The bottom RH corner of the garden is hidden behind a large evergreen bush and for the past 20 years has been a general dumping ground for bits of broken concrete, weeds, grass clippings, tree prunings,etc, etc! When I first built my line I went round the front of said bush, but that cut the only access to the dump without removing the bridge, and has been a pain for the past few years. Soooo... last autumn I decided that a deviation was required running round the outside of the hidden corner. I just about got that sorted before the winter put things on hold. Then with 4 or 5 months bad weather I could do nothing but think and plan. The original route was still there but disconnected at one end, and with the bridge not connected at either end. Over the years I have considered the possibilty of putting a loop around the dreaded bush, but there isn't quite enough room without going down to 3ft radius or even less. Then inspiration struck, by starting from close to the junction of the deviation I could just get an acceptable gradient to take the line down under the bridge, and leave room beside the line for a path into the dead corner. It still means the bridge has to be taken out, but with the bark chippings path now laid it is actually possible to step over it, which is what I do unless I'm carrying something awkward, whereas before I was standing on flowerbed one side and broken concrete the other!
Anyway, so now the line comes down under the bridge, but what to with it then? In front of the big bush we have a small paved area with a garden bench on it which faces the late afternoon sun ( what sun??). I sureptitiously slid the bench forward a couple of feet and then a day or two later with much fear and trepidation, I said, "Would you mind if I moved the bench forward to where it is now?". "I didn't know you'd moved it, it still looks the same?"... "I take that as OK, then?" It so happened that I had a couple of 3metre lengths of 8" x 3" timber lurking in the garage, so a couple of timber straps to hold them side by side and some brick piers would give me somewhere for the line to go and hold a small low level terminus station - to be called 'Lower Bench' in due course.
So, back in April, when it stopped raining for a while, out came the tools and materials because I wanted to get as much done as possible before the garden came to life- "You can do what you want as long as it doesn't spoil the garden"!
The original turnout for the junction between the old line and the deviation, was operated by a manual lever next to the track at the back of a garden border. I always knew this would be a nuisance, but in practice was unlikely to be used much. However the adjacent additional turnout to give access to the new line is going to get much more use and some sort of electric operation is needed. I had 3 Tortoise point motors in stock from many years ago. These are pretty powerful beasties and although intended for indoor layouts, they have plenty of umph and sufficient throw for 32mm. However they do need a changeover switch to reverse the throw, and given the location this would be problematic. I re-read Riks' blogs on Peckforton's turnouts and signals and liked the idea of the cheap Chinese garage door type radio control, but all this Picaxe stuff is beyond me. I tried to work it out but it seems to need a degree in Geekness which I don't have, so I looked for a workaround. This was simple after a bit of thought, mount a DPDT relay on top of the point motor and use the RC to send a simple on/off to the coil, and with the relay contacts wired as a changeover switch to feed the point motor, job done.
Of course, being intended for indoor use, the Tortoises are a long way from being waterproof, so they needed protecing in some way. I didn't really want two nondescript trackside boxes close together, so a lever frame shelter housing both of them seemed like a good idea, but somehow that morphed into a proper small signal box. The only snag now was that both point motors were around a foot from their respective turnouts and the only answer is real mechanical rodding. Fabricated from brass rod, NS sheet and brass nuts and bolts, it works very well, although there is still one issue to work out, visible route setting indication.
So now I have a working system, all it needs is a 12v power supply at the bottom of the garden! Again, Rik supplied the answer, a 12v lead acid battery. Rik houses his on a shelf under the track, but on my line this would be buried behind foliage and pretty inaccessible. Then I realised that the dimensions of the battery would allow it to fit inside a scale 12ft x 7ft Platelayers hut, so I now had to build one of those as well. There was also sufficient space inside for the RC receiver, and since I had deliberately bought a 12 channel unit, it will be fairly simple to run wires to the turnouts on Lower Bench, one day.
Now, if you look just to the left of the door, you'll see that the ganger has left a hurricane lamp hanging on a nail. He has a habit of leaving it burning which by some miracle exactly coincides with my own habit of not switching things off! The hurricane lamp is a cut and filed LED plus bits and pieces of plastic and using a dead button cell for the oil reservoir.
Just as I was getting to the end of this marathon, the subject of 'conveniences' was brought up by Grant, and my effort on the subject has been posted elsewhere. The operating electronics for it, ( timer and voltage regulator) are also housed in the PW hut ( in the white box).
It still needs some tidying up of the ballast and various other minor details, but thats pretty much 'it', until I can start on the station.
