Santas Workshop

 

We only had a short time to build this (before christmas arrived!) so it needed to be built out of things that were to hand and we decided on N gauge because a fairly small diameter oval is required unless you have an enormous christmas tree. The board was cut with an electric jigsaw in 2 pieces out of a white melamine covered chipboard door saved when an old wardrobe was thrown out. The pieces are just over 2 foot radius. The pieces were joined together by screwing 2 small pieces of chipboard underneath. It would have been easier and better to use a wider piece of chipboard so the circle could have been made in a sihgle piece. No framing has been used. A hole of about 2 inches in diameter was cut in the centre for the christmas tree trunk. To raise the chipboard off the ground so that it was both above the christmas tree supports and to allow depth for the Simple Station Stop 3 pieces of wood 4inch in height were screwed underneath. Three rather than four were used to prevent wobble. Peco flexible track was laid at just under 2 foot radius. It would have been easier and quicker to use set track as the radius is quite tight and its a lot harder to lay a continuous circle than track transitioning from straight to curved. The track was fixed with track pins through holes drilled with a pin vice through the sleepers. Care was taken to avoid dog legs at the joints which could cause derailments.

To keep things simple everything is powered from one of our 12 volt DC power supplies. The voltage to the track (which governs the engines speed) used a series of diodes shown in the diagram. Each diode reduces the voltage by 0.7 volts so the trains speed can be adjusted by tapping off at different places along the chain of diodes. The diodes were screwed into a terminal block. The wire from terminal T2 is screwed into one of the holes of the terminal block to select the speed of the train. (The voltage on terminal T2 is switched by the Simple Station Stop to terminal C2 to make the train move, terminal C2 connects to the track).

The signal is by CR signals and its position is so close to the Simple Station Stop that the signal wires did not need extending.

Santas Workshop is a card model we had built a while ago. "SANTA's WORKSHOP" was printed on a piece of paper and stuck with evostick to the roof.