Lights now working and decision on Motive Power Depot

After a quick chat to Mr Mackie through the week, I investigated the switch that I had used on Lachlan's layout for the lighting. It looked OK and no apparent loose wire/s making a short circuit. So I did the time honoured act of tapping it on something hard in case there was something amiss inside, rewired it and bingo the light went on and the power controller behaved like it should. I must say the Gaugemaster controller is a little beauty for power output on the track. I cut down some timber strips to act as a holder as the controller didn't have any onboard screw holes unfortunately. Lachlan is quite excited about his layout at the moment. I might have to do more things like putting in a simple manual signal that he (or Matthew) can just turn on or off when they want to.

With respect to the motive power depot backscene, I did some further investigation and measurements throught the week and discovered I had sufficient room for some low relief buildings along the backboard as well as some full relief buildings to service the sidings, from the Metcalfe Model range of cardboard kits. So an order was placed with Hattons of Liverpool as the were the cheapest (including the postage from the UK). These should fill in the space nicely and allow me to keep the momentum up on modelling this side of the layout.

Not forgetting the Kensington Hill side of the layout, I glued up a Ratio line side hut kit that came with a Railway Modeller magazine and spray painted it over the weekend with car undercoat spray. I will then hand paint the features some time soon.

I have also dug out the Dapol pub that I want on this side as well for glueing up.

No closer to the 73 class' wiring up and I will have to pack this away again as I have tradies coming in next week to start two weeks of renos in the house. So it might be best to wait until all work in the hobby room/study/kids TV room is finished before getting stuck into finishing this off.

This week I am hoping to receive the Hornby controller I picked up on Ebay, maybe those IR transceivers might come in, and maybe the Hattons orders will get here as well. Time will tell.