eproject

Rebuilding Rae Bridge (1)

Ted Polet - January 2001

After 20 years' service, the station having survived three house moves, in January 2001 I started preparations to replace the old Rae Bridge station of the Craigcorrie & Dunalistair Railway. Some areas of Rae Bridge dated back to my first 1968 layout. The track and scenery had become a bit tatty and needed to be replaced, and in addition this project enabled me to solve a few problems in the old layout. I could add a branch line combined with an electric tramway, and the entire set-up could be designed as a portable layout to replace Dunalistair harbour on exhibition work. Normally the three new units will be part of the permanent layout in the attic.

As soon as the baseboards and the table legs were completed, tracklaying started. Accuracy of the track breaks across baseboard gaps was tested by repeatedly assembling and disassembling the baseboards. After success in this area was ensured, I would be able to remove the old station from the permanent layout and substitute the new units. By re-using all the old buildings and many scenic details, I hoped the atmosphere of the existing station would largely be preserved.

March 2001

During February 2001 I tried laying track across the baseboard breaks, and it turned out all right. So, with some regret, I carefully dismantled the original Rae Bridge area and removed it from the main layout. Part of it was 33 years old, the remainder dated from the mid-1970s. A respectable age for a model layout that was badly constructed to begin with, and proved to be in not too good a condition (some of it just disintegrated). With some fiddling, the new units fitted exactly into place. At the start of March 2001 I started fitting the first high level track bases on to the baseboard surface.

Most photos copied from video tape: click on photos to enlarge.

	Left: overview of the old station and the village houses. Right: the loco shed and shops. The carriage shed again will be situated on a triangular unit in front.
	Left: checking on available space with a few buildings, points and bits of track on the plywood top sheets was the first thing I did. Right: the frame of the right-hand unit has been completed. For exhibition work I need closed-top baseboards as these are flat, compact and light.
	The units are connected using threaded devices hammered into pre-drilled and countersunk holes. A drop of epoxy glue ensures a permanent bond. One threaded hole is drilled out to receive a bolt threaded into the other unit and a wing nut locks up the joint.
	Left: track and buildings outlined on the baseboard units with black felt tip pen. Right: one unit set up on IKEA trestles which cost me only £8 a piece - I couldn't make them myself for less.
	Left: epoxying copper-coated paxolin sleepers to either side of the gap first, I laid Peco 009 track across them with some of the sleeper webbing removed. After soldering the rails to the paxolin board they were cut directly above the gap. Right: dismantling the old layout area has started. The sheds have been razed to the ground, and where the Dunalistair Mail once blasted through the overbridge, now the grass grows.

At the end of March 2001, I finally fixed the location of the works complex and the yard tracks. The main problem here was a realistic track layout leading to the carriage shed, leaving enough space in front of the loco shed and a place for the coaling stage. In the end this was easier than I thought: just use two left-hand points from the main works siding. At the start of April, all track in the station was in place, except at the tram depot where I still needed two more Peco points.

The works building, which is very unsquare as it was more or less designed around the old uneven baseboard surface, had to be levelled on stripwood foundations. The rearmost track inside the building has very little clearance for locomotives to be able to reach the timber works structure at the back of the shed, so this needed some fiddling to be aligned correctly.

The next job was the high level line from Glenclachan in the rear corner, and extending the tramway to its dead end spur on the intermediate level. Since the end of March however, delay was experienced due to domestic matters. It would be November 2001 before more progress could be made.

	Left: the new units in place, only about 1cm remaining at the far end which was rather less than I had imagined! Right: Terry (9 years old) paints the paxolin sleepers used to line up the track at the baseboard gaps.

Left: installing the inspection pit inside the loco shed, fitting a plywood bottom under two wooden spacers. Centre: the ash pit is a shallow depression made by cutting a square hole in the baseboard surface, fitting another piece of ply beneath and packing it with card to fit balsa blocks under the rails. Right: the yard with all track installed.