Model Rail 173 September 2012

 Model Rail 173 September 2012 is here, and it's on a brighter whiter paper, and if that's not enough it's now perfect bound which means it has a spine which can be read in the bookcase so no more half pulling out copies to find iut which issue is lurking in the case. The whiter paper has made quite a difference too, which has made quite a difference to the reproduction, especially the darker areas which now have far more detail. 

MR173 Contents:

• Dapol 2012-13 range
• 'USA' and 'O2' 3-D scans
• Masterpiece 'O' gauge BR 'Pacifics'
• DCC Concepts gas lamps
• Farish nuclear flask wagon
• Hectorage Road 'OO' layout (steam)
• Railtours you can model
• Barrow Hill Junction 'OO' layout (Rail blue era)
• 6 by 4 layout designs by Paul Lunn
• How to
• Model miniature signs 
• Create a camouflaged track cleaner 
• Make your own buildings 
• Weather a Corgi excavator 
• Re-lay paper paving 
• Cornwallis Yard (EM) layout 
• Run it like a real railway 
• Supertest: scenic glue 
• N gauge show preview 
• Exhibition Diary 
• Backscene 

Below some snaps of the featured layouts:



Hectorage Road, Malcolm XXX's parallel universe portayal of Tonbridge MPD in the last years of steam. This is Malcolm's first layout for many years, and I'm sure you'll agree that he still has a real eye for this wondeful hobby. Many of the locos, all of which are DCC have sound and firbox glows. Before Malcolm retired he desigbned book covers, which puts him firmly in the creative field and something which has really helped him to capture well the run down state of Britain's railways in the 1950's and 60's. We haven't seen the last of this superb modeller, because Malcolm is busy extending his layout to include a railway station to allow him to enjoy his extensive collection of SR 3rd rail stock and passsengers trains. I hope to visit him again with lights and camera soon.

 

It's always sad when the builder of a fine layout passes on to the great marshalling yard in the sky, apart from the loss of the builder many layouts get broken up and end their lives down the local tip putting an end to 1000's of hours of love and joy. Cornwallis Road luckily had a happy ending and was completed by his good friends. Then a a few years later Alison and David Barker of Southampton MRS (my old club) were in the lucky position to become custodians of this wonderful layout depiction a little known part of pre-war Plymouth.

  

Well known railway photographer Michael Rhodes' fascination with goods only lines, marshalling yards, semaphores long coal trains and class 20s around the Barrow Hill has resulted in this 'layout of a lifetime' depicting the railways he enjoyed photographing in the 1970's and 80's. In this issue see what Michael did with a 16ft x 17ft room!