Fortunately, most of the damage caused by the ‘earthquake’ was not serious. The support trolley has been reinforced and is now back in action. There was minimal damage to rolling stock, other than a few couplings etc. come adrift.
Rather more perplexing was the fact that one of the hinged end-boards was slightly dislocated. Not much – but a few millimetres in both the vertical and horizontal planes are the equivalent of a pretty sizeable earth displacement in N gauge!
For quite a while, I could not see where the problem was, and assumed the hinges had been strained, as this board took the brunt of the layout’s swift descent to the floor. I removed and replaced them – which dealt with the matter at the front of the layout. But the fiddle yard entry was still about 3mm displaced in the vertical direction. Eventually I realised that one of the timber joints had failed. This was swiftly re-glued and clamped – problem solved.
Thankfully, trains are now running again through Stanley and things are not much the worse for wear.
Trains and Trad 