Railway/Laying points

Here are some thoughts on laying points.

I tend to place point motors under the baseboard, which in my case is 6mm ply. That means you have to mark and drill through for the motor pin. Do not use a power tool to mark the extent of the point action - this can melt the tie bar and wreck the points. I use a very small Archimedean drill with a 1.0mm bit, I lay the point in place, drill into the baseboard twice, once to mark each end of the movement, then use a 6mm slotting drill (with chipping edges instead of lands up the side) to make a slotted hole. I use a leather punch to cut the holes in the trackbed material (in my case usually cork or art board).

The angle drill is especially useful for the slotted holes, as you can angle it so that the tendency of the slotting drill to wander sideways is offset by the force moving the drill, so the slot is in roughly the right place.

Finally, I use a wide chisel or sandpaper to clean up the surface of the slotted hole.

The following assumes you are going to use point motors.

Now test the thing. Check and double check that the over-centre spring is working properly and the point sits properly in both locations, and run your fussiest coach over it (onto some temporary track if need be) in all directions, looking for unevenness or derailing. The more inaccessible the point, the more important this is!

Finally, fit the motor and test that.

You don't have to use motors, I have experimented with "ground frame" style switching using piano wire through fine brass tubes and this works well, and is in act a good solution if you need a point somewhere you can't get a motor - you can move the action away to somewhere convenient rather than resorting to the lineside hut, which is a dead giveaway to any other modeller.

Ballasting is a challenge, ballasting can completely wreck points. The foam formed trackbed mats are a tempting alternative, but I found it close to impossible to get a perfectly level track run through these, and having the track level is important to the reliability especially with six-coupled locos, in my experience. My Hornby N2 is a fine runner on a good track but an absolute bugger for dropping its DCC signal and coming to a grinding halt on all but the most perfectly level of points. So I now use card or cork and ballast by hand. More work, but hopefully better in the long term.

Note that small-radius points are usually designed for Setrack on 3 1/4" centres not 6' way on 2 5/8" centres. If you need to make a crossover in a short space and can't avoid using small-radius points then they can be modified quite easily. Use a razor saw not a cut-off wheel in a power tool, as the power tool will tend to melt the plastics, and you'll need them in good shape to keep the whole thing together. To avoid losing support and forming for the curves, you might want to cut a rail joiner down to fit between sleepers and solder it in place.