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Modellings tips and answers - Modelling electric poles - Videos

Hello

Sometimes I am too eager to send the newsletter to you and last week was such as case. This resulted in two mistakes:

1- I forgot to include the Railway Song of the Week and you have been many to notice! So as an apology, you shall be treated to not one but two songs of the week.

2- I did not mention having added quite a large selection of products to the website during the end of year break. Some are second hand and some are new. You will find buildings, locomotives, exclusive high end plastic kits, wagons, Victrix soldiers, Rubicon tanks, the latest Metcalfe kits in OO and N gauge, the latest Peco wagon loads, the new Peco O gauge accessories, lots of Airfix starter sets and so much more... Find these 150+ new items by clicking here.

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

Most images in this newsletter are clickable for more details.

Feel free to send this newsletter to your friends, family and club members if you think they will benefit from it. They can subscribe for free.

Railway song of the week

What a great way to start the year: a great blues from Junior Parker in 1953. "Mystery Train" was first recorded by Sam Phillips at Sun Records and Sam got another of his young protégés to do his own cover two years later. You may have heard his name: Elvis Presley. His sped up version reached the Top 10 and made Elvis a household name. Here are both versions for your enjoyment.

This week in history

On the 16th January 1943, the Ministry of Supply took delivery of its very first WD Austerity 2-8-0 locomotive. The class was based on the LMS Class 8F locomotive but used several cost cutting measures as a result of the war effort. 935 locomotives were built in total making the class one of the most numerous steam locomotives to be built in Britain. Only one survives in preservation.

Tools for thought

This week's tool of the week is called Liquid Gravity. It is a non-toxic weighting system for model railway rolling stock, radio controlled models and any other model which requires weighting down such as plastic planes. The heavy pellets are designed to pour into and fill cavities of any shape or size to add weight, then simply set in place with an applied adhesive.

From pole to pole

There are almost as many variations of model telegraph poles available as there are actual telegraph poles in real life, so variety is definitely not an issue, but do any of them stand out from the rest?

Although it would be impossible to choose which brand is the best, Woodland Scenics' take on this common lineside feature is definitely worth a mention.

Not only do the poles feature a highly realistic appearance, they also come with wires already attached putting an end to hours of experimentation with various wires, cords and even cotton trying to find a realistic and hassle-free solution to adding wires.

There are three sets to choose from: a single crossbar telegraph pole set, a double crossbar telegraph pole set, and a transformer connection set to portray power lines to structures. And best of all, all three can be obtained in HO/OO gauge, N gauge and although not featured in our pictures below, O gauge too!

If the all singing and all dancing approach to poles is not your cup of tea, then don't worry, there are still plenty of opportunities for you to make a feature out of your telegraph poles. Although there is a lot to be said for the usefulness of large packs of generic telegraph poles, if you dig a little deeper you'll soon discover that styles are varied and include poles without crossbars, poles with lamps attached, an interesting kit from Busch featuring real wooden poles and a detailed white metal kit from Langley. If you wanted to take the idea of making a feature out of the theme further, why not try a pole related cameo scene using Busch's pole installation set or for an even bigger scene, an electricity substation?

From the humble connectivity of signal boxes to providing power to buildings and infrastructure, poles are such a prominent feature by the side of real railway tracks, it would be an opportunity missed not to use them to provide realism and interest to yours.

Modelling tips

We keep on adding modelling tips to our website. Here are the latest ones:

Or re-visit these slightly older ones:

You can read all the articles sorted by categories or from the most recent published one on our website.

Unboxing videos

You want to know what is inside the boxes of modelling products? We open them for you! Subscribe to our YouTube channel to be notified before everyone else or simply click on this selection. Please note that videos are at the bottom of each page.

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

Events and exhibitions

Find all the latest events and exhibitions for the model railway world, on the UK Model Shop Events directory. Hopefully, 2024 will give us plenty of opportunities to attend events all over the country.

Do you need to order?

Send us an email or give us a call to check availability or to reserve anything, whatever scale you model in. As usual, if we do not have in stock what you are looking for, we will order it for you and you will get it fast (usually within a week if the manufacturer has it in stock). We place weekly orders with most suppliers.

Remember, you can park for free for one hour on the High Street. So no excuse not to come and visit us!

Upstairs Downstairs is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am till 4.30pm. Obviously, our website is open 24h a day and we can post to most locations, including Europe, USA and Australia.

Upstairs Downstairs
3 Pier Street
Sandown, PO36 8JR
Isle of Wight
Tel: 01983 406 616
http://www.trainshop.co.uk or find us on Facebook

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