A bolster wagon is a railway wagon designed to carry long items such as rails or posts.In appearance, bolster wagons look very similar to flatbeds and feature little more than a chassis with a large flat load bed fixed on top. The difference...

A fan fiddle-yard is a permanent fiddle yard where each track is accessed via a series of turnouts 'fanning' out from the layout's main operating line. But with so many turnouts connected in series, the space required for a yard of this type is...

Even accomplished modellers will high-five anyone around when their transfers go on seamlessly, they can be a little trick at times (decals that is, not accomplished modellers), but with a few simple tips, you too will be searching for a high-five...

When choosing turnouts for your layout, you may have noticed there is a choice between turnouts with insulated frogs (sometimes called insulfrogs) and turnouts with live frogs (known as electrofrogs), so what's the difference?Model railway...

When building a model railway layout, or any diorama for that matter, you will most likely want to place at least a few buildings on it. Whether it be a simple station or an all singing and all dancing village, buildings are a big part of a...

Traction tyres were used on many older model railway locomotives to improve their traction, not surprisingly, when they break the locomotive is often left unable to move little more than itself.This can be very frustrating and is a problem...

Screeching model railway locomotives are a common problem that most modellers come across at one time or another. If your engine is partial to the odd screech, it will likely be one of two things, but in either case, it rarely means it's the end...

The most realistic model brick walls are those with some of the individual bricks picked out in slightly different shades, but how is this achieved?There is no real shortcut to this effect, most modellers simply colour the bricks individually....

There are a few reasons why your analogue controller could be cutting out, but the most probable cause is a short circuit.Many controllers have a built-in safety feature where, if a short circuit is detected, it will automatically cut out. Some...

We are often advised to dry-brush models to achieve particular effects, but what is dry brushing, and when would you use this technique?Dry brushing is the process of putting just enough paint on your brush to leave a trace of it on your...

A composite coach is a railway carriage with accommodation for more than one class of passengers.In the early days of pre-nationalisation, this typically meant that a single carriage would have had first and third class accommodation. In later...

With so many functions on a modern or advanced multimeter, and so many reasons why you may want to use one, it would be impossible to answer the question 'How do I use a multimeter?' comprehensively. However, most modellers will only want to check...