Blogs about Railway modelling

An update to this blog is severely overdue, it appears. I hadn't realised it had been so long since I had last posted.There's been no big leap forward since the autumn but there have been …

With the delivery of a small 009 layout to Devon came the return of a previous build. Half Acre was a mess right from the beginning; started during lockdown when the world and his wife …

Due to a computer malfunction, for even when computers were made of polished mahogany, brass, Welsh marble, lithium crystals and powered by pigeons, things could still go wrong. A computer controlled signalling error at Neasden …

Since my last post on here I've actually done quite a bit of modelling so I'll start in no particular order with a loco kit I swapped for a 'Dolgochification' kit. I had intended to …

Here we go again with a third set of layouts from the Chatham show… First, Northport Quay, David Holman’s cameo layout set in County Mayo. 7mm/ft, and real 5’3″ gauge – with handbuilt track to …

Nicholas Kalis May 2024Helpful HintThis nicely detailed brass toolbox is meant for attachment to my Fn3 tender on my Oahu Sugar Company. I particularly liked the hinge detail on this casting - even its modeled …

Work on the "Putnam", the 2-8-0 kitbash I had begun a couple years back and recently resumed, had stalled. The nature of this hobby and the flow of my daily life during the summer had …

Adding 70ft of N-scale layout and some overview picturesKanata Rail overview pictures Feb 2024:

Holidays? What are they? To be fair, I'm not working - but looking after the kids isn't exactly relaxing - but can be rewarding and I've managed to slow down a little and almost feel …

I built this crane truck using an old plastic military style truck and a commercial crane part along with various other parts and scraps. Above is a front view. There is a ladder on the …

Here's a new, vintage, product to me. A bag of what I think are stamped (not etched) brass, tension lock couplings. The mounts suggest 1960's or 70s Hornby replacements, but smaller than the Margate originals. …

A personal philosophy In order to be a modeller of railways there needs to be a model railway. It doesn't matter if it is a loft or an Ikea box, there has to be a …

“For the kids”. And there it is among a stack of ways to promote the hobby. I’m totally not special but I also feel like I was born a way that made model railways soothing, …

The Southern Railway inherited a small number of oddity locomotives including three from the Plymouth, Devonport and South Western Junction Railway (PD&SWJR) that were ordered from Hawthorn Leslie and Company . It was these locomotives, …

Don’t do critical things when you’re ill; out just enough to cause a derailment. And more embarrassingly the A and X chairs are the wrong way round, embarrassing because I used to do the real …