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Pickwick Yard - Reviving an unfinished layout.


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Have finished another one or two Dapol wagon kits so I now have a nice little rake of wagons for the layout. The two nearest the buffers are old Hornby metal ones, hence the slight difference in size. I might replace them in the future but they work well enough for the moment. 

 

 As much as I like my random assortment of private owner wagons, I do enjoy the uniformity of seeing several mineral wagons all together!

 

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Whilst building the latest Dapol wagon I decided to film the process just in case anyone's interested in these kits. The video has generated a lot more interest than I expected it to with several viewers saying they now plan on trying out the kits for themselves... it's a shame I'm not getting a commission from Dapol :D

 

I do deviate from the instructions slightly as I found it a bit easier to assemble some of the smaller details first before attaching everything to wagon but for the most part the video shows the whole process. Despite struggling to multitask between filming and modelling I'm actually pretty pleased with how this wagon came out... I was fully expecting it to be more dodgy given that my mind was in two places at once!

 

Enjoy...

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just realised I'd never posted my latest video from a few weeks ago! If anyone's interested, this is how I operate the fiddle yard on Pickwick Yard. The Peco Loco Lift has certainly come in handy as a cassette for micro layouts as I've found I can just about fit 3-4 wagons in each one.

 

Like with the invisible uncoupling video I'm sure I'm not the first person to try this and I'm not claiming to have come up with using the Peco Loco Lift as a cassette. I'm just demonstrating how I operate my layout in case it provides inspiration for anyone else out there. Anyway, they fit very nicely behind the back line in the fiddle yard so that I can change stock nice and quickly between a selection of "mini-rakes" in case I get bored looking at the same old wagons! :lol:

 

 

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Hi everyone! My YouTube channel has been doing rather well lately, so to celebrate hitting 500 subscribers I’m doing a LIVE running session on Pickwick Yard tonight at 8pm!

 

You’re welcome to tune in and enjoy the fun regardless of whether you’re a subscriber or not and you can watch right from the comfort of RMWeb using the embedded stream below. Right, I'm off to clean the track! :D 

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Have been running my diesel locomotives a lot more on Pickwick Yard lately so I thought I'd take a quick look at the Hornby Sentinel and see how well it stacks up to the Ruston 48DS considering it's a few years old now.

 

There's a bit of a running session on Pickwick Yard later on in the video too for those who just want to see some trains running ;)

 

 

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Following on from last weeks review of the Hornby Sentinel, I've put together a video of it doing some shunting alongside the Ruston 48DS.

 

 

I was actually really impressed with the slow speed of the Sentinel and how controllable it was while filming now that I've cleaned a lot of excess grease out of the gears. I personally still prefer the Ruston but both of these locos look great on my small layout.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Another little job I've been working on lately is to add coal loads to all my open wagons. The Dapol kits were nice and easy as they have the moulded load that slots in. I just painted it black and glued some Hattons coal to the top. For the rest of my wagons I had to make the coal loads from scratch which meant having to do... some actual modelling! :scared:

 

In reality it's such a simple thing but it's made a really big difference to the layout. Wagons and movements now appear to have more of a purpose (even though I'm still just aimlessly shunting things around) so it's definitely been worth doing.

 

 

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I'm sure by now a few of you have twigged that I'm quite a fan of the Hornby Pecketts! ;) 

 

I had both the W4 and the B2 on the layout the other day so here's a few stills from the running session. The B2 was mainly on mineral wagon duties, bringing in full coal wagons and taking away the empties. Meanwhile the W4 was kept busy working the smaller factory siding.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi everyone, I'm doing a live running session tonight at 7pm over on YouTube to celebrate the channel hitting 900 subscribers!

 

I know lots of people have had their Christmas plans suddenly ruined or disrupted due to the last minute restrictions that have been brought in place, so if you're at a loose end or feeling a bit lonely do feel free to pop in and say Hi. Doesn't matter whether you've subscribed or not but if you'd like to watch some model trains run and hang out with like-minded people in the chat you're more than welcome to join us. It's turned into a lovely little community lately.

 

Here's the link for those that want to watch live :) 

 

 

 

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A little job I did earlier this month was to "upgrade" the Peco bufferstops I've been using. They're alright but a bit basic. This is how they've looked on the layout for the past year...

 

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I glued them together and removed the peg from the centre of the buffer blocks and gave it a quick paint job - white on the beam with red blocks and then some matt brown on the sides with some rust dry brushed on afterwards. It's probably not prototypical but then nothing else on Pickwick Yard is! :D

 

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Finally here's how they look back in position on the layout. A nice addition in my opinion and it's really transformed this corner of the layout. I'm quite pleased with how the lenses on the lamps came out too.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey everyone, just another quick from the layout for you all. Having added coal to lots of my wagons back before Christmas, I've been doing lots of delivery trains where the full wagons come in and empties leave. This adds another level to the running session but I have found it gets a bit tiresome trying to claw the coal inserts out of the wagons especially if you've got a whole train of them.

 

To combat this I've gone for the tried and tested method of adding magnets to all the wagon loads which has made removal much easier and means I spend much more time running trains now! On the off chance anyone's unfamiliar with this technique or just wants a simple step by step guide on how to implement it themselves, here's a quick video showing the process with a demonstration at the end. :) 

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

My YouTube channel recently hit 1,000 subscribers so to celebrate I wanted to make a bit of a special video. In the past I've limited my running session videos to just a few simple movements to keep them short and sweet.

 

This time though I decided to film an entire operating session, running through one of the longer sequences I do when the camera's aren't on! It takes about 20 minutes to complete and roughly shows the course of a day on Pickwick Yard. I've added some basic sound to this one and I've found it's quite nice to have on the background just to observe the trains coming and going. Enjoy :) 

 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Things have been a bit quiet on Pickwick Yard lately with focus now on the building of my new layout. However I decided to do a little running session the other day using the inglenook shunting puzzle rules. The layout was never intended to be used in this way but it works fine as long as you play using honour rules. Here's the resulting video:

 

 

All in all it's quite fun and I've since been doing more inglenook shunting on the layout. I've found it's a great way to have a an intensive but short running session which is great for me as time is at a premium at the moment. :) 

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