In the track laying for bendigo the most hardest part will be making the double and single compounds.(slips as known to some). These are a complex set points but give great flexibility in train movement in the yard or even on the main line. Ive made a double compound in this post, but to make single compound would be the same but i would leave out one side of the inner diverge rails.Ive made the compound the same way as i did the turnout in my earlier post. So i wont go through the whole process. Using the paper template does slow things down but now i know where some faults are and the gauge has been check. I'm looking forward to making the jigs. The hardest part in the compound is making the K crossing. When i was making it i've left out on part being a small guard rail that comes out of the centre of the K crossing. This happened because i didn't file another rail enough. The biggest problem ive found that doing things to scale has been hard due to the fact that model rail has a very wide base.(out of scale) This means things look a bit tight and i have to file away more of the base of the rail than you would in real life. In the end you have to give or take a bit to make it work.
Im happy on how its has come out. Ive come up with some different ideas on how to make the compounds better when i make them for the layout. Making the K crossing perfect is going to be the key to really good compounds.
SO WHATS NEXT
Now that ive made a turnout and compound i want to finish the final design work for the sleeper plate etch. Get the etch done and do a test section of track. In this test section of track will be made up of turnouts, double & single compounds, crossover and main line and siding track. The aim of all this i want to check that it will all work together. I want to check that etch works and there are no electrical storts and i can run trains through with no problems. This test track area will also be used to get final colours right, test wsa levers and signals and test different grass coverage and anything else. In doing this it will delay the start of building A box by a few months but i it may save me more months in the end by not having to redo something on the layout, measure twice, cut once rule.
Once again im still looking for photos of bendigo yard. Manly looking at how the land form is in some areas. Please email me at bendignscale@live.com.au
