Model Railway Forum

Never a good idea to have any part of a layout that isn’t reasonably easy to get to.

Ah. Ideally yes but it is often difficult to achieve this. My dad used to have a good concept. He built my last layout frame and boards and wasn't happy until it was safe to have the two of us sitting on top of the layout hammering or screwing with no movements of the layout. In other words permanent meant you could climb onto it and it wouldn't move. That way in the rare event something needed to be reached, even if one had to carefullt kneal or tread on an open bit of scenery (E.g. a field) it could be reached. I used to either stand on a chair from the front or carefully walk behind the backscene (Extremely rare) to deal with the rare event like changingnor servicing a far reaching set of points. I did make sure that I cojld reach everything without climbing for track cleaning purposes and this involved two cut outs that I could stand up in which I later used as two control panels when my youngest brother was young and also wanted to run his trains.

If I climbed on my layout it would destroy everything. Access is always possible.

For some layouts thouts of the delicate operations that those jewel thieves do on films while suspended from the ceiling come to mind. I just cut holes in the board so I could pop up to reach things as the only inaccessable poisitions were at the 180 degree corners and a wide curve I had in the middle.
I can reach everything with my current layout My last layout had the difficulty thag taught me how to solder while upsidown which was a little risky as I had to allow for any solder dropping if I overdid it.

Straying off topic.
Has the OP found the problem yet?

@ Steve

Last heard of climbing onto his layout. R-

RogerB wrote: ↑Sat Feb 23, 2019 11:11 am @ Steve

Last heard of climbing onto his layout. R-

Haha you're all very amusing! All good points (pun intended) though.

I can reach the point easily enough for soldering etc but for with this problem it's been hard working at almost arm's length.

Still not resolved. Next two areas for exploration double check there's not a tiny snip of cork restricting the final movement and perhaps ease the blade back. I know that the hole in the board is not the issue there's plenty of room all around.

If this doesn't solve it the point may have to come up - always tricky when the track is laid as so difficult getting it back in the gap and joining it to ther three rails.

Do continue the leg pulling - unless you have anything useful to say!

Wouldn't dream of pulling your leg....... well, not while your perched on the layout anyway. R

I think you've reached the point (sorry) where you need to remove the point completely from the layout and see how it performs by hand ie definite click and blade hard against the rail. This will also allow you to check there is no obstruction beneath. If you're not sure then replace it with a new one.