Model Railway Journal #178

Just picked up latest MRJ edition.....yep, cost me about £20...'cos I bought it at my local Model shop.......and it looked lonely in the bag...

This edition is pretty much given over to honouring the late great Guy Williams, loco builder extraordianaire.

Lots of lovely, close-up photos of his work....INCLUDING a rear view of one of his GWR Pannier tanks, with a detail I'd never have thought of, yet is so easy to reproduce, for that touch of 'individuality'....the rear edge of the cab roof, battered downwards.......replicating wear and tear on this item due to ''coaling up'....Mr Williams was an artist as well as an engineer...with such an eye for 'detail'.

Lots of obits from various contributors, too, including kit makers.

The primary article was a write-up on a superb-looking 3mm scale, 14.2mm gauge shelf layout, depicting a gypsum works.

Not too much nuts and bolts stuff...how I get sick of reading about 2x1 frames with a sundeala top, etc.

Each photograph contains a huge caption write-up......I like this idea, as it helps me really STUDY the photograph...instead of the usual 'quick glance'.

This little layout appeals ot me, because of its concepts.....with the gypsum works in the background, complete with loco shed and industrial locos.....then an interchange siding or two,connected to the 'main line' in the foreground..[a single track, SR branch line....semi fictional, semi factual]...which also has a small passenger halt.

The real knockout punch is that the 'mainline, in the foreground, is a deal lower in 'datum' than the background gypsum works...and with a large stand of trees separating both 'halves', one really does get the impression, of 'glimpsing' goings-on elsewhere........very much as one does, observing as a passenger on a train, passing intriguing sidings?

The author makes a very valid point, concerning 'fine scale'......he believes most of the problems normally associated with modelling to a finer set of 'scantlings'..[my word...vaguely nautical, as I was once..]....is...''in the mind?''

Another major article is penned from an antipodean colleague, concerning the construction of a mechanical interlocking frame for signalling.
His motive for this marathon was, being kicked into action (as antipodeans are wont to do, I believe?] over signalling.....doing it correctly, and eliminating the risk of relegating signalling to the back burner...or simply, ignoring it because one just feels like 'running trains?''

Thus, our author created the interlocking system, so that on no occasion can trains simply be 'run'......proper proceedures have to be followed, or nothing moves.

I admit to liking that idea....gives a greater sense of 'purpose' to having a layout of sorts....yet one step further away from 'playing with trains?'

However, I'm not sure about the manufacture of the interlocking frame....the item concerned was a proprietary item...tailor-made to suit layout requirements....but looked to me, somewhat akin to scratchbuilding a grand piano!

Finally, an article on creating static flock grass..with reference to the Noch system.....we seem to be getting a spate of this type of article in the presss recently?

The front page editorial seemed more than usually bleak in outlook....admittedly the model world has suffered the loss
of several great pioneering [finescale] modellers......but the editor seems to be outdoing himself with pessimism this time?

However, all in all, a great winding-down read at night-time.