Whilst I have not put any posts up showing progress with the boards for Glenmutchkin, progress is being made and the last two boards are essentially now finished.  I am hoping that with one more day’s work which will mostly be to build up a carrying box for the final two, they can all come home.

In anticipation of this, I have been building some turnouts and a bit of the basic trackwork.

I am only able to do the turnouts which I am reasonably confident will not change shape when the track is finally laid out on the boards.  In essence this means the crossings in the bay, the main line and the goods yard.  I have also done one of the turnouts in the yard.  So seven down, twelve to go including a slip!

I have also developed my approach to TOU’s slightly from Portchullin.  As a finished article they look like this:

You will see that relatively little of the TOU is exposed (and when it is painted it blend away further).  Equally it is much more durable than most of the other options out there because the switchblade is held by both a wire strip but also to some brass strip that is tight to the underside of both the switchrail and the switchblade.  By installing this strip in this location, the switchblade is held in a vertical plane much better than other solutions.  I think this leads to better running.

This is what it looks like as it is being assembled.  You will see that in essence is it is merely a bit of copper clad below the switchblades, but lowered somewhat further due to the use of the brass strip.  This allows the whole lot to be hidden below the boards.

You will note the rather unusual arrangement of sleepers.  This is called interlacing and was very common on many pre-grouping lines, including the Highland.  I will expand on this in a future posting.