News from your model shop - Modelling with Peco kits

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Don't forget to read our latest modelling tips and unboxing videos located at the bottom of the newsletter.

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Railway song of the week

Reader Michael Miles contacted us to suggest "Brighton Belle" by Ralph McTell. The track appears on his 2019 album Hill of Beans, which marked McTell's return to original songwriting after nearly a decade and was produced by Tony Visconti, who had worked with McTell early in his career.

"Brighton Belle" is a deeply personal track inspired by McTell's childhood memory of being handed over by his father to ride on the footplate of the old steam engine known as the Brighton Belle, which was operated by his grandfather. The song reflects themes of family, memory and the passage of time, delivered with McTell's characteristic warmth and storytelling finesse. 

Click on the picture to listen to the song.

We would be the last in line to argue that finer details make for a good model railway, however, one must first have something to add such details to, and that means track, buildings, stations, engine sheds, bridges and tunnels, in fact, anything that makes up the foundations of a layout.

When sourcing larger structures or buildings for a model railway, modellers are generally spoilt for choice, especially in OO gauge, and Peco certainly plays a significant role in that choice. Their Lineside Kits range feature a number of models portraying larger structures that many modellers desire on their layouts. Lineside Kits are mostly plastic kits and are relatively easy to put together. Parts are usually pre-coloured for convenience, making them ideal for family layouts and beginners alike. That's not to say more experienced modellers don't also find them attractive as their designs are prototypical enough for a spot of weathering to turn them into extremely credible models.

A good example is Peco's 'Well Type' turntable kit. This kit produces a smooth turning hand-operated turntable and features components to power the deck's rails. For those wishing to take things a step further by adding motorised rotation, a motor can be added using a readily available kit such as Expotools' Turntable Motorising Kit.

If engine sheds and loco sidings are a planned feature of your layout, but turntables belong to an era unbefitting of your HSTs and other modern diesels, Peco's Lineside kit of a train shed could be just the ticket. This modern image diesel facility can be used in isolation to represent a humble diesel depot or added to using multiple kits to create a modern train care facility of an infinite length and width.



Stations are not surprisingly another feature of many layouts. Most modellers will have their own ideas concerning which platforms to use and is a subject best left for another day, but when it comes to station buildings and surrounding features, Peco's Lineside kits offer a number of options including a country station building complete with canopy, adjacent toilets and brick or stone option, an oval roof canopy for larger mainline stations, a post-war signal box for the grimy British Rail years, a goods depot unloading platform kit of the same architectural design and a platform subway that, admittedly, is a smaller model but does give the impression of a larger feature.

You can access all the unboxing videos by visiting this page or simply click on the link called "videos" on our website.