The siding track at the GERN facility is now in place from west turnout on. The East turnout will be installed soon.

I really like using the Latex Caulk for gluing down track. Once you lay down a thin layer of the stuff, it’s got good holding strength. It’ll hold down flex track on curves long enough for you to get everything just right before applying some weight for it’s final set-up. A few hours is good.

I also tested out installing a remote tortoise mount. It works pretty well. Trying to line up where to drill under 2″ of foam isn’t easy. As you can see, my drill head pushed down some foam, and even started to melt it. I’ll have to come up with some other way for the other turnouts.

But anyway, the contraption works using telfon tubing and piano to connect the tortoise to a remote actuator, when turns a thicker guide wire through a piece of brass tube. Once I got it installed it worked great. I was super happy and will plan on doing all my other lower level turnouts this way. No more drilling giant holes in the benchwork.