Off topic: British model railways

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Mirko
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Registriert: 04.11.2001 20:39:16
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Off topic: British model railways

#1 Beitrag von Mirko »

Hi!

After the idea had exactly one year to develop I came back from the Intermodellbau modelling show today with the plan to restart my model railway in N scale by end of the year and with a UK topic. I don't have so much German rolling stock anyways and when I see that you can get rolling stock for half the price of German this is really attractive and I like the British Islands generally. At the show I found out that getting rolling stock will not really be an issue, the full product ranges of Graham Farish and Peco are available in Germany. More headaches are:
- accessories: there are some station buildings, buses, etc. available from the two companies mentioned before but that's it. No residential houses, no cars, etc. And because in UK N scale is 1:148 the available 1:160 material from the Continent will not fit. Plus I think there are not so many Rovers or Austins available from Herpa or Viking cars. What manufacturers are providing these things?
- rules and operations: I do not yet know much about signalling, train operation, etc. Where can I read more about this?
- model signals: I heared that there are no industrially manufactured signals for model railways. Are there at least kit signals available or is this all self made (then there will be only light signals in my small world...)
- history and timescale: in the Graham Farish catalogue there is for every vehicle a number for the era this model is representing. Today is 9, so it must be differently to Germany where we are actually in severe discussions if it still era 5 or if we already have an era 6. So what were the main developments and characteristics for these eras? Is there a standard and an overview? I'm mostly interested in more recent topics, let's say Graham's eras 7 to 9.
- details for scenery (not so important yet): the model railway gives a look into everyday life and people's backyards. And in different countries there are different things going on: sports beside the all European number one soccer, the typical appearance of so trivial things like street lights and bus stops, advertising on billboards. In Germany there are usually some books or booklets available from the model railway magazine publishers showing only ideas for these details. Is there something like this in the UK as well?

I hope to get some answers here or at least some useful links to sources where I can find answers for the questions by myself. And I know that the best source will be a ticket to UK and having a look at the original. Honestly I'm already considering this instead of a week Black Forest by motorcycle.

Thank you and best regards
Mirko
Man sollte sich immer gut überlegen, was man sich wünscht. Manchmal passiert es, dass man es kriegt (Meat Loaf)

Jan
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Registriert: 28.11.2007 19:13:51
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Re: Off topic: British model railways

#2 Beitrag von Jan »

Mirko hat geschrieben:- rules and operations: I do not yet know much about signalling, train operation, etc. Where can I read more about this?
In no particular order, the following links might be useful:
http://www.railway-technical.com/lex15.shtml (general information)
http://www.railway-technical.com/sigind.shtml
http://www.signalbox.org/block.shtml (mechanical ("Absolute Block") signalling)
http://www.davros.org/rail/signalling/a ... tions.html
http://www.svenherzfeld.de/bahnen/uk/
http://railsigns.co.uk/

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