Model Rail
Volume 2

In this second Model Rail programme (specially produced to accompany and enhance the monthly Model Rail magazine) you'll find loads of inspiration for your model making, whatever your scale or gauge!  Here are some of the highlights:

Graham Farish - Dorset's 'Crewe works'
It really is a railway workshop in miniature!  Romany Works, near Poole is the home of the last full range of ready-to-run model railway equipment to be built in Britain.  Here, Graham Farish turns out 'N' gauge locomotives, coaches, wagons, track and accessories just like a full size railway workshop.  There's computer aided design, precision tool making, metal casting, injection moulding, painting, printing and painstaking assembly. Our cameras went behind the scenes for two days to see just what goes into Britain's smallest ready-to-run trains.

Wallsea - East Coast Main Line in 'O' gauge
More than 30 locomotives of North Eastern and BR designs provide a prototypical train service on this imaginary section of the ECML which includes a splendid outdoor model of Digswell (Welwyn) viaduct.  Running from garage to garden to shed, the layout features two locomotive depots plus fully working semaphore signals (with lights) and authentic operation.

Inspirations - old and new
Our hugely popular selections of prototype photographs to support modelling features are supplemented by video footage from archive film and present day location shooting.  In this section we examine the A4s and we've an exclusive preview of the new EWS Class 66s and 67s now being delivered from Spain. 

Blackpool - trams by the seaside
Alan Catlow's exhibition layout (Model Rail, July 1999) provides a classic background against which to display his superb scratch-built Plasticard tramcars. 

Bala
See the trains move on Keith Jaggers's superb evocation of 1930 rural Wales.  Our cameras go to the lineside on this '00' model of the Bala Junction- Bala branch based on 20 years of research and construction. 

Weathering your models
If you're seeking realism, nothing works better than weathering but it's more than just slopping some 'dirty turps' on your best locomotive.  Model Rail editor Chris Leigh shows some examples of different types of weathering and demonstrates techniques using weathering powders and paint - dry brushed and sprayed.