Wiring. Yuk.

If there’s something that slows a project down for me it’s wiring up a layout. Pretty much everything else I can crack on with, but this bit, it’s a real chore even for a simple three point layout. The way I worked on this one, Shelfie3, was a little different. I set up the track and just played trains until the design ‘clicked’ and I was happy with it.

I then transferred it to the layout for real, fixing most of the track, in particular the baseboard join which has meant cutting one point in half. Once the track was down ive then wired it up with my initial thought on feeds and isolating sections to start.

It’s taken longer than usual to define the right points for the sections, so progress has been a bit stop/start, not to mention a significant amount of structural work on the mancave proper! The core operations are two car DMU’s, a shuttle service from a truncated through station set between 1968 and 1980. This give me the opportunity to run ‘tail traffic’ on a few of the services. There’s also a couple of reversing moves with parcels stock and an oil train. The ‘problem’ is the layout is configured to run as DC/DCC and these sorts of movements definitely favour DCC operations. However for DC work I have to take into account the sections to cover an 08, up to a two car DMU. This also means working the platform length out too. Within the moves there’s a loco and parcels vans, as well as an occasional three car DMU.

The layout is designed to be relatively compact with an 11ft length footprint, and a sector plate fiddleyard. This too for DC operations required a rotating selection switch and isolating sections. With help from one of the technicians at work, the fiddleyard wiring was quite straightforward and completed quickly.

Shelfie Time Lapse

Last week a good friend dropped in and that has really helped with pushing this forward. Most of the time was spent working out the scenic side, whilst doing that we ‘played trains’ for a bit. In the youtube clip above the temporary wiring and switches worked well, but brought home that the wiring needs completion. So this weekend it’s been out with the crayons and colouring in what goes where and why. The wire and connectors are in stock, so they ts time to pull the trigger, and get the wiring in place.

Then I can switch all the sections on and run it in DCC….