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TRACKWORK
Once you have your baseboard finished your can begin laying your track. To start with you need to lay out your track plan onto the baseboard and trace out the track bed. Next, temporarily, lay down your track as it would be when finished. When you are happy that the track fits onto the board, mask off half an inch each side of the track with masking tape as shown in fig *.
Once this is completed lift off the track piece by piece taking care not to damage any fish plates in the process. Now give the masked off area a single wash of charcoal coloured emulsion. This will create a base colour for your ballasted track bed. When the paint is completely dry peel off all the tape and begin to lay your track. At this stage decide which of your points are going to be automated and by what method.
There are several ways of doing this. To attach a point motor on the surface Hornby produce a point motor housing unit disguised as a trackside hut (fig* ). This method does not require any further preparation and points can be pinned down in readiness. Another method is to fix the point motor to the underside of the baseboard with the spindle of the motor protruding up through the baseboard and locating in the hole on the point itself (fig 1 ) This requires accurate placing of the point motor and the half inch hole for the spindle. A second method to fix the motor out of sight is to attach the motor to the underside of the point directly and making an oblong hole in the baseboard to house the motor. Care must be taken with this method not to let ballast drop onto the motor when you ballast the track at a later stage as this might impede the motors travel creating a derailing point. To combat this, place a piece of paper between the point and the motor ensuring that you cut a big enough hole in it to allow the motor full travel.
FITTING POINT MOTORS
As described above there are 3 main ways of fitting point motors to a set of points, I will describe each in detail in this mini-section
1. Hornby point motor housing
This method is by far the easiest as it is done after the track has been laid and pinned down, but most costly as each housing unit alone costs £3 each.  Start by placing the point motor housing base next to the point to be automated, locating the push rod hole with the pin on the point lever(Arrow 3). Ensure that the push rod is set to its furthest extension (arrow 2) and that the point is switched away from the base(arrow 1) and that the point lever is in a straight line with the push rod.
Mark with a pencil the position of the 2 screw holes(green arrows) and the 2 wire slits (white arrows) on each side (see fig 3)
Remove the base and drill two 7 mm holes in the baseboard to feed the point motor wires and accessory switch wires through to the underside of the baseboard. Next use a bradawl to make small pilot holes to screw the point motor housing base to the baseboard. Replace the base and fix into position using the screws provided, making sure the push rod hole is located in the lever pin. Switch the points manually a couple of times to ensure there is free movement and the pin doesn’t jump from the hole in the pushrod. This is the base now completed and we will now fit the motor itself. Apply a small amount of modelling glue (not super glue) to the point motor lugs and locate these into the small slits in the base ensuring that the motor spindle is correctly situated in the hole in the middle of the pushrod. This can be quite fiddly so be patient. Feed the 3 wires through the baseboard and switch the point manually to make certain there are no trapped wires and it still has free travel. If you are adding an accessory switch spot some glue onto the point motor chassis and lightly press the switch onto the chassis ensuring that the spindle is located in the switch lug and the terminals are to the opposite side of the motor wires. Solder three 6” lengths of different bell wire onto the switch terminals and feed these through the other hole in the base and board. Switch the points again just to make sure everything is moving freely and clip the point motor housing top to the base – do not glue. Refer to point motor instructions or the section on this site for electronics for correct wiring of motor to switch.
2. Directly mounted to the points
Both Hornby and Peco make provision for point motors to be mounted directly onto the points themselves. This is achieved by inserting the 4 small lugs on top of the point motor into the 4 small slits in the point sleepers.
Next take a spare set of points and lay them on the baseboard exactly where the turnout is to be. Then with a carpenters pencil mark exactly the position of the pushrod sleeper each side. You now need to make a hole in the baseboard large enough to take the point motor. The simplest way to do this is to use a plunge router with a 3/4” bit.
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