Wednesday 28th January 2026

Geoff had 3D printed the plugs to fill the old switch holes in the control panel and they were painted white. When dry, they were popped into place. Saw cuts were made in the switch to extend the indicator lines and the slots painted white. We'll decide if any cosmetic mods to the panel/diagram are worthwhile in due course. 

The main business of the day was to review the board joint running through the crossover. Initial thoughts were to paint the slot sides green to camouflage the gap, but Geoff suggested the idea of highlighting the edge of the timber walkway with white warning stripes, to take the eye away from the gaps. It was worth a try and so Stephen applied a pale grey line to the timber walkway ends. We were so pleased with the white lines that they were also were added to the rest of the timber crossovers.

Meanwhile, Geoff worked on adding mixed foliage further along the joint, and then some gravel material to extend the walkway to the point lever area (to justify the walkway existence!).

Stephen was pleased with the content and operation of the 'Viewing notes' on the blog and had created a small poster to advertise them, complete with a QR code for easy access.

Geoff had bought a radio-controlled forklift truck on-line, as an experiment. Described as 1/64, he hoped it was not exactly to scale, but at £13 it was worth a try. 

The quality was very good and with 8 channels, there were lots of things to play with. However, it was too big, but as it ran so well, thoughts turned to a 'conversion'. Without the forklift and the cab something must be possible -  maybe a delivery van? Altering the wheels/tyres looks like the hardest task.

Wednesday 21st January 2026

The final stage of the new crossover operating system was to transfer wires from the 4 existing switches to the new, single switch. Following testing before work started some weeks ago, Geoff had produced a suitable diagram, which made the process easier. The exercise was not without a few glitches (just two wires had to be transposed), but eventually, the points worked using the test meter. The boards were then laid down, the power and a controller plugged into the control panel. A loco was then introduced and successfully tested. 

3D printed plugs will be made for the old switch holes.

The new switch will have 3 positions: Diagonal route red/orange, diagonal route blue/green and both tracks straight through.

The ravaged sleepers and rail sides were painted, and undergrowth added to damaged sleepers and track bed. The foliage colour is a bit unreal, but this will be reviewed next week when the board joints will come under scrutiny.

Wednesday 14th January 2026

On the back of last weeks success, we pressed on checking the sections of rail were connected correctly. John had his own rules/method and was not averse to some strange ideas about wiring points and unravelling how each section was connected was a painstaking exercise. However, Geoff's persistence pushed through and after a series of our own modifications, the points worked correctly. Some rails had been filed down so much, the running surfaces were knife-thin, and required additional rail material to be soldered on their sides to improve running and electrical connection. The exercise was finally completed and the the cross-over switches will be changed over next time.

Additional metal being added to over-thinned railheads.

Cutting extra rail joints and adding extra wire links to adjacent rails.

Finally, testing the sections over-and-over to finally
arrive at a 'normal' electrical arrangement.

We will give it all a full testing session, with stock, before changing over to the single switching option.

Wednesday 7th January 2026

Problem solved!

Christmas and New Year interrupted modelling a little, but on our first 2026 session, we cracked the wiring problem!

Going back to first principles again, we bolted the two boards together and traced every bit of wiring that was affected by the modification. This time we found an anomaly relating to the extra wire we fitted, running between the boards through the loom. The loom on one board has two plugs and the new wire had been soldered into the wrong plug!!! (No excuses, but both plugs had the same spare pin, which obviously clouded the issue). It was a simple job to move the wire to the correct plug. A comprehensive test was carried out, and everything worked correctly. A great moment! We now need to wire-up the new rotary switch that will replace the four switches to control the four points.