Kit building brass Mk1 coaches – before the RTR versions arrive
The Model Railway Club Blog
by Tom Cunnington
3M ago
The Great Northern (King’s Cross) suburban services in the 1950s-70s were characterised by the ‘short’ Mark 1 non-gangway coaches – normally hauled by Class 31 diesels. The majority of coaches and trains were formed of compartment third/second class coaches, as manufactured for several years by Bachmann in OO, and these would have formed the bulk of services to and from Minories. The outer suburban services were operated with Composite Lavatory ‘CL’ and Second Lavatory Open ‘SLO’ coaches – with very different and obvious window layouts – and I wanted a set to give a little variety to the coach ..read more
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Santa’s Sleigh
The Model Railway Club Blog
by Timothy Watson
3M ago
As usual the MRC held its pre-Christmas mini exhibition in earlier this month. The York Road tube diorama had its first outing with a working train for the show with certain features such as this little 3DP of Santa in his sleigh with four reindeer out front. They had landed on the YR tube station roof and attracted many favourable comments from the audience, not least Phil Parker from BRM who was surprised to see such a model on Copenhagen Fields (CF).  In discussion, I indicated that I thought it was capable of improvement, especially in the motive power department; CF is, after all, 2m ..read more
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Making Tracks (for Chester) 3
The Model Railway Club Blog
by Lawrence Robbins
8M ago
For the third year I (and our treasurer Gus Paul) have had the opportunity to support Pete Waterman, and the Railnuts, installing their latest layout into Chester Cathedral earlier this week. “Making Tracks 3” is the most complex yet as it features Milton Keynes station with 6 platform faces and a bay. Two of the lines are bi-directional requiring adjustments to the control systems. As well as more large buildings, and all the usual details of a station, the layout features car parks, working signalling. The detailed OLE is tensioned so that the pantographs rest on the wires. A new feature th ..read more
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Award Winning MRC
The Model Railway Club Blog
by Tom Cunnington
1y ago
We were delighted to be recognised in the 2022 British Railway Modelling Awards – presented at the London Festival of Railway Modelling (LFORM) at Alexandra Palace on 19th March. The awards are nominated by and then voted for by the public, and there were string fields in every category Our 2mm layout Copenhagen Fields won the Gold award for best layout – here’s club president and co-layout leader Tim Watson collecting the award from our chairman Tony Cox And LFORM 2022 was awarded the Silver award in the best exhibition category – here is MRC Exhibition Manger Tom Cunnington collecting the a ..read more
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A new home test track
The Model Railway Club Blog
by Tom Cunnington
1y ago
One of the great benefits of MRC membership is access to the test tracks, allowing us to run our models on a decent sized circuit to run them in, and identify any niggles. Many of us will also have a short section of track at home and if we’re lucky maybe a ‘rolling road’ to enable us to just the basics of running but it’s not the same as accumulating mileage on track for those who don’t have space for a home layout. I am fortunate enough to have a dedicated workshop space at home, and whilst it isn’t large enough to build any sort of sensible continuous run layout, there is just space for a c ..read more
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Skittle Alley for Copenhagen Fields
The Model Railway Club Blog
by Timothy Watson
1y ago
Further to my progress over the summer holidays (see this blog) The Raven NER 4-6-2 class (AKA ‘Skittle Alley’) now has a running chassis. https://youtu.be/i16nnr6LEfk It will need some careful engineering to get it round corners, but should be OK. It certainly won’t be short of weight and traction when finished. The stepped running plate will call for some careful construction. The post Skittle Alley for Copenhagen Fields appeared first on The Model Railway Club ..read more
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Bow Junction’s Summer Progress
The Model Railway Club Blog
by Peter Mann
1y ago
Bow Junction’s turn to be erected in the Lower Hall started just after the May Open Day so it was erected near the start of June and was taken down and packed away on the middle of August to make room for Putnam. This was in fact the first time that all of Bow Junction was erected. It included two of the three fiddle yards. These two fiddle yards were constructed in my home workshop during the lockdowns. A third fiddle yard to accommodate traffic going towards Fenchurch Street still has to be built. The design of this fiddle yard may be different in order to take up a smaller space. Originall ..read more
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Orchard Wharf – fleet of 15s
The Model Railway Club Blog
by Tom Cunnington
1y ago
James has been busy with his ‘late period’ class 15s locomotives.  They have all been converted to EM gauge conversion plus had new couplings fitting. DCC has been installed including stay alive just in case our trackwork isn’t quite up to scratch. And of course the slightly fiddly pack of detail parts added. Now he’s moved on to and is part way through with the weathering.  He’s been using enamel paints for this and trying to replicate the general patterns of weathering seen on photographs of the era. One of the locomotives, D8229, has not yet received any weathering to the body ..read more
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Holiday Works
The Model Railway Club Blog
by Timothy Watson
1y ago
Hope you’re all enjoying the summer weather. Thought it was about time for a workshop update. The next loco from the Darlington works in St Albans will be a Skittle Alley, AKA a Raven NER 4-6-2 No. 2400. It will make a striking and exactly contemporaneous partner to Valour on CF. (Just needs someone to make a decent NER Dynamometer Car). A holiday start was made on the tender, reduced from the original Steve Barnsfield artwork for Mick Simpson: many thanks to Mick and Chris Higgs for letting me have some etches. The fit of the parts is excellent and so the body work made good progress. T ..read more
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A Shay in 1:160 scale
The Model Railway Club Blog
by Webmaster
2y ago
Tom Knapp writes from Hawaii: I’ve just completed construction of an interesting 1:160 narrow gauge locomotive kit from Showcase Miniatures. It is designed to run on 6.5mm gauge track, simulating 3-foot narrow gauge. The model is West Side Lumber Company’s three-truck Shay No. 12. West Side Lumber Company (and its predecessor the West Side Flume & Lumber Co.) operated a railroad in Sierra Nevada mountains of California from 1898 until 1961, hauling logs from camps in the Sierras to the sawmill in Tuolumne. Their locomotive roster included Heisler’s, rod engines and a fleet of Shays. Shay ..read more
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