Model Railway

If you have never had the pleasure or are new to wiring anything other than a controller to a layout then you are in look because installing basic 2 aspect light signals is one of the easiest things that you are ever likely to install.What...

A headcode box (also known as a route indicator or train reporting box) is a display unit mounted on the front of early British Rail diesel or electric locomotives and multiple-units. Its purpose was to display a four-digit code that told signal...

Twenty years ago it would have been easy to write an instruction leaflet on how to service an engine because model locomotives were all built pretty much the same way, with a motor, a few cogs, two wires and some wheels, and removing the body...

One way to fix track to a baseboard is by tacking it down with special pins or nails. If you look closely at the sleepers on most set track and some flexible track, you will notice that every so often there is a tiny hole in the middle of the...

RailCom is a system developed by Lenz that allows two-way communication between a DCC controller and a decoder. The early RailCom system was limited to use with Marklin's MFX standard and has been largely replaced by RailComPlus which is more...

The white discs that were displayed on the front of steam trains and early types of diesel were a way of communicating to the signal box what type of train it was and sometimes the route that it should take.The white disc system is also known as...

When choosing a decoder for your model, it can be expected that making your model move is something that all decoders will do as a minimum. In addition to this, all but the most basic of decoders will offer a certain amount of additional...

The EM1s (Class 76 under the TOPS system) were a British design of Bo-Bo electric locomotive with a maximum speed of 65mph and built to a design by Sir Nigel Gresley. EM1 stands for Electric Mixed-traffic 1 and the prototype was designed as early...

Modern image is a phrase that railway modellers use to describe a layout that reflects modern times. Interestingly, modern image doesn't feature as a category in a lot of manufacturer's era systems which describe specific and significant periods...

We have all been there, with that wagon or coach that derails all of the time, and we suspect that the reason for this mischievous item of rolling stock constantly making a break for freedom is a lack of weight. The solution is easy though: simply...

There are times when you may want to operate more than one set of points using just one switch, examples of locations where this could be an advantage include, crossovers, catch points and when a dedicated route is required, this is not a problem...

7/0.2 wire is what railway modellers most commonly use for wiring auxiliary features to their layouts and to carry power to and from a controller and the tracks. The code simply relates to the number of individual metal strands inside a wire (in...