Valid to UK only - excludes oversized items
Pre-shading is a technique used in scale modelling to create the illusion of depth and shadow on a model before...
Have you ever wondered what NEM couplings are? We see the name mentioned all the time because they are supplied on...
Retaining walls are used to stop the soil from a slope falling under gravity where they could block railway tracks,...
In railways, a DMBS coach stands for a Driving Motor Brake Second carriage. The key features of a DMBS coach are:...
Any terms (especially in modelling) that are used interchangeably are undoubtedly the starting point for many...
Model railway in all scales from N to G scale including OO, HO and O gauge.
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A back to back gauge is a tool which when placed between the back plates of the wheels of your wagons, carriages and locomotives will give you an accurate gap measurement allowing you to adjust the wheel spacing. This enables to always have your...
Traditionally gravel ballast has been the forerunner for track beds in railway modelling and gives your layout an authentic look, and is still used as the main form of ballasting today. Ground cork ballast is relatively new in comparison but...
Next18 is a DCC decoder standard that is smaller than existing decoders and designed to fit in to locomotives that have limited space, such as N gauge engine and and OO gauge steam engines. The maximum size of a decoder is about 15mm x 10mm. The...
You will find knuckle couplings on American model railways and European ones as this is the standard coupling for everywhere except England. The knuckle coupling was invented in the late 1800s and is used all over the world today on the...
The term permanent way refers to the ballasted track. This is what is usually called in the UK the railway track and in the US railroad track. It encompasses the rails themselves, the sleepers (or ties in the US), fasteners, chairs and ballast as...
Wire Glue is an electrically conductive glue/paint which has many uses in the hobby world. It is ideal for both AC and DC circuits that carry low voltage, such as the ones used on model railways. One example I can think of is joining wires and...
A turntable is a means of turning your engine around. An example of this would be, if you have several engine sheds at the end of your layout, you would have track coming from each of your sheds leading up to the turntable. When you drive your...
4mm scale in railway modelling terms is the most popular scale. It is 4mm of the model being one foot of the real thing. This gives a scale of 1:76. While most people would refer to OO gauge and 4mm scale interchangeably, this is not fully...
​The simplest way to answer that question is to take 1 foot of real life railway and shrink it down to 3.5mm and there you have it, H0 gauge.But it is not quite that simple because when you shrink down engines, rolling stock, buildings and...
There are infinite answers to how much space you need for a layout. The most obvious variable here is the scale in which you wish to build your model railway. Less considered factors are what you want to achieve with the finished railway and what...
A backscene is a proportionately sized photograph or painting that sits upright at the back of a model railway layout depicting the landscape that you would typically see in the distance in real life.The function of a backscene is to add...
You can mix H0 et 00 engines as they run on the same gauge of track and use the same controllers with no problem whatsoever. There are however a couple of things to consider, how important they are to you will depend on where you lie in your...