That Model Railway Guy

Brilliant stuff! I’ve just had a great time reading through your threads - especially the 009 one, that’s given me some thoughts for the future! Superb modelling all round. Funnily enough I’ve gone down the route of getting laser cut endplates too which should arrive in a few days. I was a bit unsure of how well they would work in practice but seeing the success you’ve had with them I’m feeling much more confident now.

Well the first steps have been taken this weekend. I’ve been busy making the baseboards for the fiddle yard using 9mm ply and 25mm timber for the frame (cross bracing was added after I took the first photo). I'm pretty happy for my first attempt! Hinges were also added so that the two boards can fold up for storage and thankfully it’s not much trouble for one person to move. It should be even easier once I’ve added support blocks to the ends and a lock to stop the boards from unfolding. For the moment I’ve laid out the track I have just to see the space I’m working with. As helpful as track planning software and templates are, I get a much better feel for the space available once I have a physical thing in front of me like this.

My current layout is supported on these trestles from Homebase at the moment which seem to be very good so I’ll probably go with these again. They’re pretty study and being mass produced they’re much more consistent than anything I could build - though I may look into attaching adjustable feet to them if I have any trouble with wonky floors! I’ve started building the first of the modules and I can lift it easily with one hand (not that I’ll be doing that when I’ve laid track on it!). But yes, the plan is to keep the boards as light as possible so that they’re easy to move around - although most of the time I’ll have someone else to help me out.

Thanks, I’m definitely hoping to learn a lot as I go and expand my abilities. I did think about starting off with a smaller much more simple fiddle yard initially. In the end though I decided I wanted to build a standard size module first mainly so I could give it a go and sort out any potential problems with the “standard” before getting too far into the project. I guess I’m treating the fiddle yard modules as a dry run for the rest of the layout to see what I’m capable of and to find out if my plan actually works! At the moment everything is just a theory so if I can iron out most of the problems on the fiddle yard boards now, where in the worst case I can always tear everything up and start again, that to me feels more safe than building half the layout and then finding out that there’s a fatal problem that need to be worked around. Essentially I’m hoping I’ll make all the mistakes now so I can learn from them for future modules where it won’t be as easy to correct them! A few extra notes on the fiddle yard: -I have a load of setrack points lying around that I didn’t want to use on the scenic section so I’ve put them to use here instead. -One of the few things I know about the station is that I want to run 4 coach trains so the loops in the fiddle yard are enough to accommodate this and a loco - plus a bit extra for safety. -Also the fiddle yard is actually two boards that will fold in the middle which will be handy for storage and also setup. I do agree though that in the future a smaller fiddle yard board will be useful for quick running sessions so it’s definitely something I’ve thought about. The existing fiddle yard boards could well be reworked to be more scenic modules once I’ve built the rest of the layout too.

Have just posted another video this morning of a Driver's Eye View of the layout - so now you can see how small it actually is in reality! The railway is looking a bit shabby and run down at the moment as it's seen lots more operation this Summer than it usually does. That said, I'm hoping to do a bit of tidying up and some modelling over the Winter in preparation for next year. For now though, feel free to sit back and enjoy the ride...

Hi everyone! Having spent a bit of time last year putting together my little shunting layout Pickwick Yard, I thought it was time to have a go at something more ambitious. The intention with Pickwick Yard was always to have a small basic layout that would give me somewhere to run trains while I was working on a much larger layout. Having spent plenty of time procrastinating, last weekend I finally decided to just start and now that I’ve made a bit of progress I felt justified in posting about it here. So here goes... Unfortunately I don’t have space for a large permanent layout so I’m going down the modular route. Aside from the obvious advantage of being able to put the layout away when the room is needed, it also means I can work on one section at a time in a much smaller space without needing the whole layout setup. Another reason for having a modular railway is so I can set the layout up in a variety of different configurations. This all started because I wasn’t sure whether I wanted an end to end layout or a loop. Originally I had planned to model a branch line terminus but then realised that sometimes I do just like to let the trains run. With a modular layout I can have both depending on what mood I’m in! My aim is to make all the modules interchangeable so that they can be setup in lots of different ways and also means that future expansions should be easy too. (But keep that to yourselves for the moment! ) As for the actual layout itself, I’m planning to model a small heritage railway. “Oh no!” I can already hear you groaning, but don’t leave just yet! While I imagine there will be plenty of Rule 1 running sessions along the way I do want to try and do this somewhat realistically, so for the most part I’ll be running small industrial tank locos with short rake of Mk1 coaches. The heritage railway itself will be completely fictional but I’ll be taking plenty of inspiration from the various preserved railways I’ve visited over the years as I don't want this to end up looking like a train set! I’ve come up with a rough plan of what I’m hoping to achieve laid out in the images below. Although, when I say it’s a rough plan I mean very rough! Firstly, Stage One includes building the Fiddle Yard, two corner modules and a buffer module. As this is my first proper model railway these boards are fairly simple. With the fiddle yard I can get use to laying track properly and with the buffer and two corner boards I’ll be able to try my hand at some basic scenery. I imagine I’ll learn a lot here with the hope that my skill and technique will improve a lot as I go on. Stage Two is to build a double board featuring a station and loco depot of some sort. The track plan is nowhere near finalised on this yet so what you see below is just a rough representation but I’ll be giving it some more serious thought in the near future. By moving the buffer module to the end it effectively becomes the headshunt for the run round loop. This will give me a nice end to end layout to run trains on while I’m working on… …Stage Three, where I’ll replace the buffer module for another two corner boards that complete the circuit to join up to the fiddle yard. This now means that the layout can be run either as an end to end layout or in tail chaser mode. Stage Four. This is a long way off but it would be nice to eventually have two short scenic boards between the curves at each end to lengthen the run a bit. It would also open up the operating space in the middle and would mean that the layout fitted nicely around the edge of the room it’ll probably be setup in most of the time. Stage Five and beyond. We’re getting into the realms of fantasy here but in the future there’s no reason why I couldn’t add more modules… perhaps another station or maybe a completely separate self contained layout built to the same standards so that it could join up to this railway in the future. Of course this just demonstrates the most typical way the layout could be setup but since it’s all modular it could be setup in a multitude of ways! Work has already begun on Stage One so hopefully it won’t be too long before I have something to show you.

A bit more fun... After the BR running session I did the other day I decided to do a review of Bachmann's Midland 1F. Nice little loco, fits right on the layout - feel free to skip to the end to see the loco running on Pickwick Yard if you're not fussed about seeing detailed close ups of the model

Thanks Kevin, I do hope it encourages others. A few years ago I wouldn't have even considered building a kit but these are so simple to make that even I'm able to get good results out of them!

Hi all, Just stumbled across this thread. Don’t know if it’s of interest to anyone but I recently made a video on building one of the Dapol Kitmaster wagon kits. It's not really a step by step guide but more of an overview if you’re considering making one and want to see what's involved beforehand. I’m not an expert by any definition but I make these videos on the basis that, if an idiot like me can manage it, most people should be able to have a good go! It’s generated a lot more interest than I anticipated so thought I’d post it here in case it’s of use to any prospective builders who might come across this thread in the future

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 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...

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!

...and a bit of video, for anyone who might be interested.

Had a bit of a BR black running session earlier with the Hornby J15, Bachmann 1F and Hornby J94!

Yep, I don't doubt that I never said I invented it, it's just the method I use on my layout.

This was almost exactly the problem I was facing. My garden railway isn’t exactly big so splitting it up into different sections seemed silly, not to mention it was also impractical due how it’s situated in the garden. My main issue was finding a booster with enough amps for the power hungry G Scale locos to run potentially with lights and sound whilst also having to cope with the less than ideal gradients of the garden. It’s been a bit of a challenge but thanks to you and Paul I feel like I’ve got a couple of good options now and I’m more confident that what I had originally intended with using a single booster to feed the whole track is actually possible. Thanks that’s really helpful with the different types of booster interface. I was sort of aware of these before but didn’t know enough about each option individually to make a educated decision so that’ll make things a lot easier going forward. I think (C) is probably the option I’m leaning more towards at the moment but we’ll see what happens with my continuing research. I’m sure I’ll be back with more beginner questions at some point!

Just thought I'd do a quick video about the uncoupling method I use on Pickwick Yard. Tension locks are still my preferred coupling so I wanted a really simple way to remotely uncouple wagons while shunting... best of all, it's incredibly cheap to make and is almost invisible when installed on the layout!

Fantastic! Well if I can’t find a Ulhenbrock booster anytime soon it looks like the MERG kit is a great option! Luckily the 18v transformer from my LGB system is still working perfectly so it might try giving that a go first

I was aware of that some boosters weren’t compatible with some types of command stations but previously I wasn’t sure what the differences and variations were or what I should be looking out for in different boosters. That was part of my original question with regards to the Digitrax booster but I don’t think I explained myself properly there - sorry! That said, thanks to this thread I have a bit more understanding and your post above seems to confirm I’m on the right lines now. Luckily both the MERG and Ulhenbrock boosters, which seem to be my best bet at the moment, connect directly to the command station’s main output and take the signal from there instead of a dedicated booster output which is simple enough even for me to understand.

Yes I started out looking at the Massoth systems too and also came to that conclusion. As you say part of what attracted me to the Z21 was the ability to bring my 00 gauge layouts over to DCC and then plug in a booster for the garden railway, so great to know that is possible after all. My searches for the Ulhenbrock Power 7 and Power 8 have drawn blanks so far and all I can seem to find is the Power 4. Fingers crossed the Power 8 hasn’t been completely discontinued and they’re just currently unavailable because of the “current situation”. I’ll definitely get in touch with DCCAutomation to see if they know what the situation is. Both those layouts you showed look great by the way! Always nice to see G Scale stuff indoors

Ah fantastic! I was hoping that it was possible to use just the power from the booster as you described but being very new to DCC I didn’t want to assume anything. Thanks for that information, that’s really helpful. The 10amp MERG DCC booster kit sounds great. Even taking the membership fee into consideration that’s a very good price. How tricky is it to put together? I’d certainly put myself more towards the beginner end of the spectrum with this sort of thing!

By the way, if anyone is interested in the garden railway I mentioned, here's a video of my latest running session: And I've also created a thread for it in the relevant section with the hope of updating it as the railway develops...

They're certainly not bad for secondhand (third in some cases!) Hornby points from the 90's! They do cause minor problems every so often but even the tiny Ruston 48DS manages to make it over the dead zone. Thanks! I could have covered over the existing ballast mat that's already down if I wanted to but this layout was never meant to be super realistic. I just wanted to throw something together quickly to run trains on while I pend the time working on a "proper" layout.

Essentially you paint your model in a rust colour first, then when that's dry sprinkle salt over the model and fix in place using hairspray (or some people manage with just water, not sure how though!). Once the salt is dry you paint your main colour over the top of the rust and the salt - this was grey for the wagon in my case. Once that final layer of paint has dried you rub off the salt particles which reveals the rust colour underneath the grey and gives the effect of paint chipping. The more salt you use initially the bigger the patches of rust that show through. That's how I've got the flecks of brown on that second wagon in my pictures above. It's a great technique when done well but I'm afraid I haven't done it justice at all. I think it works better with an airbrush or spray paint as I had real trouble brushing away the salt so I just ended up with a really bumpy surface instead

They certainly are very good for their age. And also not to complicated to put together for someone like me who is towards the beginner end of the spectrum! Yes I imagine kadees or 3 links would be more realistic, though I can't see myself switching away from the standard tension locks any time soon. But good to know it's possible to fit all manner of couplings to them.

Sadly Pickwick Yard hasn't had much attention over the summer due to a combination of doing the ground work for a much larger project as well as making the most of the sunshine to get the garden railway up and running again! However, I have found the time to make the odd wagon kit here and there. With all these industrial locos I felt they needed some proper mineral wagons to shunt around the yard so I had a go at making a couple of Dapol wagon kits and I'm rather pleased with how they've come out. As you can see one is in a more pristine condition and with the other I had a go at salt weathering - I wasn't entirely successful but it's good enough for a first attempt. Considering these kits have been around for a while they still look good and were fun to put together. They're also cheaper than the RTR options especially if you want a few of them! My only minor niggle with them is that the couplings are rubbish! Luckily they just plug in so I'll probably replace them with some of Dapol's slimline tension lock couplings in the future.