News | Webmaster blog
Siemens Ardwick Open Day 25/10/2009.
(04/11/2009): As part of Manchester’s science week Siemens Ardwick train maintenance depot decided to let a small amount of people in for a tour of their facility. Fortunately myself (James Bell - Webmaster) and a colleague managed to acquire tickets and attend the open day.
The Ardwick facility was opened March 2006 specifically to cater for the servicing needs of the Transpennine Class 185 DMU. This facility houses fuelling, bogey drops, wheel lathing and jacking facilities for the class.
The class 185 is part of the Desiro range of trains produced by Siemens in Germany. The Desiro is specifically designed to be of modular construction for ease of maintenance and replacement. In the following photos you will see the various modules that make up this Desiro range class, i.e. power and cooling units. The 185, to date, is the fastest accelerating DMU on British rails and also packs several economy and safety features, such as the trains location awareness (via GPS) and ability to switch off one or more of its engines to save fuel. Over the lifetime of the 185s this amounts to several thousands of gallons of diesel fuel saved!
Below are some pictures taken on the day by Stephen Ellis.
Written by James Bell.
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Weathering.
(10/06/2009): Willets Scale Models is pleased to announce the availability of our in-house weathering services. This comes as our first example models are completed and can be seen on our Price List page. This service extends to pre-purchased models (Bachmann, Hornby etc) and completed to your own specification. Please contact us for more information.
A short guide to simple DIY weathering:
- Use a quality air brush and compressor to model dirt/ grime effects rather than brushing.
- Use a brush for more detailed work such as rust patches.
- Know what you are trying to achieve before you start, collecting pictures from books or the Internet will help you.
- Practice on either an old model or a sheet of paper before continuing to paint your beloved model.
- Tape-up parts of the model you don’t want painted, such as windows, with a quality masking tape such as Tamiya.
- Remember not to go over-board with your weathering; sometimes a subtle application can look more authentic than an all over plastering!
After simple weathering is mastered you could move to replicating more intricate detail such as patched paintwork, exhaust marks or even dents. You could also weather scenery on your layout to make it look more authenticate, for example soot on bridges or matting factory gloss on some accessories; to give the effect of ageing.
Written by James Bell
(04/03/2009): To most the prospect of building a fully functioning model railway can seem quite a daunting task. In this article we aim to help you get started. The first piece of advice is to not get too ambitious when you first start out, the experience of building a smaller layout will help greatly when expanding or creating a bigger layout in the future.
There are a number of things you have to decide upon before starting your layout:
1) Analogue or digital:
Considerations: Digital offers easier
control and track setup, however the majority of modellers still
decide to use analogue due to high availability of parts and
digitals relative infancy.
2) Scale
Space: An ‘O’ gauge layout takes
considerable room, while ‘Z’ will take up very little space; ‘00’
gauge is a good starting point.
Cost: ‘OO’ is generally cheaper than
’O’.
3) Layout type:
Basing your layout on a real
scenario may help you with this. There are two types of layout
you may wish to consider:
- A continuous run layout: A loop of continuous track allowing your locos to run without
much interaction (rather like the starter Hornby layouts). The
disadvantage of this layout is the space required to loop,
especially in ‘O’ gauge.
- A shunt yard or straight layout: This
holds the advantage of adapting your layout to fit shelving units
and allows quite a lot of interaction; usually this type of layout
is based on shunting yards.
Once you have considered your space and decided upon layout and scale you can start to build or buy your baseboard, numerous guides are available elsewhere on the Internet and we hope to follow up this article with a guide soon. Remember to use a quality underlay for your baseboard, to buffer noise and vibration, Runderlay is highly recommended and its availability is on our ‘Price List’ page. You are now ready to start laying your track and scenery.
Written by James Bell
Digital Command Control (DCC) – An introduction.
(01/01/2009): As DCC appears to be getting ever more popular, we thought we would put together a small introduction and explain our current standing.
DCC can offer numerous advantages over traditional analogue model railways. After the fitting of a DCC decoder cab/ interior lighting effects, independent control, inertia effects and even sounds are possible. DCC can also be used to control points, signals and turntables within a layout. All this is possible without the likes of isolation points and radio control.
This is easily achieved by either buying a DCC locomotive or converting your existing locomotives using a relatively low priced DCC decoder. We hope to able to provide a guide and decoder information at a later date.
At Willets Scale Models, we have had several comments and enquiries about fitting our models with a DCC decoder. We are excited about learning and using DCC within our models; at present we are looking into using decoders only in 7mm scale heritage diesels from JLTRT and DJH kits. In the meantime we would like to hear your comments/suggestions and for you to register your interest in these possible future DCC models, our contact details can be found on our ‘Contact’ page.
11/12/2008
We have updated our 4mm (OO gauge) gallery with the latest models made by Willets Scale Models. Most of the models in our galleries can be repeated; for more information or to commission your own please don't hesitate to contact us. We have also updated our Specials page and pre-orders will be gladly taken.
20/10/2008
As well as recently updating the look of our website, we have also updated our 4mm (OO gauge) gallery today. These new models include GWR coaches of left and right hand corridor types. For more information about any model or to commission a vehicle please don't hesitate to contact us, we will always be happy to help.
02/09/2008
Willets Scale Models is pleased to be able to offer another unique model on our 'Specials' page. The mineral wagon was to be seen travelling the Churnet valley line in the 1960's and 70's, a line very local to Willets Scale Models. The Churnet valley is now a preserved railway and I (webmaster) recently took the opportunity to travel the line; travelling the 5 miles to Froghall on S160 5197 and returning on 50455/ 50517 Class 104 DMU. To find out more about the Churnet Valley Railway click here.
24/07/2008
If you are a frequent visitor to our site you may have noticed quite a few changes recently, including our new price list page. We would love to hear your feedback about these changes which can be done any time using our 'Contact' page. You can keep up to date with site changes by reading the Webmaster blog, using the link at the top of this page. We have also updated our 4mm & 7mm galleries today, which now contain over 110 photos! of which all models have been built by Willets Scale Models.
03/06/2008
The 4mm & 7mm galleries have been updated. As you may have noticed we have improved our contact methods on the website and welcome you to use them anytime for any query/ feedback or order you may have.
21/03/2008
4mm & 7mm galleries have been updated.
17/02/2008
The 4mm & 7mm galleries have been updated. This includes pictures of the 7mm brake tender previously available on the 'Specials' page.
25/01/2008
The 4mm gallery and the 'Specials' page have been updated. If you would like any more information about or would like to order any model in the galleries (most models can be repeated upon request), please don't hesitate to contact us.
Old news: 2007
