Model Rail

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the 300th issue of Model Rail. It marks an important milestone for the magazine and the MR team, especially our consultant editor Chris Leigh, who has been here since the very beginning. We’ve marked the occasion with a special section in the centre of the magazine, where you can read about how Model Rail came into being and browse our history via a collection of all 299 previous covers. Looking back through our archive has been a fascinating experience, revealing just how much our hobby has changed, in some respects at least. In other ways, it has remained reassuringly familiar. On pages 6-7 we present reportage of the recent exhibition of Britain’s Biggest Model Railway (BBMR), held near Shepton Mallett just before Easter.…

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The latest happenings from the world of model railways Over a three-day weekend, April 8-10, the Royal Bath & West Showground, near Shepton Mallett, played host to ‘Heaton Lodge Junction’, the extraordinary ‘O’ gauge layout billed as Britain’s Biggest Model Railway. This was only the layout’s second public outing, following a week-long stint in Wakefield town centre in early December. At around 200ft long and 50ft wide, ‘Heaton Lodge Junction’ certainly is substantial, and the logistics of moving the layout and the huge amount of rolling stock down to Somerset was no small undertaking. I made my visit on the Friday and was greeted by a very healthy number of visitors already in the hall, enthralled by the constant procession of scale-length trains passing along the scenic section. Plenty of coverage in…

We were lucky enough to receive one of Accurascale’s hotly anticipated Class 55s, just in time for our special cover shoot. Indeed, you can read the full story behind the cover on page 20. Our sample, portraying D9014 The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, sports BR green livery with full yellow ends and, to our surprise, it turned out to be a DCC sound-fitted version, which boasts two large speakers. Accordingly, the emotive tones of a pair of Napier powerplants have been emanating from George’s home office, much to the bemusement of his cats! Accurascale’s stock of the Class 55s was due to arrive around the time that this issue goes on sale, with a ‘production’ sample expected at Model Rail HQ imminently. Therefore, we will be putting both ‘Deltics’ through their paces…

To mark this landmark issue of Model Rail, we’ve assembled a glittering array of ‘OO’ gauge locomotives from Hornby, Bachmann and Heljan, plus a wagon pack from Accurascale and a pair of GWR buildings from the Hornby Skaledale range. To enter, simply got to www.model-rail.co.uk/300-competition and answer the following question. Q: In what year did the first issue of Model Rail magazine appear? A – 1987 B – 1997 C – 2007 Here are the prizes to be won 1. Hornby R3623 LMS ‘Princess Coronation’ No. 6221 Queen Elizabeth, LMS Coronation Blue (worth £189.99) 2. Hornby R3770 ‘First and Last’ pair of Class 43 HST power cars, 43002 Sir Kenneth Grange, retro BR blue/grey, 43198 Driver Brian Cooper, GWR green, gloss finish (worth £289.99) 3. Heljan 33281 Class 33/2 No. 6593, BR blue (worth £125.00) 4. Hornby R3721…

A quartet of inspirational rail-related books that has inspired Model Rail’s editor this month… The sub-title – Iconic Scenes of Trains & Architecture – sums up the contents of this book succinctly. The author presents a host of beautiful images featuring trains as part of a wider landscape, with famous bridges, viaducts and well-known locations adding the ‘garnish’. The material is based on 21st-century views of the UK network, including heritage railways, and each colour image is accompanied by extensive captions. The reproduction of this hardback is to a high standard and I particularly enjoyed the images around the Cumbrian coast and Morecambe Bay. There’s a welcome diversity of traction and geographical location, with some less-obvious parts of the country being a welcome inclusion. Book: Images of the British Railway Landscape by…