Wiring Update

Well it looks like the Russians have taken an interest in the goings on at Picton....the hit counter has gone berserk!!

Anyway, activity continues at a methodical pace with the track laid on the helix and all the top deck wired now for power. All connections have been soldered so its been an effort to get this completed. I have 2 droppers for every section of track as recommended to me by the 3 Amigos, Bob G, Es D and Ian T. There are a lot of droppers to solder to the bus but I don't want to be going back to fix bad power feeds in the future.

About to enter Picton Tunnel

I've also been working on the control panels for Thirlmere and Hill Top. They are made from 3mm MDF using DCC Concepts DPDT switches and LED's along with some push buttons to activate the electro-magnetic uncouplers.

Hill Top and Thirlmere Control Panels

Rear View

Next tasks will be to mount the panels and connect the point motors to the DPDT switches and then run the Control Bus. Then to the bottom deck.

I recently splashed out and bought myself a Eureka Saturated D50.

There's a bit of work to be done to bring it back to 1930's condition such as removing the buffer beam hand rail and step. Aside from the wheel splasher errors, I'm also not happy with the coal load in the tender so that will need to be fixed as well. Apart from that, it's a pretty good model and I'm happy with it and it should look a lot better once it's weathered and has some crew to grace the footplate.

So for now though, it's back to the wiring........................