7mm test track
I've been diverted slightly from the construction of 'Bethesda Sidings' by the desire to get my 7mm test track up and running. I could easily have gone out and bought a yard of Peco track, but I wanted to build some myself, using some copper clad sleepers that I had.
First of all, the copper clad sleepers (spare 4mm ones) were cut to length and laid out on a piece of flat board, with a straight line drawn on to help things:
As this is only a test length of track, I didn't go for standard sleeper spacings, but rather spaced them according to how many sleepers I could get out of a given number of lengths of copper clad sleepers. This worked out at a spacing of 24mm. Each sleeper was lightly glued to the flat piece of board with some PVA (which would enable easy removal once the track was completed):
I'd managed to misplace my proper (C&L) 7mm track gauges, so as this is only a test track, I made some up out of bits of Dalerboard to the correct gauge (32mm in this case). Here, the rails are just laid loose on the sleepers:
With a yard-long steel rule to keep the rail straight, the first rail is gradually soldered to the sleepers. The rail is Peco code 124 flat-bottom rail:
The second rail was then soldered in place, using the cardboard gauges:
Here we have the completed length of track:
The sleepers were then gapped and temporarily laid on the wooden plinth that I made for it:
The piece of track was then sprayed with Halfords undercoat and then Halfords Matt Black, the rail tops cleaned and wires soldered on at one end. Here it is in place on the 'test track shelf':
Control is simple DC, of course, using a Gaugemaster controller, which I have now wired so that I can switch it easily between the 7mm test track, the OO/P4 one, the OO/P4 rolling road or a 12v DC output on the workbench:
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