Índex per September 2023 a Model Rail

TYNE DOCK ‘9F’ A CANNY ADDITION Recent upgrades to Bachmann Brachline's existing BR Class 9F tooling have brought the addition of a PluX22 DCC interface and pre-fitted speaker, helping the model meet the expectations of today's modellers. In addition to the previously announced versions, Bachmann's design team has also taken the opportunity to tweak the tooling to allow the famous fleet of Tyne Dock ‘9Fs’ to be represented. Ten of the BR standard 2-10-0s were fitted with Westinghouse pumps and reservoir tanks to operate hopper wagon doors for the iron ore traffic between Tyne Dock and Consett steel works. Two versions are being produced (Nos. 92060/97), both in unlined BR black with late emblems and with a factory weathered finish. Sound-fitted options are also available. Price: £249.95 (DCC-ready), £349.95 (DCC…

A break from travelling around the country has allowed George Dent to spend more time ‘on the tools’ this month. Having a few consecutive weeks at home has been welcome for personal reasons, but it has also allowed me to get cracking on my ‘Lisburn Lane’ layout, plus a few other rail-related undertakings, some of which appear in this month's Workbench section. I've also been working on a fleet of ‘Clayhood’ wagons – something that's been ongoing since last year – taking Bachmann's ‘OO’ model and installing a whole new underframe. Parkside plastic chassis frames are being used, kitted out with brass bearings and new metal wheels. Brass tie-bars replace the flimsy plastic parts and I've been installing vacuum brake hoses from old guitar strings and adding other small details…

Workbench EXPERT MODELLERS SHOW YOU HOW In last month's Workbench, Peter Marriott explained how he recreated a muddy, rutted forestry track, which set me thinking about an area of one of my own layout projects. With a siding and yard area to treat, I'd be aiming for a cinder/ash-style ground covering, which would undulate slightly thanks to regular, heavy road vehicle traffic. A far-frompristine appearance would be essential, with plenty of texture and tonal variety, while the odd pothole or two would also be welcome. While mulling over my options, I came across a pair of Geoscenics kits, which seemed to fit the bill perfectly. As an added bonus, the kits also feature lengths of fencing. Deciding to give them a try, I knocked up a simple diorama base from…

Reviews The post-First World War increase in weight of boat trains on the SECR between London and the Kent coast was beginning to expose the limitations of the Wainwright 4-4-0s. Recognising an efficient way to increase their capability, while keeping the axle weight down on the load-limited Chatham lines, Maunsell fitted 11 ‘Es’ with superheated boilers. These featured a larger firebox heating surface provided by the slab-side Belpaire firebox. New cylinders with piston valves replaced the slide valves, combining to create a powerful, free-steaming locomotive – the ‘E1'. So successful were these rebuilds that Maunsell repeated the trick with 21 of the ‘Ds’. The resultant ‘D1s’ were all but identical to the ‘E1s’ other than the latter engines’ driving wheel diameter which was 2in bigger. Most of the initial early…

Reviews British Rail's Class 56, designed and built in haste, had not been as successful as was hoped, with numerous reliability issues still being addressed as construction continued into the 1980s. With one eye on creating a more reliable heavy freight locomotive, and another on the export market, BR set about designing a modular Type 5 diesel, resulting in the Class 58. Fifty examples were constructed at Doncaster Works between 1982-87 and, with overseas orders never materialising, the Class 58 would become the last diesels built by a BR works. The first example entered traffic in 1983, following extensive testing, and delivery of the entire fleet proved to be a drawn-out affair, with various modifications made during the build programme. For instance, adhesion problems led to a revised bogie (equipped…

Rapido Trains UK L&M Lion – in detail Derived from George Stephenson's ‘Large Samson’ class of 0-4-2s, Lion was built in 1838 at Todd, Kitson & Laird's workshops in Leeds. A rebuild soon followed, at the L&M's Edge Hill works, where a new boiler, extended frames and improved cylinders and valve gear were installed. Taken into London & North Western Railway stock in the 1840s, Lion was withdrawn and sold in 1859, initially working for the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board before ending up as a stationary boiler at a graving dock facility. Salvaged by members of Liverpool's Engineering Society in the late 1920s, its remains were taken to Crewe Works where LMS staff rebuilt it extensively and created a ‘new’ tender from a similar Furness Railway locomotive. Steamed in…

Reviews Sonic Models LNER ‘J50’ 0-6-0T – in detail Designed for the Great Northern by Nigel Gresley, the powerful 0-6-0Ts were initially known as the Class J23. Equipped with long side tanks, with a sloping profile towards the front end, they offered improved visibility for footplate crews, extra range, and the weight of full tanks also aided adhesion. Despite their diminutive size, the ‘J50s’ boasted excellent haulage power, being given the ‘4F’ classification during the BR period. Built in several batches by the GNR, and its successor the LNER, from 1913 until 1939, the majority emerged from Doncaster Works. The final batch, however, was built at Gorton. Ostensibly aimed at shunting and local freight duties, especially heavy coal traffic around West Yorkshire, over 100 examples eventually entered traffic and they…

Reviews The Southern Region of BR, and doubtless the Southern Railway before it, made great use of old passenger stock converted for departmental use as routelearning vehicles and inspection saloons. It was a practice which lasted well into the Corporate Image era and by that time the ‘go anywhere’ usefulness of the narrow stock built to pass through Mountfield tunnel on the Hastings line was making them attractive for conversions. In particular, the lifespans of two vehicles from the former six-car Hastings line DEMUs were considerably extended. One became a tilt-test vehicle used by the Railway Technical Centre at Derby in preparations for the Advanced Passenger Train. The other, a former DEMU buffet car, went through various modifications and rebuilds to become the Southern Region General Manager's saloon. In the…

Peco's latest versions of the ‘Small Birmingham’ – or ‘Bug Box’ – four-wheel Ffestiniog Railway carriages have arrived, wearing the handsome green livery of the Colonel Stephens era. The famous ‘light railway baron’ controlled the Ffestiniog line between 1923-31, and these coaches are sure to be popular with fans of the Colonel. Peco has strived to ensure that the livery and markings are as accurate as possible and the samples we received certainly look the part. Considered here is a pair of Third class cars (Nos. 3 & 4) and Observation car No. 1. Details of the tooling were discussed in our initial review in MR315, and these new versions are equally well appointed. The livery has been applied to a high standard, with the printed FR lettering and other…

Over the years, most of my modelling efforts have focused on ‘OO’ gauge. However, one of my most recent projects was in ‘N’ gauge, which has reminded me of the benefits of the smaller scale. The 12in-deep baseboard accommodates a double track main line and twin-platform station, plus a siding, access road and a tree-lined backdrop. With the railway boundary requiring only a modest footprint, I also had space to add part of a field in the foreground. The various buildings and station accessories are from the Bachmann Scenecraft range, while the fencing is from Woodland Scenics, and Graham Farish track has been employed. It took just 20 hours to make this scene and it was great fun to build. I really should consider working in ‘N’ more often, while…

While building one of my recent project layouts, I needed to recreate a pile‑driven concrete retaining wall, using an example I'd seen in Spiez, Switzerland as inspiration. Built within the last 25 years, the wall consists of substantial concrete ‘posts’, standing in vertical rows, with flat panels of concrete sitting in between. This seemed like an ideal backscene for my modern image layout, allowing a road and an array of low-relief buildings to be placed at a high level, creating a greater sense of depth to the scene. In real life, it appears that the railway has been driven through the landscape and, with existing dwellings at a higher level, the retaining wall must withstand a huge weight of land behind it. The concrete piles feature a surprisingly rough texture,…

'OO’ GAUGE LAYOUT KNOWLES HILL COLLIERY “What makes this layout great? At 'Knowles Hill Colliery’ it's the locomotives that set it apart. It would have been easy for Phil to just buy several of the same models off the shelf and change the odd number, but instead he's gone through the painstaking process of dry-brushing each one to give himself a unique model – just like the real thing.” here was a time that the coal output of Nottinghamshire exceeded ten million tonnes a year – more than 10% of the national total. When the collieries were nationalised in 1947 there were 49 pits in the county. Now, there are none. The last to go was Thoresby in 2015, and the closure of this final pit inspired Phil Sharpe and…

The first new additions to the Peco range of Streamline Code 100 for some time, this pair of short radius, curved turnouts are equipped with Peco's now standard Unifrog system, which offers the benefits of Electrofrog points, without the wiring complexity. These points also offer the potential to save a significant amount of space, with an inner radius of just 438mm. Assembly is up to Peco's usual high standards and the sprung tie-bars and switch rails move freely. Nickel silver, flat-bottomed rail is employed in plastic sleepers and the points are fully compatible with existing Streamline track components. Full installation and wiring instructions are provided. (GD) PROS: ● Useful addition to Streamline range ● Good quality components ● Well built ● Unifrog system easy to use CONS: ● Nothing FINAL…

Reviews Bachmann Europe's Summer 2023 announcements (MR314) featured plenty of good news for ‘N’ gauge modellers, including a substantial new production run of Graham Farish BR Mk 1 coaching stock. A full array of vehicle types has been included in the latest batches, including Open, Composite, Brake, Buffet and full Brake variants. Each of the key BR liveries has been covered, from crimson/cream to maroon, Western Region chocolate/ cream and the ‘Corporate’ era Blue/ grey scheme. Modellers of the modern era haven't been overlooked, with the lined maroon of West Coast Railway Company (WCRC) also available. For review, Bachmann kindly supplied Second Open 4973 in WCRC maroon, depicting a Wolverton-built Mk 1 from 1962. Featuring Commonwealth bogies, as fitted when new, the model employs the existing Farish tooling, as introduced…

Having been released in ‘OO’ gauge earlier this year by Bachmann Branchline (see review in MR313), it was no great surprise when an ‘N’ gauge version was announced as part of the Farish range for Summer 2023. Like the 4mm scale version, the Farish model is also a completely new tooling, depicting the ballast and spoil-carrying wagons introduced in 2016. The MXA ‘Lobster’ employs reconditioned chassis from BDA/BEA bogie bolster wagons, formerly used for steel traffic. With the decking removed and a new box-style open body bolted to the frames, the vivid red wagons have made for a striking sight among infrastructure trains over the past few years. Two variants are available, featuring either traditional brake blocks and hand levers mounted to the chassis frame, or disc brakes and handwheels…

Locomotive: Cardiff Railway 0‑4‑0ST Nos. 5/6 (GWR/BR Nos. 1338/9) Gauge: ‘OO’ Proposed by: Richard Maby What is it? Back in the early 1970s I was enjoying my newfound motorcycling freedom, and on one occasion my route crossed the Western Region main line at Bleadon, south of Weston-super-Mare. Just over the bridge was the closed (1964) Bleadon and Uphill station. By then privately occupied, I was surprised to find the diminutive station hosting an equally diminutive saddle tank 0-4-0. The station formed the base of the (now defunct) Yieldingtree Railway Museum which subsequently housed a number of exhibits. The tiny tank locomotive was ex-GWR No. 1338, which was originally one of a pair built by Kitsons of Leeds and featuring unusual Kitson-Hawthorn valve gear. The build date was 1898, and the…

Opening the box George Dent writes: Organised by East Neuk Model Railway Club, 2023's St Andrews model railway exhibition took place over the weekend of August 12-13. Held within the town's recently refurbished baronial-style town hall, the show boasted an impressive array of layouts spread over multiple rooms, including the grand hall (which features the most amazing ceiling!). The layouts featured a mix of scales, from ‘N’ (UK and US), ‘OO’ and ‘P4’ to ‘O’ gauge, along with a number of demonstration stands and trade support from the likes of Rainbow Railways, Durham Trains of Stanley and CM3 Models. A most enjoyable and friendly show, the venue was busy with enthusiasts of all ages, as well as many overseas tourists who popped in during their visit to the famous Fife…

Back in the old days, communities could borrow an ancient engine from the local museum to keep their services running. For this very reason, most town museums kept an ancient engine in full working order, and it could be borrowed for up to three weeks using a library card. Failure to return them on time could result in a 1d fine per day – about 25p in today's money. Railway folklore claims that the film classic The Titfield Thunderbolt was inspired by these antics, as this previously unseen documentary evidence shows.…

Dave Lowery has been remodelling the storage roads on his large ‘O’ gauge layout. Storage sidings, on the face of it, are a boring subject. But it's vital to have enough of them. For the last few years, I have spent so much time trying to ‘lose’ trains, as I continue to build more and more of them for my modern image ‘O’ gauge layout. As anyone who models in 7mm scale will tell you, it's not easy to hide a 12ft train – you can't exactly fold them up! And this is the contradiction of storage sidings. All those lovely locomotives, carriages and wagons hidden away out of view, only coming out intermittently to do a circuit or two before disappearing again. With the lack of stabling capacity having…

'N’ GAUGE LAYOUT CULTHWAITE “What makes this layout great? Phil has achieved everything he set out to with ‘Culthwaite’. He doesn't have many points that can go wrong, and the layout is all about keeping models moving. They may be more frequent than on the real ‘Settle & Carlisle’ but at an exhibition when you want people to look at your layout, ‘movement stops movement'!” The International N Gauge Show (TINGS) is a large, two-day affair held at the Warwickshire Event Centre every autumn. This year, the show takes place over the weekend of September 9-10 and, as always, there'll be a full range of modern image, steam, continental and American layouts on show, along with displays from various modelling societies and practical demonstrations. Long-time readers of Model Rail will…

Workbench EXPERT MODELLERS SHOW YOU HOW As described in last month's Workbench pages, my ‘Lisburn Lane’ layout project features a baseboard with a ‘dropped’ section, which was originally earmarked to form a river or stream. The Tim Horn laser-cut plywood baseboard kit is designed to allow the trains to traverse a sunken area of landscape, without the need to raise the track bed significantly (or at all). This is a real bonus for an otherwise flattopped board, as adding such features usually require the use of an open-framed baseboard. My early plans for a water-based feature changed, and the sunken area will now play host to what will be a moribund colliery or industrial railway line. A length of ‘OO9’ track has been temporarily laid, but a more recent idea…

Reviews Railway companies were often frugal, yet innovative. South Eastern & Chatham Railway chief mechanical engineer Richard Maunsell launched his ‘D1’ 4-4-0 into passenger service in the post-war austerity of 1921, but in truth, the class ought to have been credited at least as much to Harry Wainwright. For what Maunsell effectively did was design a new boiler and cylinders to fit a ‘D'. Rails of Sheffield and Dapol have jointly deployed some clever thinking to similarly adapt their earlier Wainwright model. Unveiled in summer 2021, it pre-empted the announcement in February 2022 that the ‘D1’ would naturally follow. What makes the adaption so effective is the totally new impression that the new ‘D1’ gives, despite the tooling being substantially recycled. Forget the subtle visual nuances separating Gresley's ‘A1’ and…

Reviews Heljan's ‘O’ gauge range of BR diesels continues to grow, and the latest addition has just arrived, in the bone-shaped form of the Class 58. Having rendered BR's last Doncasterbuilt diesel in ‘OO’, the Heljan team has created an even better version in 7mm scale. When introduced in the early 1980s, the ‘58’ presented something completely different to BR's existing traction fleet. Furthermore, the class also launched the new Railfreight sector's identity, marking a departure from the ‘corporate’ Rail blue livery hitherto applied to everything. The type certainly caught my imagination as a child, although I'd be frustrated in my efforts to ‘cop’ more than a handful of examples, as they seldom ran through my neck of the woods. Only when I was older, and could afford to travel…

The Liverpool & Manchester Railway 0-4-2 Lion is one of those lucky survivors from the early days of Britain's railways which would have been unlikely to have warranted a ready-to-run ‘OO’ gauge model had its ‘charmed life’ not led to a starring role in a movie. I well recall a Model Rail meeting in which we discussed new projects and I suggested that if there was to be a follow-up to Hornby's Stephenson's Rocket, Lion would be a good choice because, subject to clearance by the film's owners, one could do a Titfield Thunderbolt version. The fact that two manufacturers had the same idea at the same time but only one received the OK from the film's owners is old news. It led, however, to two models of Lion in…

Reviews The latest project from Sonic Models to reach fruition is the LNER ‘J50’ 0-6-0T in ‘N’ gauge. Designed by none other than Sir Nigel Gresley, the ‘J50’ was initially designed for the Great Northern Railway, primarily for shunting and freight duties in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Several batches were built over a 26-year period, with numerous differences implemented by the LNER, including a larger boiler, bunker and slightly different cab profile. Like Hornby's ‘OO’ model, Sonic has concentrated on the later ‘J50/3’ and ‘J50/4’ sub-classes, as built during the LNER era. Eight versions have been made and they're available exclusively from Rails of Sheffield, which is also offering a custom weathered option. There's an even split between LNER and BR liveries, with detail options to suit each prototype,…

Reviews Life always feels better when Class 40 models are in production, and Bachmann's upgraded version of the English Electric Type 4 has been promised for a while. Five new models have arrived this summer, all but one depicting disc headcode versions of the ‘Whistlers’, in various BR green and Rail blue livery options. The odd one out is Rail blue 40063, complete with square-edged centre headcode boxes, which were unique to certain Scottish Region ‘40s’ and is something hitherto unavailable in RTR form. Our sample portrays D213 Andania, in contemporary preserved condition, complete with a high-intensity headlight fitted at each end. Apart from the headlamps, there's virtually no change in appearance from Bachmann's most recent Class 40 tooling, introduced in 2014 (and a winner of Model Rail's Model of…

Reviews It's hard to argue against the ‘Western’ locomotives being among the best of British Railways diesel locomotives from the 1960s, especially in terms of looks. First released in 2013, Dapol's model still stands out as the most authentic rendition we've had so far in ‘OO’ gauge and it's great to see another production run appearing this summer. While the main Dapol range boasts a variety of number and livery options, STEAM, the Museum of the Great Western Railway at Swindon, has commissioned an exclusive run of 500 models depicting class pioneer D1000 Western Enterprise in desert sand livery. Dapol and STEAM have worked together before on a limited release of D1000 in this original, experimental livery. However, this latest version features small yellow warning panels, as applied in 1962.…