Yes no problem, please see below:

VALUE is a light to medium weathering, or lighter if more historically accurate, typically using two colours.

STANDARD you can choose from light, medium or heavy weathering using more colours and showing more detail than value weathering.

DELUXE uses various techniques and as many colours as necessary to interpret dirt, rust, grime, soot, water, limescale, oil deposits and much more. Pictures can be supplied to guide our technicians to your exact specification.

More information is also available by clicking HERE

QUESTION

Hello

I have recently become interested in creating a model railway. In normal circumstances I would go to my local club to chat with local enthusiasts to progress my interest but given I am a vulnerable person and so currently have to self isolate, I was wondering if you could help.

I would like to model a section of railway close to my childhood home.

I have a number of preferences:
1) OO
2) DCC
3) Peco bullhead rail

I could send you a sketch of my initial circuit.

A couple more thoughts
1) I'm not sure how far I want to go down path of recreating the scenery
2) I'm not that keen to spend hours soldering.

BTW Being new to model railways I'm always trying to improve my knowledge. For example, what is the difference between points and a slip.

Thanks

ANSWER

Thankyou for your e-mail regarding starting a model railway.

If you have never had any experience in model railways before then going straight in using Bullhead track is something we would definitely not recommend. It involves cutting and laying flexitrack and using fishplates (rail joiners) that are very small and fiddly to assemble. Having said that the finished results with Bullhead track are very visually pleasing.
It also severely limits the track plan choice as at the moment there are only very few points available in Bullhead vs. regular Streamline or Settrack (more below).

If the rolling stock you are intending to use has all been manufactured inside the last 6-8 years it should run on Bullhead, however, remember that the clearances and flangeways are set up for the finer scale wheels, so anything older and things like Hornby Railroad locos and rolling stock will simply derail unfortunately.

If you have locos and rolling stock made pre-1985 then use code 100 track. 80% of items made after 1995 should run on code 75 and anything made in the last 10 years will certainly do so - EXCEPTING Hornby Railroad and certain diesel locos where they have retained the thicker wheels. You may get these to work but in our experience the majority don’t and either derail or the flanges run on the chairs (sleepers).

Note that all Settrack (ie rigid track with pre-formed non flexible curves) from the manufacturers of Hornby, Peco and Bachmann (in OO) is code 100, but it is of a completely different geometry to code 100 Streamline track (Peco). This leads me on to ask how much space have you got available for your layout please? If it is say, 6ft x 4ft or maybe up to 10ft x 6ft then stick with Settrack. You will get a lot more in the available space. If you wish to do an end-to-end layout and you have say, 12ft x 2ft then you could go with Streamline. However, remember that with Streamline points you have to use flexitrack for the curves.

We would like to point you towards the Peco series of pamphlets entitled ’Shows You How’. Although they do promote Peco components, the knowledge and methods used are really good useful information that covers all aspects of building a model railway. They are quite inexpensive too, being in the range 50p or £1 each. Have a look on our website HERE
They cover subjects ranging from planning, baseboard construction to electrics, scenery and DCC.

As you may have probably already have discovered, TMC stock quite a large range of DCC controllers and accessories, and offer a full back-up service of advice and knowledge to help in your choice and implementation of DCC control for your model railway. There are ways to cut down the amount of soldering required on a model railway and we can help with finding the right solution for you. Note that the decision to go with DCC control is not an absolute necessity and many people stay with the traditional DC or ‘Analogue' method of operating trains which is fine - again we can help with advice on this.

By all means, a look at your proposed track plan will help us clearly to get an idea of what you are proposing to achieve.

To answer some of your specifics: Points or Turnouts (the terminology is freely interchangeable in British Railway Parlance) are to enable a train to leave the main track and travel down a diverging route. They do this by having a set of pivoted, moveable rails attached to a tie-bar at what is known as the toe-end of the point. Strictly speaking they come in different gradings denoted by the angle of the crossing V (commonly known as the Frog area where the rails cross), however, in model railway terms we talk about the radius of the diverging or curved part of the track to differentiate them. All Settrack points have a curved radius of 438mm (2nd Radius)(nominal), whereas Streamline points come in radius’ of 2ft (small), 3ft (medium) and 5ft (large). All modern made locos do NOT go round radii of smaller than 438mm, so using 1st radius Settrack is NOT recommended at all. Wherever possible, use the largest radius curves that will fit on your baseboards. A Slip is effectively 2 points connected toe-end to toe-end, but in a condensed or shortened form to save longitudinal space. Slips can be Single or Double, ie to allow a train to only slip-left (OR slip-right) or allow both.

Hopefully this has been of some help,

All the best, TMC