November 2015: finally the last point has been laid. It must be nearly 10 years since I started.....
We completed the Portsmouth Station area in March. That just left the goods Yard to go, and the access point from the main line was already there. So with an operating weekend set for mid November, I thought I'd get going again in mid October and got the first few points down. Then the operating weekend was cancelled, so I slowed down.... then with around 3 days notice it was back on so I had to get on again! A mammoth session from 3pm Friday to 5pm Saturday saw the last point laid; all the point motors added; the point motors wired to DAC20; and all the power wiring to the BDL168 completed and tested. Now we have just the turntable, carriage sidings & engine shed to go.
The 3 tracks through the container yard use 3 way points. They are the first (and last) of them I've used. The good feature is: they are inherently made "DCC friendly" with carefully placed isolating sections. The slightly less good feature is: some pieces fo track can only get power through the sitch blades. I thought I'd found those and added wired power feeds, but discovered a need for two more after laying them. Oops.
traincontroller now has access to its last 3 blocks where it can send and receive trains. The track got well tested the same evening, and seems to be robust. We've worked out some logic and rationale for the goods train movements, and sketched that out in the "operations" section of this website. Welaos worked out some more "how to drive traincontroller" issues - getting the hang of schedule sequences to make a trian visit one loction, conduct 5 laps of the railway then return. It had to be possible!