Change at Centrales

Last week I described how the baseboard at Grande had been raised to be a better match with that at Centrales, the reason being to connect the two locations via a 180 degree curve and eliminate the cassette transfer.

At the time I was intending to retain the low relief façade at Centrales, with the new connection completely off stage, but a fresh idea has resulted in a change for this area of the layout. The new junction will be a much smaller station, little more than a platform and a single freight siding.

The familiar scene (above) with the combined signalbox, water tank and station building acting as a view block has now gone. The buildings will be reused as part of the new station occupying this corner of the garage.

There will still be a scenic break between here and Grande, probably with the line disappearing between urban buildings, but the off stage area will be reduced.

All passenger trains will run through to/from Grande, San Fernandez and Cuarto de Pulgada. An interesting manoeuvre using two locos may be possible though, allowing freight trains to reverse at the junction when travelling between the San Fernandez and Cuarto de Pulgada lines. The relieving loco will need to run light from Grande and wait on the departure track for the freight to arrive, then loco from the incoming train will carry on light engine to Grande when the shunt is complete.

I called in at Haslington Models on the way back from Crewe this morning and now have enough track and points to complete the connection between the two parts of the layout.

Work will proceed over the weekend, initially creating a gently sloping trackbed using timber from a dismantled pallet. There’s always been an amazing amount of very dodgy carpentry hidden under the scenery on my layouts but it’s got a lot worse since the FCPyF became a fixture in the garage and no longer needed to be portable.

In the meantime it’s business as usual on the FCPyF.

The next train?  Mañana.

One final change, both stations at this end of the garage will be renamed. Ciudad Grande will become Estacion Grande Centrales and the station in the corner of the garage will be renamed as Pequeño Bodjio. These changes will be reflected in an up to date map of the layout to follow shortly.