Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2024 i British Railway Modelling (BRM)

LAYOUT | OO | SHARNBROOK SUMMIT The choice of layout came about after the club had exhibited layouts at two previous club exhibitions, which were not very user-friendly and created lots of operating problems. So, a decision was made to scrap the layouts and start on a new layout. A meeting was called, and a member called Micke turned up with an article in Railway Deviation and Memories by a Rushden Research Group, written by P E B Butler. The article was about a stretch of the Midland Main Line between Irchester and Souldrop, and on looking at the plan, we realised it had everything we could want in a layout. There were lots of interesting bridges, a tunnel on the slow lines, a gradient on the main line and…

TOOL of the MONTH Rolling Road Rolling roads come in all sorts of sizes and designs and they are invaluable for testing locomotives. Being able to watch the wheels rotate without chasing the model along some track makes diagnosing problems with the valve gear, or even the motor and gears on a kit-built model, a lot easier. Beyond that, simply watching your latest purchase gently running-in on the workbench is a pleasure. Because of their complexity, rolling roads aren't cheap – a perfect candidate for a Christmas present perhaps? Ask Phil Is there an alternative to track pins? Pinning track down has been part of railway modelling since Frank Hornby was a lad, but there are other options. It's possible to buy tiny track screws, but these are incredibly fiddly. Some modellers…

ALL SKILL LEVELS Getting Practical THE CANALS were superseded by the railways, but they didn't disappear overnight and many are still around today. They are often located close to railways as the navigators chose the easiest routes. For example, in Bingley, West Yorkshire due to the terrain, the canal, river, main street, railway and bypass all pass close to each other along the valley floor. So there are compelling reasons to include a canal on your layout, and then you need boats, which is where this new kit comes in. The kit is made from laser-cut MDF and is accurate and quick to build with basic materials and PVA or wood glue. Since it is necessary to wait for the glue to dry before proceeding between steps, this is an ideal…

Getting Practical ALL SKILL LEVELS WE'RE BUILDING a model railway, so laying track is as fundamental a job as you can get. Don't worry though, it's not hard to do, as long as you take your time. Although I'm laying narrow-gauge track for our NG7 layout, the principles are the same for all scales. This is basically OO track with different sleepers after all. Lay one piece of track at a time, then keep checking and testing your work. I like to have a wagon to whizz up and down over every joint. If it runs smoothly at speed, the joint is probably good, but put your finger in the wagon, and feel how it rides as well. Sometimes, it helps to shut your eyes when doing this. Only move on…

‘Modern Traction’, when meaning anything not of the steam variety, has been part of the British railway scene since the late 1800s, mostly until the 1940s being powered by electricity. Multiple units made an early appearance and the Southern Railway developed a sizeable network and fleet, but at the formation of British Railways, a number of other isolated pockets of electric operation were to be found around the country. In the South of England, there were the long-standing suburban services from Euston introduced by the London and North Western Railway, but all the others were in the North of England on Tyneside, Merseyside and in the Manchester area, using a diverse array of stock as illustrated in the following images.…

RICHMOND | N | LAYOUT The station, goods shed, engine shed, signal box and gas works are all detailed in Ken Hoole's book with scale survey drawings. I scanned each elevation drawing so that I could import the images into my 2D CAD drawing package. Here, I was able to adjust the scanned images to an exact scale and then trace them digitally using a scale of 1:100 for convenience. This was very time-consuming, but eventually, I had 2D digital drawings of the elevations of all the buildings, and then it was only a click of the mouse to bring them to 1:148 and N gauge. With these, I was able to create cutting schedules to send to Stoneybridge Structures to have the windows and walls laser-cut. For the ‘brickpaper’,…

NEWS THE LATEST HEADLINES Five new locomotives make up the initial announcement, with an Accurascale Exclusive and a second announcement in the coming months featuring another Class 37 subclass as part of this production run. The five locomotives announced as the Class 37/4 main range are as follows; • 37408 Loch Rannoch EWS Maroon/Gold • 37414 Railfreight Construction • 37420 The Scottish Hosteller Large Logo w/Highland ‘stag’ • 37421 Colas Rail • 37429 Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Large Logo w/Welsh dragon Building on the specification of the existing Accurascale Class 37s, this new production run sees all new tooling to cater for the Class 37/4 variant (and other future variants), which now includes the operating roof fan, which is synced to the DCC sound file and also operates on…

NEWS Rapido Trains UK will be producing its first OO Midland Railway locomotive, the 483 Class 4-4-0 tender engine. Already at tooling stage, the Rapido Trains rendition of the 483 Class will be available in liveries that cover the locomotive's lengthy history. These include several in the regal Crimson of the Midland Railway, a striking S&DJR blue example and a selection of LMS and BR liveries, too. Detail variations include representations of locos from earlier and later rebuild batches, as well as the alterations, additions, and subtractions of parts throughout their lives, including superheater dampers, chimneys, tablet catchers, domes, safety valves, rivet patterns, tender toolboxes, bogie brakes, exhaust injector and more. Available to pre-order now, there will be 12 available liveries from launch and the new model is priced at…

NEWS Revolution Trains is at Innotrans in Berlin to announce that it is offering the new GBRf bi-mode Class 99 Co-Co locomotive in OO gauge. The locomotives are being financed by Beacon Rail and built by Stadler, and are based on the successful EuroDual design, albeit made narrower and lower to fit the British loading gauge. CAD is almost complete and Revolution is aiming for the locomotives to ship once the real things enter squadron service. The models will be available in DC form, with switchable light functions, and DCC Sound, with options including working roof fans and a pantograph that can be remotely raised or lowered. Although the Class 99 shares a superficial similarity to the Rail Operations Group Class 93 tri-mode locomotives already being offered by Revolution Trains,…

The 76-tonne capacity, 102-tonne glw, HOA bogie aggregate hoppers were introduced by English Welsh & Scottish Railways in 2006, with the first batch of 68, built at Trinity Rail's Astra Vagoane workshops in Romania, being allocated to design code HO002A and numbered 320000-67. Fitted with Axiom Rail TF25 ‘Low Track Force’ bogies, the wagons were slab-sided with three sets of discharge door, while their ends were fully enclosed with sloping panels to protect the brake cylinders and associated equipment during loading. Initially, the first batch of HOAs were painted cream with two thin maroon stripes, EWS Construction lettering, and the three-animal heads logo, while their solebars and bogies were grey. When new, the wagons were used to carry sand from the Tarmac loading sidings at Marks Tey to Hayes &…

LAYOUT | OO9 | SKARLOEY The conception of this layout began long ago, when I was around the age of 6 or 7. I remember having my first Skarloey book read to me by my late father. The book was No. 14 of Reverend W. Awdry's Railway Series: The Little Old Engine. This was the second of the Skarloey books, the first being Book 10 Four Little Engines, telling the story of the narrow gauge engines working the 2ft 3in railway up the valley to Ward Fell, the copper and slate quarry. The first story, Trucks, became a firm favourite. One area that created much discussion between my father and me was the quarry incline and water aqueduct that featured at the quarry. This memory stayed with me through to…

SHOW PREVIEW | THE NATIONAL FESTIVAL OF RAILWAY MODELLING Trade Stands • Accurascale • AGR Model Railway Store • Airframed Glass Display Cases • Alan Gibson Workshop • Anoraks Anonymous • Aspire Gifts and Models • Bill Hudson Transport Books • Booklaw Publications • BRITISH RAILWAY MODELLING MAGAZINE • Brushes 4 Models • Buggleskelly Station • C-Rail Intermodal • Cheltenham Model Centre • Connoisseur Wrenn • Crecy Publishing • Culcheth Model Railways • DC Drives • D&E Videos and Books • DCC Concepts • DCC Train Automation • Deluxe Materials • Digitrains • DMG Technical • Dovetail Games • Dundas Models • Elaine's Trains • Ellis Clark • EKM Exhibitions • ESU • Fairbourne Steam Railway • First Class Prints • Footplate Models • Garden Railway Specialist • Gaugemaster •…

Getting Practical ALL SKILL LEVELS WHAT'S ONE of the first jobs to do when adding scenery to your layout? Fitting a backscene. Not only will a nice background frame the scene, but it will hide any clutter behind the layout, including wallpaper, or the bellies of operators. Those with artistic skills can skip this article. Dig out your brushes and paints, then create a lovely scene. However, the rest of us will need to consider other options. Whatever you choose, remember, the most important feature of any backscene is that it doesn't detract from the model. Keep colours muted, and limit detail. After all, it's the 3D stuff in the front that we are really interested in! 1 There's no rule that says you must have a backscene, but all the…

Until the 1960s, coal was the commodity that accounted for the largest number of rail freight terminals in the UK. Ports and power stations ranked among the busiest coal receiving locations, often justifying direct trains from individual collieries or key yards in coal-mining areas. Gasworks once received huge tonnages of coal by rail, albeit scattered across many locations. Other major destinations included coking plants, steelworks and cement plants. Numerous station goods yards had facilities for one or more coal merchants, and many private siding connections handled coal alongside other freight. By the 1970s, most gasworks had been made redundant by supplies of natural gas from the North Sea. The number of station coal yards and small industrial terminals receiving coal was drastically reduced. BR did its best to keep domestic…

The era of loco-haulage on the East Coast main Line (ECML) has quite rightly been remembered for the ‘Deltics’ - those idiosyncratic, temperamental thoroughbreds that plied their trade on this route for two decades. These locos, as many readers of TRACTION will be aware of, brought stellar levels of both power and performance, well above what even the best Type 4s could manage elsewhere. By the autumn of 1982, HSTs had a monopoly on express workings out of the ‘Cross’ and what remained were the peak hour commuter workings to Peterborough, the sleepers and the odd daytime long distance working, which was usually a Class 47 preserve. As late as Easter 1991, loco-hauled extras occurred on the ECML. Yours truly went up to Sunderland to stay with my grandmother and…

PROTOTYPE Andrew Barclay Sons & Co. Ltd. of Kilmarnock was Britain's leading manufacturer of fireless locomotives, building 114, 19 for export and 95 for the home market, between 1912 and 1961. In place of a conventional boiler, fireless locomotives are fitted with a steel reservoir, which is filled to the greater part with water before then being charged with steam from a stationary boiler at a pressure of from 160 to 170lbs. per sq. in. This increases the pressure of the water in the reservoir to that of the steam and then, as steam is discharged in powering the locomotive, the pressure gradually falls and as it does so more steam is given off by the super-heated water in the reservoir, thus allowing the locomotive to work for between three…

The model will be offered in original and preserved forms and should be available towards the end of 2025. The CADs are complete and the design team is making its final deliberations before committing to tooling. The new models are priced at £140.00 DCC-Ready and £175 DCC-Fitted. Available in a variety of liveries, including BR Black Early Crest, NER Lined Green, LNER Pre-War Unlined Black and BR Lined Apple Green, specification highlights include LNER “Group Standard” buffers, NER wheel and handle smokebox door locking, smokebox numberplate for BR period, blackened nickel-plated driving wheels, brass bearings, pick-up from all six driving wheels and direct springing to centre driving wheel bearings to ensure electrical contact.…

It's been my privilege on numerous occasions to have the opportunity to assess new models during their ‘proving’ period. Just such another opportunity presented itself when Ben Jones brought over Heljan's LNER Garratt for testing/assessment on my ‘Little Bytham’ layout. This is a pre-production/proving model, but already it's very impressive. 2025 will see the centenary of the building of the largest, heaviest and most-powerful steam locomotive ever to operate on a British railway, in the form of the 2-8-0-0-8-2 Beyer Garratt (it wasn't quite the longest – the LMS Garratts were just a bit more in length, but nowhere near as powerful). Built by Beyer Peacock in Gorton (Manchester) for the LNER, its first ‘showing’ was at the Stockton & Darlington centenary celebrations of the same year. It was built…

For more information and to book your ticket, visit www.nfrm.co.uk All the layouts coming to the NEC* • A Nice layout • Aberdeen Kirkhill T&RSD • All Change at Chirk • All the Fun of the Fair • Allerby • Barrihandie • Bear Creek Junction • Bicsdale • Blueball Summit • Bond Lane • Bournemouth West • Branston & Heighington • Brinklow • Burdock • Campbell's Quarry • Clayton End Signalman • Dixon Green • Falcon Road • Fareford Depot • Fareport Wharf • Fredstone Lane • Folly Lane • Fordon Hill • Four Seasons & Mynydd Tatws • Foxbury • Holcombe Beach • Kepier Colliery • Kirkwood West Rising • Kirtley Bridge • Leysdown • Lisworth Bay • Llawryglyn • LNUR Northern Layout • LNUR Playout • Megsdorf •…

THE CLASS 47 was built in large numbers and lots of photographs are available online to use as reference material. You will find that there are lots of options when it comes to weathering these locomotives depending upon their usage, time out of workshop, cleaning regime and era, etc. Take into account that film emulsion produces different colour results, and lighting when the shot was taken also has an effect. I used acrylic paints throughout and a double-action airbrush. Have the courage to mix your own colours rather than be constrained by pre-mixes. When weathering, you can often retain material in the cup between steps which will save you time. 1 Measure the length of the wipers with digital callipers, draw the shape on masking tape and cut out using…

Getting Practical ALL SKILL LEVELS THE HUMBLE toilet block is perhaps the least glamorous of station facilities but nonetheless provides an essential service. The stone-built prototype for this Dapol 7mm scale kit is Chelfham on the 2-foot gauge Lynton and Barnstaple Railway, although it would suit any minor railway station. The kit uses a mixed-media approach with laser-cut card accompanied by plastic detail parts, and although the parts appear complex, the clever design and excellent downloadable instructions mean it requires no special skills. The grey card could be left unpainted but looks much better painted. I've little experience of painting card, so I used waste fret card to practise on before committing paint to the model. I also chose to add a few more details to suit a modern preservation era.…

LAYOUT | N | RICHMOND Following the completion of my ‘Alston’ layout (featured in BRM October 2023) F and its launch onto the exhibition circuit, my thoughts turned to my next project. Once more, I wanted to design a compact exhibition N gauge layout and, for inspiration I looked again at Ken Hoole's book, North-Eastern Branch Line Termini. (ISBN 0-86093-219-2). The station at Richmond in North Yorkshire looked interesting and challenging for a modelmaker. I was very familiar with Richmond but had no idea where the station was. The town is located on top of a hill in the shadow of its Norman castle keep, and, not surprisingly, the station is located on flatter ground, and this is some distance away from the town and across the river. What was…

World of Railways has teamed up with Rapido to produce an exclusive, limited edition BP-liveried version of its recently announced Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 Caledonia Fireless locomotive. This exclusive model is in the BP livery carried by works number 2238, delivered in February 1948 to Distillers Co Ltd. for its British Resin Products plant in Barry, South Wales. BP acquired Distillers in 1967, with the livery of the locomotive changing to that which we see in Rapido's renders of our forthcoming model, with BP's well-known shield logo used from 1961-1989. The product run is strictly limited. A DCC-Ready version can be ordered at a price of £139.95, with a DCC-Sound version at £249.95. Secure your locomotive for a small deposit of just £30. For more information and to order visit: https://worldofrailways.hooluh.co.uk/locomotives…

Clark Railworks has unveiled images of the first engineering samples of its upcoming OO gauge WD 2-10-0. Due for release at the end of 2025/beginning of 2026, the new WD 2-10-0 will be Clark Railworks’ first OO locomotive. DCC-Ready models are priced at £295, with DCC Sound prices yet to be confirmed. The Westinghouse pump, top valves and pipework are all separately-fitted parts and the specification highlights include a die-cast boiler, separate fire irons, left and right-hand drive locomotives, firebox glow and fully removable front and rear tension-lock coupling. Available liveries: WD Khaki Green, Longmoor Military Railway Blue, BR Black, BR Black Early Crest & BR Black Late Crest…

Engineering Prototypes have been revealed ahead of their inclusion in the Winter 2024 British Railway Announcements. Three bogie luggage vans entered traffic with the Ffestiniog Railway between 1873 and 1876, the bodies for which were built by Brown, Marshall & Co. and these were fitted with bogies and brake gear at the railway's own Boston Lodge works. Known at the time as ‘Turtle Roof Vans’ owing to their uniquely shaped roofs, but now commonly termed ‘Curly Roof Vans’, each van comprised a guard's compartment with end platform, a large luggage compartment and a small compartment for dogs. The new model is mounted onto a diecast metal underframe, with engraved planking on the guard's platform and rivet detail along the solebar and at either end. Further external features include the handrail…