Tabla de contenidos para November 2023 en Model Rail

Having been commissioned by GB Railfreight to create 7mm scale models of the re-engineered Class 69 diesel locomotives, Dave Lowery initially made use of a Class 56 kit from PR Model Railway Products. Dave's comprehensive conversion work was chronicled in August 2021's Model Rail (MR289), along with a ‘OO’ conversion using a Hornby model as the donor. However, the introduction of Heljan's impressive ‘O’ gauge Class 56 last year gave Dave a headstart on a few more Class 69 conversion projects he had lined up. Indeed, he recently gave the Model Rail team a sneak peek at the first finished model off the production line. Once again, Dave made use of 3D-printed parts from Simon Brooking for the revised roof, cab and underframe components, along with decals from Precision Labels…

As mentioned on this month's Welcome page, I've fostered an interest in the Class 60s since the project's genesis in the late 1980s. My affection for the powerful Type 5s grew in the 2000s, as many examples began to fall by the wayside, yet their distinctive sound and earth-shaking characteristics continued to provide a daily highlight during my time living beside the Hope Valley line. Indeed, my working days would often be geared around the Tunstead-Oakleigh limestone trains, which always guaranteed a ‘60'. With a handful of Hornby Class 60s already in my collection, I didn't require much persuasion to add a few more, not least as EWS- and early DB-era ‘60s’ offer a seemingly endless array of livery quirks. BR and Trainload Freight company schemes lingered and even those…

‘O’ GAUGE LAYOUT CREECHLY What makes this layout great? The potential of ‘O’ gauge never ceases to amaze us. Steve has done a great job with the details at ‘Creechly’. It's hard to know sometimes where the layout ends and the real world begins! For those among us who have built layout after layout after layout, have you found yourselves sticking to the same area and modelling the same sort of thing time and time again? If that describes you, have you ever thought about mixing it up and trying something new? It doesn't seem that long ago that we featured Steve Fay in the pages of Model Rail with his ‘O’ gauge layout ‘Westbourne Bridge’. That's because it wasn't, and if you want to read about how he built…

Having worked with Bachmann to produce the SR ‘USA’ 0-6-0T with its short wheelbase ‘dock shunter’ chassis and bulky boiler/tanks arrangement, the Model Rail team gave some thought to what other locomotives might be produced with a variant of the same basic chassis geometry. Not surprisingly, the Hawksworth GWR/BR ‘15XX’ came up in conversation, as this was another short wheelbase 0-6-0 with a substantial boiler/tank ‘body’ to house the mechanism, decoder and speakers for a sound version. In the event, nothing came of it, but it was no surprise when the ‘15XX’ 0-6-0PT was announced as an early project by the newly created Rapido Trains UK. In the meantime we've had an industrial 0-6-0ST from Rapido and the diminutive L&MR Lion 0-4-0 but the Hawksworth-designed, Swindon-built ‘15XX’ 0-6-0PT is the…

Reviews Although ordered in 1915, the first batch of GWR Toplight coaches was not built until 1920 and featured a steel body rather than the typical wood panelling of previous designs. Marshalled into close-coupled sets of six vehicles, comprising a mix of Third class, Composite and Third Brake coaches, they were intended primarily for commuter traffic into London. By the days of British Railways, however, they had moved much further afield, before withdrawal came in the late 1950s. A few examples survived in workmen's trains in South Wales, carrying miners in the Rhondda Valley, two of which are now preserved at Didcot Railway Centre. First announced last year, to great excitement among GWR fans, Dapol's models were due to arrive with retailers within weeks of this issue hitting the shelves.…

Locomotive: ‘Binliner’ waste containers Gauge: ‘OO’ and ‘N’ Proposed by: Ian Callander What is it? Across a fair portion of the UK network, ‘Binliner’ trains can be seen at work on a daily basis, carrying compacted household waste from urban centres to disposal points. A usual train may consist of about 16 wagons, with three 20ft containers loaded on each vehicle. There are a number of different container designs in use, but these mainly boil down to three basic types. For as long as I've been modelling modern image subjects (about 20 years now), I've yet to see any of the major manufacturers offer a ‘Binliner’ container off-the-shelf, despite the presence of an almost bewildering variety of other ISO sea containers, ‘Reefers’ and ‘Tanktainers’ on the market. What would make…

The Big Picture For some reason we always tried to avoid them when we were at school, but in the world of model railways, group projects are great! Generally, combining the skills and expertise of more than one modeller results in a much better final layout, which is no different here with ‘Pencader’. The members of the Cardiff 4mm ‘EM’ Group are very diplomatic when it comes to deciding what to construct, and you can read more about how they decided on ‘Pencader’ in an upcoming issue of Model Rail.…

Unusual scenes captured by the lens of Chris Nevard Every autumn and spring, when the clocks change, the little people have to adjust the position of the ancient standing stones to compensate for the loss or gain of an hour. They've been doing this since the introduction of Daylight Saving Time in 1916. However, during the Second World War, British Double Summer Time (BDST) was introduced. Owing to general confusion and lack of manpower, the locals decided not to move the stones at all during that time, reverting to their annual practice in the Spring of 1946.…

Show & Tell After many years of travelling on standard gauge railways, I finally got the chance to travel on another of the Great Little Trains of Wales over summer. This time I took a round trip on the Talyllyn Railway, which runs through southern Snowdonia, giving me the chance to enjoy the 14.5-mile round trip which has been running since 1865. The trip took me from Tywyn on the mid-Wales coast, through Pendre, Rhydyronen, Brynglas, Dolgoch Falls and Abergynolwyn stations, to terminate at Nant Gwernol. Opened in 1865, the line was built to carry slate from quarries in the surrounding hills. The quarries closed in 1946 but, in 1951, the railway was taken over by the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society, which was a world first. To model a part…

‘OO’ GAUGE LAYOUT MARSHEND What makes this layout great? “Doug has used all of his experience working on a heritage railway to create a detailed model of the local area. By having access to areas that most of us don't see, he's been able to show us what the lineside is really like, and that keeps catching your eye when observing the model.” The importance of recycling has never been greater, and model railways are generally quite a wasteful hobby. Single-use cotton buds used for weathering head straight into landfill and, if we all checked our stock cupboards, at least one (if not more) of the paints has probably dried out. Therefore, when the opportunity arises for recycling it's important that we take it. Whether that's keeping scraps for use…

As progress on my current ‘OO’ gauge layout project continues, a significant scenic feature was completed recently, in the form of a set of stone retaining walls. The walls line a shallow cutting, in which a colliery line runs below a series of bridges. The restricted headroom and curved nature of the colliery line are designed to create an interesting visual addition to the overall scene. Having covered the construction of the bridges in previous issues (MR316/7), here we'll focus on how the sections of retaining wall were created. Visual consistency would be key to getting the scene looking right, so the use of Wills textured plastic sheet was essential, as the same material features on the adjacent bridge piers, as well as the station platform and overbridge at the…

Imagine a place where you can run full-size trains around a giant circuit at speeds of up to 125mph, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Build in a range of curved and inclined tracks, switchbacks and crossings and even multiple track gauges, plus facilities to test, maintain and validate everything from urban trams to high-speed supertrains and you have the perfect inspiration for a layout that really breaks the mould. Many years ago, Model Rail was the first magazine to build a ‘Total Test Facility’ to put new models through their paces as part of the review process. The ‘TTF’ was an invaluable resource for the magazine, allowing us to identify the strengths and weaknesses of models and share our findings with readers. On a much larger scale,…

Reviews It will soon be 42 years since British Rail withdrew the last ‘Deltics’, with the final Class 55s taken out of service in January 1982. Accordingly, the surviving examples have now operated twice as long in preservation and Heljan's latest batch of ‘O’ gauge ‘Deltics’ finally cater for fans of the Napier-powered diesels in their later years. Despite releasing a 7mm scale ‘Deltic’ back in 2011, the Heljan tooling offered limited choice, with the four-character headcodes and several other features suiting the 1960s and early 1970s era. As visitors to recent exhibitions will attest, there's now a burgeoning market for ‘O’ gauge diesels representing the late 1970s and 1980s period of British Rail and Heljan has duly answered the call from enthusiasts to portray these mighty Type 5s in…

Reviews The third batch of Accurascale's Class 37s arrived in September and we were lucky enough to receive a sound-fitted sample of 37605, resplendent in the original Direct Rail Services blue livery. The Class 37/6 fleet was created in the mid-1990s, when a dozen locomotives were converted for European Passenger Services (EPS), with the intention of hauling Nightstar services between London and the South West/South Wales, as well as moving Class 373 Eurostar sets with the aid of barrier vehicles. The 12 chosen locomotives were taken from the Class 37/5 sub-class (confusingly, some of the refurbished Class 37/5s – designed for freight work – also carried numbers in the 376XX series!) and modified at Doncaster Works in 1994. Along with the previous modifications, including extra fuel tanks and replacement alternators,…

Following the success of its ‘OO’ locomotives, Accurascale has turned its attention to ‘O’ gauge, with the Ruston & Hornsby 88DS 0-4-0 first to enter development. Having dipped its toe in 7mm scale in 2019 with the acclaimed 24.5t HUO hopper wagon, Accurascale had made no secret of its plans to expand its ‘O’ gauge portfolio and the R&H 88DS will offer a great reason for space-starved modellers to make a start in the ‘senior’ scale. Following the 48DS diesel locomotives in the 1930s, Ruston & Hornsby soon developed a more powerful, 88hp chain-drive machine. The resultant 88DS featured a four-speed gearbox and boasted a surprising amount of tractive effort, able to shunt trains of up to 500tons on level track. From 1938, examples were delivered to many industrial customers…

It's the mid-1980s. Despite the trauma of the still-recent Miners’ Strike, coal is still ‘king’ for British Rail's Railfreight sector. Coal from pits and ports to ower stations provides much of the sector's income and there's no sign of that changing for the foreseeable future. Other traditional heavy industries such as steel, petrochemicals and construction are in long-term decline but still provide the railway with tens of millions of tonnes of traffic every year. But the picture is far from rosy. Beyond the intensive merry-go-round (MGR) coal circuits, much of Railfreight's operation is inefficient and loss-making, and depends on a diverse fleet of ageing and unreliable locomotives, many of which date back to the early 1960s. Even the younger members of the fleet, the Class 56s – backbone of the…

When David, a friend of mine who lives over 100 miles away, asked me to make a river for his ‘N’ gauge layout, I knew I had a challenge on my hands. All water features take time to create and, while the work involved on any day might be less than 30 minutes – owing to the need for materials to dry thoroughly between each stage – it often takes me around 10 days to complete the average river or pond scene. That includes the time involved in preparing the base and adding the final touches, such as frothy waves. In this instance, David assured me, the river would be just 30mm wide and 300mm long, being located at the base of a steep valley and representing a fast-flowing water…

Suitable buildings are relatively easy to obtain from a wide range of sources, or you could build your own from scratch using plastic sheet from the likes of Evergreen and Slaters. Suitable modern industrial and office buildings are produced by Peco, Walthers, Kibri and Faller for ‘OO'/‘HO’, while Peco also offers kits of railway office buildings in ‘OO'/'N'. Other useful additions at the lineside could include Faller's electricity transformer station (item code 130958) and modern concrete road bridges, available in ‘HO’ and ‘N’. Walthers also produces an excellent long-span concrete railway bridge suitable for ‘OO'/'HO’ (item code 933-4592). Other essentials include concrete sleeper track and pointwork produced by Peco and Tillig and overhead line equipment (OLE) can be sourced from Peco, Sommerfeldt or Viessmann. Concrete slab track is not currently…

Reviews In the early 1950s, the Tyne Improvement Commission, British Railways and the Consett Iron Company launched a joint project to improve the flow of iron ore from Tyne Dock to the steel works at Consett. Automated loading and unloading facilities were installed and a fleet of new, high-capacity hopper wagons built with air-operated discharge doors. Initially, these new wagons were hauled by a dedicated fleet of ‘O1’ 2-8-0s and ‘Q7’ 0-8-0s, each equipped with air pumps to operate the wagon's doors. As BR's Standard Class 9F 2-10-0s came on stream, ten examples (Nos. 92060-66 and Nos. 9209799) were modified from new, with twin Westinghouse air pumps, reservoir tanks and piping. The ‘9Fs’ replaced the ex-LNER traction in 1956 and their superior tractive effort allowed each train to be increased…

Reviews It may not have the glamour of a ‘Pacific’, but the humble War Department ‘Austerity’ 0-6-0ST must surely rank as one of the most important steam locomotive designs in UK history. Built in large numbers by a variety of manufacturers, over a 20-year period, examples continued in frontline industrial use into the 1980s and a staggering number survived into preservation. Offered in ‘N’ gauge by Graham Farish since the mid-1980s, a 2mm scale model with greater fidelity and modern features has been long overdue. Enter the new EFE Rail ‘Austerity’, which has been produced in association with Kernow Model Rail Centre. Six versions are now available, including a pair of BR ‘J94s’ (as purchased from the War Department by the LNER), plus a colourful quartet of industrial liveries denoting…

A vailable in ready-torun ‘N’ gauge for the first time, the striking Tiger Rail PBA china clay hopper has been added to the EFE Rail range. Designed and developed with the staff at Kernow Model Rail Centre, who produced a ‘OO’ version under its own brand a few years ago, the wagons represent a type introduced to the UK in the early 1980s. A regular sight on BR Speedlink workings, the hoppers operated long-distance china clay workings from Cornwall to the Potteries of Staffordshire, as well as the paper mills of Scotland. They were also employed on export traffic via the Channel Tunnel. Eight versions are now available, split across the original striking white livery and the later blue scheme, applied after the wagons passed to Tiphook Rail. There's also…