Last Friday, Heinz from MCC ModelCarParts dropped by to measure the MCC road surface for the automated vehicles. This means I now know what’s possible in terms of vehicles and how much space I can reserve for them. By the way, this is going to be a lot of fun.
This weekend, I started test-laying the tracks at Waldbrunn station. It’s a fun job because you really start to see how it’s going to turn out. And of course, the drawing didn’t match reality once again, so we’re laying it by eye to get it exactly how we want it.
The advantage of test-laying is that you can mark out the tracks before applying the cork and drilling the holes for the point motors. It also gives you a good idea right away of whether it’s going to work. I’ve had to make a few compromises.
Firstly, I didn’t think the station in the design looked smooth enough, so I moved the point work slightly and added a gentle curve to the track to give it a more natural flow. For now, I’ve also chosen to create an island platform about 8 cm wide. This allows me to use a Faller footbridge that’s been on my wishlist for a long time. This width is realistic for an island platform in Era III/IV.
This meant that the shunting tracks had to be simplified a bit. The loading platform will be at an angle, and at the end, the headshunt for shunting movements has been changed from two points to one.
The station building will also be moved to give the shuttle track a realistic length, so that a VT98 can stop nicely alongside the Kittel.
All in all, I’m fairly satisfied; the fact that the track isn’t perfectly straight here and there isn’t an issue. Now I can mark everything out, prepare it, and start the final installation. This will probably take a few more weeks, so I still have time to think about whether this is really how it should be.
To be continued!!!!
