A Shocking Development

In my haste to make progress with the scenery of the layout I caused some serious issues with the railway. Firstly, I  creatd a power outage at the headshunt end of the layout. All of Platform 2 was dead and the headshunt would only work if the line on platform 1 was live. Secondly, my painting of the boards and sleepers had left the condition of the track in a terrible state. This was a combination of not masking over the rails and being generally clumsy with my efforts.

 After several days of self chastisement and grumbling, I sat down to tackle the bull by the horns. This proved to be a much more involved task than was first predicted. I needed to remove the entire headshunt and clean or replace the fishplates on the entire section of track. 

 After a few hours work, involving relaying, testing and cursing my lack of experience, the line worked again. The railway is now ready to be ballasted, a task which will require the utmost care and patience. This is a job that I have been putting off for some time as I know how daunting it can be and how frustrating it is if it were to go wrong. Below is the only picture I took during the relaying process.


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