Tag Archives: model railway

Minories #1 – the original design

There are few model railway plans that can be deemed ‘classic’.  One surely must be the late Cyril Freezer’s ‘Minories’ plan.  The plan was the result a flash of inspiration whilst waiting for a train, then some doodling to try the … Continue reading

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Shelf layout design

An interesting clinic presented at the NMRA MCR “Thoroughbred Limited” Convention May 13-18, 2015 by Philip Gliebe.  It’s interesting as this is an American looking largely at UK branch line layouts for inspiration.  ‘Shelf layouts’ in the USA are often … Continue reading

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No New Ideas

Mike Cougill continues to post challenging – and dare I say it philosophical – articles on his OST blog.  It is not that common to read contributions from authors who can build models, but also to think and write.  Here … Continue reading

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Tolworth 2016

A year has slipped past, and once again I scrounged a lift off Derek Atfield to pay a visit to the Tolworth Showtrain exhibition.  And once again I nearly didn’t go – it was a foul wet morning – and … Continue reading

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Odd modelling idea #96

I don’t think I’ve done this one before!  From the Daily Telegraph and CNN (amongst others.) Main road swallowed up as huge sinkhole collapses in centre of Japanese city Residents of a major Japanese city woke up to a main … Continue reading

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The Patch

An interesting part of the Los Angeles railway system was ‘The Patch’, an industrial area near downtown Los Angeles, served by the Santa Fe.  The area contains many old buildings and industries, served by a patchwork of tracks down streets … Continue reading

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Impact of BREXIT – increasing prices

I commented a while back: The immediate result of a weak pound will put the cost of USA, European and Japanese models up.  And of course, where are British models made – China – so we’ll see yet another price … Continue reading

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A small shunting layout

Model Railroad Hobbyist has a very nice ‘shunting plank’ in its October edition.  It’s in ‘O’ gauge, but the dimensions are a very reasonable 11’- 6” x 17’–19” with a 6’ removable extension for operation.  Note that this converts to … Continue reading

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Playing or creating?

Model Railroad Hobbyist is a bit of a mixture – I suppose like any periodical – but at least it’s free!  However, issue 80, October 2016 has some good things in it. The editorial has some good words on model … Continue reading

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Respect the scale

More on the size question, this time from the OST blog.  It’s aimed more at ‘O’ gauge, but a lot of these thoughts can be factored into any scale. Many of the layout design conventions we take for granted were … Continue reading

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