Marriott - Railway Modelling Skills

RAILWAY

MODELLING SKILLS

Peter Marriott

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2015 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2015

Peter Marriott 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 956 8

Disclaimer

The author and the publisher do not accept any responsibility in any manner whatsoever for any error or omission, or any loss, damage, injury, adverse outcome, or liability of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any of the information contained in this book, or reliance upon it. If in doubt about any aspect of railway modelling skills and techniques, readers are advised to seek professional advice.

Frontispiece supplied by Chris Nevard/Model Rail

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks go to the numerous people who have made railway modelling a more enjoyable place for me, including David Aldis, David Brown, Bill Carmen, John Emerson, Ian Futers, Stewart Gorman, Stephan Kraus, Chris Leigh, Martyn Rees, Pelle Seborg, Rob Spendelow and Colin Tucker.

Thanks go to my wife Mary, who sometimes has to put up with living with model railways dotted around our house. I really do appreciate her patience and long suffering!

Thanks also go to the photographers and model makers who agreed for me to use some of their pictures in this book:

• Stephan Kraus, who is a professional layout builder in Germany offering diorama and layout building services plus modelling seminars at www.modellbau-smk.de.
• Chris Nevard, as Model Rails ace photographer, who always brings out the best in my layouts through his photographic expertise.
• Paul Marshall-Potter, whose recent joint DVD production with Paul Lunn will be inspirational to many would-be layout builders.
• Busch and its agents in the UK, Golden Valley Hobbies, for the pictures of their diminutive Feldbahn system.

In addition, I say thank you to model railway editors who have published words and pictures about my layouts over the past decade and who have agreed that snippets of those layouts that have appeared in their magazines are portrayed within this book:

• Dennis Lovatt as editor of Bachmann Times, who suggested that I build a tiny layout to convey the impression of four miniature railways.
• Ben Jones, now of British Railway Modelling, who has published numerous articles about my European layouts during his spell at Model Rail magazine.
• Richard Foster as editor of Model Rail, who continues to pour over my words and pictures each month and turns them into something that looks better in the magazine.
• Andrew Burnham of the Continental Modeller for featuring my European layouts.

The DMU washing plant by Scenecraft with a modified Hornby Class 110 DMU repainted in Mexican Bean colours as it ran on the West Highland Line.

CHAPTER ONE

SKILLS, WHAT SKILLS?

A skill is a learned ability to carry out a task with results within time and energy using tools and materials.

HOW TO LEARN NEW SKILLS

Railway modellers can become very skilful in various disciplines. Many of them do not realize that they have learned do so much until they are asked what they have accomplished in the hobby. Far from putting people off from joining in the hobby, the various skills should open up their minds to the wide array of things that may be learned and enjoyed as a railway modeller. The hobby can be very satisfying and most of the skills are quite easy to pick up and are fun to learn.

Different skills will appeal to some people more than others, but if there is something we really do not want to learn we can usually get other people to do those tasks for us. The hobby has become so varied and comprehensive that there are many individuals and small firms offering their services in a number of areas. There are also products that give us shortcuts to learning a skill, which is particularly important in todays society where time is at a premium.

From time to time, it is a good idea to make a list of our personal skills. This may help us to realize that we may like to improve some aspects of our modelling, while being content with our other skills. Modellers set themselves the challenge of improving their skills, which is a good way of freshening up the hobby if they find they are stuck in a modelling rut. The more I think about the hobby, the more I conclude that knowing what you want from a model railway is the key to getting and improving the main skills required. If you know what you enjoy most in the hobby, you will find learning more about how to do certain tasks a pleasure rather than a necessary task to be undertaken.

With the arrival of resin buildings, the modeller can choose to buy suitable buildings for his layout and simply fix them to the baseboard. But there are some quick and easy skills that can be learned to turn resin buildings into something more distinctive, including painting parts of them, adding curtains, adding signs and weathering them. Here the three middle houses are identical, but by painting the front doors different colours and by adding different curtains the row of houses has been personalized.

Railway modellers are well blessed for research material to make their model railways more realistic. Here just three books about the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway demonstrate that information is readily available. Even if books are out of print, there is a steady exchange of them through avenues such as auction sites and Amazon. In addition to books, there are DVDs, YouTube videos, magazine articles and specialist societies supplying words and pictures about almost every railway line that has ever operated in the UK. Successful research is a skill that can soon be picked up.

There are various ways to improve railway modelling skills. These include attending training courses that are run on a variety of topics, such as airbrushing, baseboard construction, tracklaying, scenery making and much more. Books, bookazines and magazines increasingly feature how to articles containing a series of photos following a construction project. The best of these include lists of tools and materials and explicit pictures and captions so that the reader is left in no doubt as to how to accomplish a specific task. The hobby is also now blessed with a huge number of DVDs, demonstrating various skills and techniques, that we can watch in our living room or on the PC. These are available from UK and overseas sources, which broadens the scope of the expertise demonstrated.

The huge number of model railway exhibitions throughout the country gives us ample opportunity to ask questions of other modellers about how they did such and such. Some exhibitions arrange for demonstration stands and lectures with experts in a particular field, thus passing on their learned wisdom.