Fettling Hexworthy between shows

On Saturday I'll be taking Hexworthy to the Newhaven club exhibition (in Seaford). Following the two days at Uckfield there were a few issues I wanted to address to improve running. One was the uncoupling magnet under the bay platform line - this seemed to "grab" at metal wheels of coaches causing jerky running, and the small quarry Hunslets could actually stall. Operationally, the magnet isn't needed as I don't use the bay as a siding, stock remains coupled to the loco, so the obvious solution was to remove the magnet.

The cupboard-catch magnet had been stuck in place through a hole in the foamcore board using hot glue, such that it sits just below the sleepers. Cutting the glue away allowed the magnet to be prised away, but of course this brought some of the ballast with it. 

Fortunately, the little oblongs of ballast were so well set in glue that I could slice them off the magnet intact with a scalpel. Having stuck a piece of card under the sleepers, the ballast blocks could be glued back in place!

There had been occasional derailments exiting the fiddle yard, I think due to misalignment of the traverser. The traverser/turntable deck has a "lip" which passes under the fixed edge to prevent the deck rising up, but I think the fixed deck might have been rising slightly. 

I've added a lower support, the wooden "finger" seen horizontally protruding from the fixed deck under the traversing/turning deck lip. Hopefully this will constrain any vertical movement. I also filed the vee notch in the aluminium arm a little deeper and more symmetrical, and increased the spring tension. Originally I'd been aiming for smooth movement without having to disengage the latch manually, but that wasn't really possible, so now the latch can be disengaged via a single lever I could have a more positive alignment via the deeper V and stronger springing. 

Up top, the alignment of rails was checked, a couple of tracks were adjusted slightly with the soldering iron. A couple of rails were also trimmed back a fraction of a mm, although they cleared the entry tracks fine one of them caught on them at Uckfield, I can only presume due to heat expansion or distortion of the frame. I've also added a switch to isolate the traverser tracks, regardless of position. To access the bay locos draw their coaches back into the fiddle yard, this can happen when all tracks are in use which could be done by moving the traverser to a "between tracks" position so no track was live, but the addition of the switch makes this easier. 

A quick test suggests coaches can be pulled and propelled on and off the traverser, but they could most of the time before, so we'll see if things are more reliable. The latching feels more positive. If you are at the show on Saturday you can see for  yourself - do say hello!