order to make my tipper trucks look a bit better I decided to add some loads; initially I added a flat load of sand, this didn't look quite right so I cut some bits of foamboard to represent the a small pile in the middle of the load.

These were then covered in filler and once dried more sand was added,  now all done and seen below sitting in a siding on my garage layout.

'power' to the track (2) - control box

Have put the control box in place so I can run the feeds to the track. I re-used my old control box which was made from a green mailbox.

I had to be creative on making a stand for it and a rummage around yielded two offcuts of treated wood batton, a length of angle iron and a couple of suitable brackets.  The angle iron was knocked into the ground about 18ins to provide the main support - painted over quickly in wood stain - the rear view...

The control panel in the box has a connection for the feeds to the track from the controller and switches in place if I want to add control of the sections for the station main line, passing loop and siding.

'power' to the track (1)

Have started putting stuff together for getting 'power' to the track.  I've put in a weatherproof extension lead for summer use - with the flex going up to the lean-to under cover of gravel.

 Next getting ready for the power connections to the track, using some spare track I've made up two sections which will be swapped out with what is currently in place - these have the connectors to go to the controller - for these I used brass track connectors with solder tags.

 On the 'to do' list

• buy suitable cable and layout the lengths needed
• buy conduit/plastic pipe to hold the cable
• setup control box (saved from the old layout)
• solder cable to track and lay into the control box
• clean the track
• play with trains ---->  'toot - toot'

An update and a short running session ...

I had hoped to be running track powered locos by now, however the necessary works have not been done to bad weather, a badly sprained foot and two nasty bouts of flu.  I've only just caught up on the normal jobs in the garden.

The garden planting has matured nicely and the railway now looks like it belongs in the garden .....

Managed to get a nice little running session in a couple of days ago when I got home from work on a nice sunny evening

This years outdoor works will focus on getting setup to run track powered locos, on battery only at the moment.  I have to dig a couple of shallow trenches for wiring and power supply - hopefully I'll get this done before our clay soil turns to 'concrete' due to  the summer weather.

Some new tipper trucks ...

Nice find at a Toy&Train fair today - 3 LGB tipper trucks (at a nice price). Here they are getting a run on my garage layout

Need to do some work on them - a repaint and some work on the couplings. They can be part of my engineering train or a separate little mineral train.