The best model train stories, sites and books I liked this week, including big news from Hornby, some inspiring layouts and the smallest Google Street View yet.
Model Railway and Train Stories
Aside from their usual new OO gauge rolling stock, Hornby has other plans up its sleeve for 2016, including battery operated and wooden trains for children.
Google Street View comes to worlds largest model railway
I’m a huge fan of Miniatur Wunderland in Germany – I’ve been twice in the last year and hoping to go again soon – but until the next visit I can now get my fix online. Tiny cameras were set up to capture the scenes from around the huge Hamburg model railway and put into Google Street View.
3000 tiny buildings and 40-ft bridges
Although it doesn’t match Miniatur Wunderland mentioned above, Northlandz in America is still an amazing model railway as can be seen from the pictures in this Daily Mail piece.
Although not a model, the Flying Scotsman is an iconic steam train that stirs the hearts of most railway enthusiasts – big or small. After a 10 year refit, the record-breaking loco is on tour.
Websites
It’s a bad time of year for model work, with the cold weather putting a real dampener on enthusiasm, so I’ve been looking around for model layouts to inspire. If you’re like me, these will motivate you and get you itching to work on your layouts again.
- County Gate – John and Jenny de Frayssinet’s L&B layout
- Kingston Regis – John and Jane Jacobs’ Edwardian period 009 layout, the picture above from this beautiful layout.
- Cray Valley – A stunning Hon30 layout by Peter Bartlett.
Bedtime Reading
I’m always looking for tips and techniques to improve my train layouts and over the years have amassed a reasonable library of model making and railway books. This week I’ve been working on the scratch build Tin mine for my Cornwall layout so I’ve been falling to sleep with these classics at my bedside.
- Rural Buildings: Making Rural Buildings For Model Railways – David Wright
- Cuttings, Hills and Mountains: Modelling Railway Scenery: Volume 1: Volume 1 – Cuttings, Hills, Mountains, Streams and Lakes – Anthony Reeves
- Urban Buildings: Making Urban Buildings for Model Railways – David Wright
> A final, personal, note: I spend a huge amount of time testing, photographing, writing and researching techniques for these articles and pay for all the running costs of MRE out of my own pocket. If you found this article useful you can support me by making a donation on my fund-raising page. Thanks and happy modelling, Andy.
