Two weeks to go to my first exhibition of 2019 at Chapel-en-le-Frith on 23/24 February and I am testing Die Keinnamebahn, my H0e exhibition layout. The point at the station throat was not polarising the frog properly and so I changed the Seep PM4 switching latched solenoid point motor.

Testing showed it was now OK until BLAM!!! the new point motor ripped the point tie rod loose! So, what was supposedly a simple repair, now it involves me having to replace the point, ripping up the ballast etc. and then making good.

This will not be as hard a job as on some layouts because Die Keinnamebahn is built using eight 400x250mm MDF baseboards by Tim Horn and so it is easy to work on an individual board without damaging scenery etc.

I suppose the only good news is that I still have 10 days, and not hours, in which to do this work and, hopefully, it will make Die Keinnamebahn more reliable for the exhibitions that we have this year, including Narrow Gauge North at Pudsey on 9th March, Bakewell on 8th & 9th June and Conwy on 6th & 7th July. All requests to attend other shows will be happily considered.

Tip of the week

Fitting fishplates to track can be a soul (and fingertip) destroying task. They are small, sharp and a tight fit onto the rail. I use a pair of curved tip surgical locking forceps to grip the end of the fishplate and push it onto the rail. No fuss and no blood!