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Layout Construction
Tips, techniques and guides to model railway construction, including baseboards, track planning, backscenes and track work.
Pest proofing your model railway
One of the biggest threats to your layout are insects, bugs and rodents. [...]
Improve Locomotive Running with Graphite Pencils – How and Why
Want to improve the smoothness and reliability of your trains? All it takes is a pencil. [...]
Pentewan Track Plan
Here's a plan for one of the most enjoyable layouts I've built.
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Don’t Get Derailed
New to track laying? Read these eleven beginner-friendly tips to laying track like a pro. [...]
Getting crafty with track: Ballast Collection with Polymer Clay
An unconventional but cheap and effective technique for removing rogue ballast from your track.
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Never Use These Three Materials For Your Baseboard
Just don't use these. Trust me. [...]
How to attach wires to model train track
Moving up from track clips to attaching power wires to track? Here are 3 techniques, how to do each and the pluses and minuses of each. [...]
Is cork underlay needed for track?
This is question that comes up frequently, here are my thoughts. [...]
Signalling – Basics: Point Roding
How steam-era railway signalling was controlled. [...]
Backscene Selection
For me, the back scenes of layouts are critical. [...]
How to make the three most common woodwork joints
If you're building a model railway baseboard from wood you'll need to join various bits of wood together. Here's how to make the three most common wood work [...]
Don’t use this for baseboards
I'm always on the look out for new, cheaper or better materials to build model railways with so when someone wrote in suggesting fibreboard I had [...]
Protecting your rails while painting track
Most model railway track come with black sleepers. These look nothing like the real thing and many modellers paint them a more authentic colour.
Browns for [...]
The Best Ballasting Tool For N Gauge Model Railways
Ballasting is one of those tasks you either love or hate on a model railway. It transforms your track work but is a slow laborious messy process that's hard to [...]
Which Xuron track cutter to get (and how to use them for perfect cuts)
Struggling to get clean, straight ends, for your N, OO, and HO track when cutting it? Here's how I use the Xuron cutters to get the perfect track every time.
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A surprising but ideal ready-made base for a fun small model railway
It's not an obvious choice but this baby accessory turns out to be a perfect small model railway base.
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Adding point motors to already laid track
Now filed in a draw marked 'why on earth didn't I think of this' is this marvellous tip from MRE community member Lee Maylon for installing point motors on [...]
An easier way to hold your track in place while gluing
Is this the quickest way to fix track down for gluing? [...]
Simple idea that saves time and makes track testing fun
The best ideas, as they say, are the simplest. And never has this been more true than with this bit of lateral thinking from an MRE group member. [...]
Best Ballast Spreader for N, OO and HO track updated for 2024
Ballast transforms your railway from a train set to a model railway but it's time-consuming, fiddly and slow to lay. No more with this brilliant little ballast [...]