Model Railway

When railway modellers refer to a baseboard, they are talking about the large flat board on which their railway tracks are permanently attached to.The purpose of a baseboard is to provide a solid and permanent foundation on which a model railway...

Bo-Bo is a common wheel arrangement for many medium sized diesel and most electric locomotives. It indicates that a locomotive has two bogies (one at each end), each bogie has two axles and each axle has 2 wheels giving the locomotive eight wheels...

Sometimes, us mere mortals completely forget what values we have set to our decoders, other times our decoders just start to misbehave for no reason whatsoever. When the latter happens it's easy for panic to set in as it can appear that your...

In line with MOROP's NEM standards, Graham Farish track is completely compatible with Peco's, however, most modellers don't like to mix different manufacturers track.It is not just Graham Farish's and Peco's N gauge track that modellers don't like...

When deciding what height to build your baseboard, there is no ultimate correct answer, only considerations that you should be thinking about whilst planning the build.The height that your baseboard should be will invariably be a mixture of...

There are many reasons why model trains derail, sometimes it's a track fault, sometimes it's because the train isn't designed for a particular radius, sometimes there's a fault with the model and sometimes our expectations are simply too high for...

Deciding which wire to use when wiring a model railway can sometimes be a little overwhelming, there are so many choices between different colours, thicknesses and also whether to use stranded or solid core wire.The good news is that a lot of...

A bus-wire is a single cable that carries power around a layout with numerous wires splicing off it along the way (known as dropper wires) to supply various components or sections of track with the power.There are two main reasons why you...

Track gauges of this type don't look like much when you take them out of the box and it's often hard to see how to use them as they don't come with any instructions, but appearances can deceive and this little tool is actually quite brilliant! A...

The era system is a way in which model manufacturers describe specific periods in railway history. This is to help modellers identify from which period a particular model belongs. The era system is updated from time to time to allow for new eras...

Mechanical signal boxes contain many levers that control among other things signals, points, crossing gates and facing-point-locks. Even the smallest of signal boxes can contain numerous levers, but the largest box in the UK at Shrewsbury's Severn...

Tail lamps on trains have been around since the 1800s, originally powered by oil and later by batteries, they consist of a red lamp or flashing light attached to the very rear of a train to warn other trains of their presence. The first rules...