Model Railway

Bubble cars were a single-unit first generation DMU built by British Rail in the late 1950s and 1960. Because they had a cab for the driver at each end, they could be used singularly on lightly used branch lines or coupled to other DMUs or...

Nowadays, freight trains are fairly uniform in their consists, industries seem to send everything in one trainload to a processing plant or further distribution centre. Inevitably that means most freight trains we see today will be wagon after...

Originally in the UK, signal posts were constructed from wood and square in shape.The later round signal posts were generally made from steel tubing and started to appear on the railways in the mid-1930s to support new colour-light signals and...

The British Rail Double Arrow logo was designed by Gerald Barney in 1965 for the then nationalised British Railways. The company was in pursuit of a new corporate image to complement the modernisation plan already in motion and promote rail travel...

A TPWS (Train Protection & Warning System) grid is an apparatus used on the railway as part of the ATP (Automatic Train Protection) system. Specifically, it is a transmitter placed on the track adjacent to a signal and is activated when the signal...

From a modeller's perspective, there is no practical difference between bullhead and flat-bottom rail. The existence of two variants merely facilitates modellers who wish to represent a particular era in railway history. But why did the real...

A unifrog turnout can perform as an electrofrog or an insulfrog turnout, that means that there is no longer a need for two products.A unifrog turnout works by having a metal frog, but the frog is isolated when in its default setting, this means...

Feedback on an analogue controller is a function that detects if your model train is experiencing difficulty climbing a gradient or struggling due to voltage drop, the controller then automatically applies more power to counteract the effects.It...

Model engines that are 'DCC fitted' are fully equipped with a decoder and other electronics enabling them to operate from a DCC (Digital Command Control) controller. This is not to be confused with models that are 'DCC ready' which merely...

Mortar lines are the mortar or grout filled gaps between rows of bricks, stones or other types of masonry. Mortar lines are often replicated on scale-model buildings and structures to help make them appear more realistic, but are they the correct...

A lot of the terminology that we use today derives from a pre-industrial time. Before trains were the topic of conversation we relied on horses as traction to get our ore, goods and people to where they needed to be and a transport orientated...

Railway mileposts (or distance markers) are signs placed at specified intervals along railway lines to give reference to locations along the route. The reference is always relative to a defined point (often a large station or junction). The usage...