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West Pickering, Craig's Canadian project


Craig Watson

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So I can finally confirm I have another exhibition invite for West Pickering, this time for its first outing south of the border!

 

The layout will be appearing at Railex North East in North Shields on the 28th and 29th of July 2018, really looking forward to this one!

So am I!

 

Didn't have to work too hard on our exhibition manager to arrange the invite.

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So I can finally confirm I have another exhibition invite for West Pickering, this time for its first outing south of the border!

 

The layout will be appearing at Railex North East in North Shields on the 28th and 29th of July 2018, really looking forward to this one!

 

I just had a bit of senior moment. When you mentioned south of the border, I thought you meant the USA! 

 

Looking forward to seeing West Pickering next year. We don't see many US layouts here in the North East (England)

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So I can finally confirm I have another exhibition invite for West Pickering, this time for its first outing south of the border!

 

The layout will be appearing at Railex North East in North Shields on the 28th and 29th of July 2018, really looking forward to this one!

 

Congrats, that show is less than a 15 minute walk from my Grandparents house in North Shields, sadly, I doubt I'll be in the UK next July given i live a lot closer to actual Pickering Ontario than to where the show is. 

 

Still, you never know, stranger things have happened!

 

Good to see a Canadian prototype layout getting out on the UK Show Circuit.

 

Cheers,

Stephen

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Stephen, there are a fair number of modellers of Canadian prototypes here. However, a large proportion seem to be of the home layout variety. As far as my rather limited check goes, there are around a dozen exhibit-able Canadian layouts. Out of that about half are actually Freemo modules. The other half are rarely seen outside of the dedicated North American exhibitions. Its good to see Craig getting his foot in the door at regular shows. 

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Had a great weekend at West Pickering's 5th outing over the last weekend at our own Bonnybridge show, had a few minor problems with the layout on the Saturday morning but nothing too serious, lots of great comments about the layout again, it's times like this you realise what close links our area has with Canada and the Toronto area in particular, many from Central Scotland emigrated there in the 50's and 60's including 4 of my grandmother's siblings and it's clear that many have an affinity with the place with the comments I get from visitors to exhibitions up here.

 

The layout was operated by members of both Bonnybridge MRC and the Scottish Diesel and Electric Group and thanks must go to members of both for the help they gave me over the weekend, not to mention the stock brought along by Simon (gridwatcher) and Ian (donny4472).

 

The layout is now in Bonnybridge MRC's clubrooms where it is being stored for a few weeks to allow me to get some work done in the "railway room" before it gets set back up before it's next outing to Railex NE on the 28th and 29th of July.

 

Some pics of the layout in action at Bonnybridge.

 

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We had a great time with West Pickering at Railex North East over the weekend.

 

The layout seemed to go down well and we received lots of positive comments, including one from a north east ex pat who'd moved to Toronto 25 years ago and was back on holiday, he couldn't believe he was standing in North Shields watching models of the trains he commuted to work in every day in Toronto!!

 

Anyway, the layout is back at home, it's getting set back up this week to get some track damage in the fiddle yard fixed and some TLC before it's next outing in early 2019.

 

Some pics of the layout in action below.

 

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Every now and again I have a look through this thread to remind myself of the help and encouragement I had from many members of RMweb over the nearly 8 years of the project trundling along, seeing the below pic made me smile, some of the earliest members of the fleet being run on Bonnybridge MRC's long gone Rosebank Junction layout back in 2010, the young boy looking on is my son James who's grown into a very competent operator on West Pickering,  woe betide anyone who doesn't stop a GO train with the correct door on the accessibility ramp!!

 

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His hair still has it's moments though!

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The next exhibition we will be attending with West Pickering will be Model Rail Scotland at the SEC, Glasgow on the 22nd, 23rd & 24th of February 2019 where the layout will be representing Bonnybridge MRC.

 

The layout has now been reassembled at home, it suffered a small bit of damage to a point in the fiddle yard which has now been replaced, we also identified a couple of sticky point motors, they're seep ones so easy enough to replace, one of the things we found with the Bonnybridge layout "Allanbridge" was that there were some parts of the fiddle yard where Peco point motors were better suited so we might experiment with some of those.

 

The main thing is getting the layout up and running again, there's sometimes nothing better than just locking yourself away in the layout room and playing trains!!

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Had a great weekend at West Pickering's 5th outing over the last weekend at our own Bonnybridge show, had a few minor problems with the layout on the Saturday morning but nothing too serious, lots of great comments about the layout again, it's times like this you realise what close links our area has with Canada and the Toronto area in particular, many from Central Scotland emigrated there in the 50's and 60's including 4 of my grandmother's siblings and it's clear that many have an affinity with the place with the comments I get from visitors to exhibitions up here.

 

---

 

But of course !

 

 

When I collected the MRC's & other magazines from North Vancouver, it was from the swim teacher of John Mann & Geoffrey Kelly ...which shows how small of a world it is...

 

James

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So it's nearly Glasgow time again, the layout is pretty much ready to go.

 

One of the issues identified over the last few shows was that an extra access to the freight line from the east end of the layout would increase the operational flexibility of the sidings, while visiting the Ayr exhibition I noticed that a trader had a few sets of code 83 points for a really good price so they were bought and the idea came to life!

 

The crossover has now been installed, tested and ballasted, a few hours tonight should see it weathered to finish it off.

 

Another issue was that the original seep point motors at the east end of the station were sticky quite a lot of the time, they've now been replaced with peco ones and the junction works first time every time now.

 

The points laid on top of the existing trackwork shortly after purchase.wp5.jpg.fd4141235f7d8bb5afd8089a9f4103af.jpg

 

Hopefully we'll see some of you over the weekend at Glasgow!

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Another Model Rail Scotland has passed by in a flash!

 

Thanks to all who commented on the layout and took the time to have a chat about it, once agin lots of people recognising the Canadian features like the individual shop names and the distinctive GO trains, "i've been on that" being a recurring comment over the weekend!

 

The layout is now back at home, it should be set back up this week and the stock unpacked and checked out, lots of wheel cleaning and maintenance planned for the coming weeks, the layout doesn't have any future bookings at the moment so plenty time to be cracking on with some stock weathering!

 

Some pics from the weekend.

 

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