Sommaire pour June 2024 de Model Rail

Most of my recent practical modelling has been undertaken at various desks and dining tables, in hotels and Airbnb cottages, making use of my portable toolkit. Since I started at Model Rail – 20 years ago this summer – spending time away from home has become the norm, so I've become accustomed to carrying small modelling projects around with me, especially during the winter months. While staying in the Peak District in early April, ostensibly with a view to photographing freight operations around the Buxton area, the awful weather forced a change of plan. Happily, I'd brought along a bunch of industrial buildings for one of my layout projects, which I'd been meaning to finish for some time. Created partly from a laser-cut framework (using a couple of Scale Model…

Workbench EXPERT MODELLERS SHOW YOU HOW In conversation with a couple of fellow modellers at a recent exhibition, the subject of super-detailed ready-to-run locomotives cropped up. We each exchanged tales of woe, as small parts were lost or broken while we fumbled about with screws, clips, detachable pipework and electrical connectors, usually just to gain access to cab interiors to fit a crew. As avid weathering and customising enthusiasts, we also agreed that we found it hard to resist tinkering with our new models, however wonderful they be straight from the box. But manipulating them while adding detail or a grimy finish also increases the risk of damage. When I raised the fact that I was about to repaint a couple of steam locomotives into freelance industrial liveries for one…

Workbench EXPERT MODELLERS SHOW YOU HOW A number of Model Rail readers have asked me recently whether traditional grass mats are still worth using these days, with the huge array of alternative scenic materials now available. My answer is a definite yes, as although many mats can look a little one-dimensional on their own, they can form the basis for realistic scenery when used as a base layer. Grass mats have been around for decades, and vary in realism (and price!). Naturally, the more basic versions are cheaper and they're available in various sizes and shapes. Each offers the advantage of removing the need to paint the surface of the baseboard before adding scenery. They can be used to cover a multitude of sins too, such as gaps between landscape…

Our reviewers George Dent Model Rail’s modern image expert. Chris Leigh Wrote his first review in 1964. Peter Marriott Master of the scene. Nick Brodrick A steam fanatic and active fireman. How we test At Model Rail, we pride ourselves on the quality, thoroughness and unbiased nature of our reviews. We assess models on their looks, performance, features and value for money. We also run them on our own test tracks, which feature various gradients and numerous challenging track configurations.…

Reviews At the time, the arrival of the Class 59s onto the British Rail system was a seismic event, offering something so different to BR's existing diesel traction fleet in terms of looks, technical specification and performance. The fact that they were built in the USA and owned and operated by a private company also went against the prevailing policy of the UK's nationalised railway. The demand for a high-quality model representation of the Class 59 has been high but, until recently, the choice of products has been limited. Lima's ‘OO’ model (subsequently relaunched by Hornby) was only superseded by Dapol's superior version in late 2022, while ‘N’ gauge modellers had to wait until this year for a mainstream RTR product, with both Dapol's and Revolution Trains’ versions arriving with…

One of William Stanier's biggest achievements was to create a hugely versatile workhorse for the London, Midland & Scottish Railway – the Class 5 4-6-0. The aim was to build a sizeable fleet of steam locomotives that could operate virtually any type of freight or passenger train over almost the entire LMS network, and the ‘Black Fives’ (originally known as ‘Black Staniers’) proved a resounding success. Indeed, 842 examples were eventually built, with the first appearing in 1934 and the last delivered by British Railways in 1951. Building on Stanier's previous experience with GWR ‘Hall’ 4-6-0s, the LMS Class 5 featured a tapered boiler, twin outside cylinders and 6ft driving wheels. Assembly was undertaken at the LMS’ own works (Crewe, Derby and Horwich) but, in order to keep up with…

Timber-built station buildings could be found across the UK network, offering a cheaper alternative to brick and stone structures. The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway (S&DJR) built several timber structures, and the building at the erstwhile Glastonbury and Street station provided the inspiration for these new additions to Bachmann's Scenecraft range. Available separately is a station building and a matching timber canopy, in either BR Southern Region cream/green (as featured here) or in Western Region chocolate/ cream (the S&DJR switching to WR control in the last few years before closure). Cast in resin and supplied fully painted, both structures capture the character of the real station. The walls of the main building feature sharp relief to the clapboard panels and decorative valancing, while the slate roof, chimney stacks and guttering…

The Big Picture Building a model railway can be a challenge. It's easy to fall into the trap of trying to make something too big, which can end in frustration when things don't go well, and that can result in a layout never being finished. The obvious advice is to start small for your first layout, but that doesn't mean it will be without its challenges. Kevin Mitchell has built plenty of layouts in his modelling career and decided that he wanted to challenge himself to make a credible scene in as small a space as he could. You can read how he got on in an upcoming issue of Model Rail.…

Unusual scenes captured by the lens of Chris Nevard Captured here at Catcott, a rare view showing an ex-Great Eastern Railway ‘J15’ on the former Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway branch to Highbridge, which cut a path across the Somerset Levels. The Eastern Region of British Railways was the first to almost eliminate steam, which was convenient for the bods at Western Region HQ, who'd recently taken over the former S&DJR line and were keen to find replacements for the ancient ex-Midland locomotives. The light axle loading of the ‘J15’ made it ideal for a line mostly laid across a bog.…

Workbench EXPERT MODELLERS SHOW YOU HOW The low-level colliery line on my latest ‘OO’ layout features a series of bridges with limited headroom and, while typical mineral wagons can navigate the route easily enough, none of the diesel locomotives in my fleet will fit under these structures. Therefore, a customising job was essential and, as mentioned in last month's Staff Show & Tell pages, I'd unearthed an industrial locomotive built from a Knightwing plastic kit, which almost fitted the bill. I'd been contemplating trimming this model down by a couple of millimetres when I found another unbuilt version in my box of plastic kits. It's always easier to modify flat components before assembly, and so it proved, with the locomotive trimmed in length, width and height, in an effort to…

‘7MM’ GAUGE LAYOUT WENFORD DRIES What makes this layout great? “You don't need a room-filler to have a great looking layout. The beauty of using shelves as a baseboard is that if the layout isn't in use, it can go… on a shelf. Conveniently out of the way or placed on a display, Pete's first foray into 7mm scale has been a great success.” As Elton John, with the help of some cartoon lions, told us in 1994, ‘It's the circle of life’. Although in model railway terms we aren't grabbing our favourite ‘A4’ and holding it aloft on top of a piece of plywood in our garages, it's surprising how many things come full circle in life, and your modelling career can experience this, too. Pete Matcham recalls that…

Reviews Although Heljan has tackled the Class 37 in ‘O’ gauge a few times before, this all-new production batch may be one of the most eagerly anticipated. For the first time, the split headcode Class 37/0 is being depicted with cutaway bufferbeam cowlings and a range of other period-specific fittings to suit the later BR and privatisation eras. Featuring a fully re-tooled bodyshell, Heljan's team has successfully ironed out some of the quirks of its earlier ‘37/0s’, resulting in a much more convincing overall appearance. Eight versions have been manufactured for Heljan's range, plus an extra unit for the Gaugemaster Collection. Customers can choose from BR blue (original and ‘large logo’), Railfreight ‘red stripe’ and sub-sector triple grey, ‘Dutch’, EWS red/gold and DRS blue, with most supplied without TOPS numbers.…

By the early 1980s, aggregate company Foster Yeoman was unhappy with the reliability of British Rail's fairly new Class 56 diesel‑electric locomotives. Tasked with hauling an intensive flow of extremely heavy stone trains from the Mendip quarries, the ‘56s’ were proving troublesome, even when employed in multiple. Yeoman had already supplied its own fleet of hopper wagons to improve efficiency, so it was a logical progression for the company to investigate the possibility of sourcing its own locomotives. Despite worries regarding trade union reaction, BR agreed to the proposal, leading to Yeoman inviting tenders for a small fleet of freight diesel locomotives. In fact, Yeoman had already been operating a US-built General Motors SW1001 switcher at Merehead quarry, which had shown unprecedented levels of reliability. Therefore, Yeoman's engineers approached GM…

I surely cannot be the only modeller who has long hankered for a train of Southern Railway banana vans. It was a chance second-hand purchase of a beautiful scratchbuilt Diagram 1478 van –a balsa wood body sat atop a neat array of whitemetal underframe components – that piqued a fascination with these vehicles. Sadly, the apparent lack of kits, let alone ready-to-run models, meant that my humble ‘cream’-liveried banana van was something of an orphan for the best part of 25 years. For in reality, these vans ran in multiple, either formed into mixed trains, or as lengthy dedicated sets. The expansion of Southampton Docks in the early 1930s was the precursor to shipping company Elders & Fyffes Ltd moving its handling of Windward Islands produce (and transfer of passengers)…

The latest item of Hornby ‘Era 1’ rolling stock is the Liverpool & Manchester Railway Royal Mail coach. Utilising what appears to be the same chassis found under the existing First Class covered coaches, the coach's body is rendered in black and maroon livery. Although the exact veracity is difficult to assess, the model certainly resembles contemporary renderings of the real carriages, which were introduced soon after the opening of the L&MR. I'm no expert on this period of railway operation but, if the Royal Mail coaches operated in similar fashion to the horse-drawn variety of the time, the actual mail would be stored in the rooftop box while passengers would be conveyed in the compartments below, at a premium fare. The guard – or coachman – was there purely…

‘OO’ GAUGE LAYOUT PROVIDENCE COLLIERY What makes this layout great? “‘Providence Colliery’ is a visually appealing layout with plenty to draw the eye and nice framing with the embankment around two sides. The on-show mimic panel allows viewers to see what is happening on the layout, and what's about to happen next.” Coal used to make the world go round. Until the 1960s, it was the primary fuel source for the railways, allowing it to transport even more coal across the entire UK network. British coal also powered the National Grid, and was exported to all corners of the world. It's no surprise then that the UK was awash with collieries to keep up with global demand. One such area was the Forest of Dean, which today still shows many…

Workbench EXPERT MODELLERS SHOW YOU HOW MODEL Kibri 39154 Fire boat kit ◆ Price £26.50 AVAILABILITY www.goldenvalleyhobbies.co.uk Web: www.kibri.de My Cornish harbour project, based on the River Fowey, needed at least one boat for the nautical side of the layout. I really would have preferred a china clay—carrying vessel but, sadly, the dimensions of my baseboard (approximately 6ft by 18in) precluded this. Instead, I opted to model one of the Fowey Pilot boats, which are essential for guiding the sea—going cargo ships in and out of the harbour, up the river estuary. Fowey deep water port handles about 450,000 tonnes of cargo per year, and all vessels over 37.5m in length must be aided by the port's pilot, who is taken aboard the cargo ship via a pilot boat. After manoeuvring in…

‘OO’ GAUGE LAYOUT DERWENTHORPE What makes this layout great? “There's a lot of detail at ‘Derwenthorpe’ to keep you looking in every nook and cranny, and the overgrown nature of the entire line comes through with grass between the rails, rather than the more traditional ballast on show.” The human brain has a fabulous ability to imagine and wonder about how things could be or might have been, often planting images as we drift off to sleep or daydream while sitting at our desks. Regarding model railways, this is quite a valuable skill, and the number of ‘what if’ layout scenarios we see shows that the imaginations of modellers up and down the country are thriving. There are some layouts which are complete fantasy and some which are a little…

While BR's Modernisation Plan of 1955 had specified lots of new diesel locomotives in the Type 2 and Type 4 categories, provision for a mid-powered Type 3 was a little late to arrive. However, what would become the Class 37 turned out to be one of the most successful of BR's diesel designs, with several examples still to be seen on the main line today. The majority of the class was built at English Electric's Vulcan Foundry in Newton-le-Willows, beginning in 1960, with batches also built at Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns, Darlington. Early examples were allocated to the Eastern Region for general passenger and freight work, taking them to London, East Anglia, the North East, Midlands and North West, while later batches were built for the Western Region, becoming synonymous…

Reviews The LMS ‘Black Five’ has been a staple of the Hornby range since the early 1970s, with various piecemeal tooling upgrades delivered over the years. In 2001, the Margate team took a huge step forward in terms of fidelity and performance with an all-new, super-detailed ‘Black Five’. Various detail differences were catered for, especially a mix of vertical and sloping throatplate boilers (with different dome and top feed options), plus welded and riveted tenders. With half a dozen of these models in my collection, I've been satisfied with their looks and continued performance, although some extra detailing work has been carried out on each of them to satisfy my desire for greater authenticity. Time marches on, and Hornby's 2001 tooling now looks a little dated and, when the ‘Black…

In the early years of the 20th Century the predominance of heavy unfitted freights, particularly coal trains, led to the rapid development of ever-improved brake van designs. The lengthy gradients on parts of the South Eastern & Chatham Railway presented a particular hazard to unfitted, handbrakedonly trains from the Kent coalfield and in 1918 the SECR introduced a new design in which the 12in deep underframe contained compartments filled with scrap metal. This took its tare weight to 25 tons, significantly more than most other railways that faced similar problems. This single, thoroughly modern van was followed in 1921 by a production batch – allocated to SR Diagram 1559 – with detail differences from the prototype. The underframe was subsequently re-designed with a 15in deep solebar; this design being allocated…

Locomotive: North British/Paxman D2/1 200hp 0-4-0DH Gauge: ‘OO’ Proposed by: Harold Budd What is it? Despite the North British Locomotive Company (NBL) gaining a justified reputation as a leader within the realms of steam traction, its attempts to enter the diesel and electric locomotive market were less successful. The Class 21, 28 and ‘Warship’ classes 41 and 43 all featured MAN power units, but were plagued by unreliability, as were the ‘AL4’ electrics (later Class 84). The company fared better with its small diesel shunters. Answering a call from the Scottish Region of British Railways for a small twin-axle shunter, NBL created a fleet of four-wheel diesel-hydraulics, powered by 200hp, six-cylinder Paxman engines. The first examples entered service in 1953, with a total of eight examples erected in Glasgow. Like…