The Club builds and operates layouts in a variety of scales.
Lockdown Labours – Broad Ethel
I’m fairly new to the MRC, although I have helped out a tiny bit on Copenhagen Fields in the past. And will do again soon, once I get a window to do some more! I do build models professionally, and also for pleasure (although sometimes it feels more like a self inflicted punishment). One thing …read more.
Feb 6, 2021
Sir Kenneth Grange – HST on a budget
Although the current Hornby superdetail High Speed Train power cars are popular, they are not particularly cheap, but the secondhand market is awash with older Lima and Hornby models. These of course generally display older liveries, limiting choice if you want a more recent HST. However, the restoration of pioneer production HST W43002 into its …read more.
Jan 31, 2021
Vintage O gauge layout for sale
We’ve been asked to find a new home for a 1946 built O gauge layout that is 4.2m x 3.4m and an ideal size for a loft. Indeed that is is where it now. The most recent owner is the late John Hall-Craggs, probably better known for his extensive 9 1/2 inch gauge garden railway …read more.
Jan 23, 2021
Done Any Modelling Lately?
MRC President Tim Watson takes a look back at 2020 2020 didn’t start like any other in the Watson household. We had almost completed a four month massive rebuild of the back of the house to make it wheelchair-friendly for Cecily: family Christmas dinner was achieved with some ingenuity laced with dust, but it took …read more.
Dec 29, 2020
A new Hogwarts trainset for Christmas
It is a great treat to open a trainset on Christmas Morning and it is about 60 years since I first did. I had noted this set when Hornby first announced it. It is a joint collaboration with Lionel and only the Hornby version was meant to be in the UK but somehow my daughter …read more.
Dec 28, 2020
Class 321 build for Ingatestone – Part 1
As Tom S pointed out rather longer ago than I remembered, a few of us are supposed to be building the EMUs for the Club’s OO layout project Ingatestone. My experience of 321s is on the WCML in their earliest days from the late 1980s where they had taken over from the Class 310s (with …read more.
Dec 27, 2020
A rummage through the box – and 6 buildings emerge
I have not been entirely idle since my last post, although I am not sure whether what I have been doing counts as productive. My scrap/gloat boxes get bigger and bigger, and I felt I just had to take some of the old junk and sort it out. Charitably, one might call it “upcycling”. Uncharitably….. …read more.
Dec 25, 2020
St Ives – In OO gauge
MRC member Paul Frabricius’s layout “St Ives” features in the November 2020 British Railway Modelling magazine – here’s a bit more about the inspiration, and a link to a video of it OO Gauge. Approx 10ft x 3ft. Fiddle Yard 8ft x 1.5ft BR Mid 1950-60s As a child I spent summer holidays on the …read more.
Oct 18, 2020
Pacific Coast 111 – narrow gauge N
With the encouragement of Tim Watson, I would like to share a just-completed N-scale-narrow-gauge project (1:160 scale on 6.5mm gauge track) from my workbench here in Hawaii. It is a far cry from the scratch-built locomotive mechanisms Tim and other 2FS modelers routinely create from billets of brass, but one must work with one’s skills …read more.
Oct 17, 2020
Figuring out the USATC’s painted numbers
Or: fixing a factory shortcut The subject: Roco’s recent H0 model of the S160, which was a utility locomotive ordered by the United States Army Transportation Corps (USATC, set up in 1942) in preparation for the invasion of Europe as the second world war progressed. The model meets the high standards currently expected in the …read more.
Sep 12, 2020
Stayin’ Alive
A closer look at improving running reliability in DCC using capacitors A long-standing irritation in railway modelling is the tendency of powered model rail vehicles to stall owing to a momentary loss of electrical contact between wheel and rail. This is annoying in any circumstances, but is particularly problematic for sound fitted locomotives, exhibition layouts …read more.
Sep 5, 2020
A Long Welded Rail Train
Several years ago, a French firm that makes plastic sections (something like Evergreen) introduced plastic rail section in different sizes. The smallest is equivalent to code 80 and I bought some at one of the exhibitions in Germany. Moulded in dark grey plastic, it is flexible enough to be easily curved. So was born the …read more.
Aug 29, 2020