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Newsletter *
Welcome to the first
Newsletter of 2005. Although it may be February,
its looking more like Christmas outside. Hopefully
by the time you get this newsletter it will have
all started to clear up.
Christmas has once
more passed us by, we hope it brought you everything
you wished for, new model trains, sets and more!!!
You will have noticed
the new edition to the Stockton Modeller online
product range, not only do we now offer model
trains and sets from Hornby, Bachmann, Graham
Farrish and Heljan, we have added our complete
range of Scalextric cars, tracks, accessories
and sets.
What's in this edition
of the Newsletter?
1. Model Train Competition
Results
2. 2005 Catalogues
in stock
3. Scalextric from
Hornby
4. The Town of Sherlock
from Nottingham: Model Railway Layout
5. Coming Soon
6. Future Offers
7. What the customers
say.
8. A bit of humor
Firstly, the Christmas
New Year Free model train competition was an excellent
success.
Just to recap we offered
entry into a free prize draw for anyone who purchased
a model train set from us over Christmas &
New Year. This ran alongside out free postage
offer. We allowed 30 entries maximum which gave
everyone a great chance of winning the top prize
of a "Princess Royal 'Princess Elizabeth'
46201 Ltd Edition of 2004"
The official winner
drawn very recently is: " M Speight
from Lancashire".
The two runner up prizes
of a CMA,UNIGLAORY,UASC Container Wagon and a
LINEA MEXICANA Container Wagon were won by "Y.
Taylor from Stockport" and "J Freeman
from the Isle of Anglesey"
Once again we would
like to thank all our customers who supported
us through the Christmas period and who continue
to do so now. We are intending to find more ways
to pass on to you savings, offers and other opportunity
to enter free draws and competitions.
2005 catalogues
in stock
 We
now have all catalogues in stock for 2005 by Hornby,
Graham Farrish and Bachmann.
Hornby
R8109
Bachmann oo 36-2005
Graham Farrish 379-005
Click the links above
to be taken to the catalogues in our online store.
Scalextric
from Hornby
 View
our complete range of Scalextric Cars, bikes,
track, buildings and figures on the web. Use the
below link to go directly to the stock and if
you are not a scalextric enthusiast, feel free
to send this newsletter to your friends who are.
Scalextric
Cars (Click Here)
Scalextric from hornby
are a household name and cater for tastes young
and old. With new releases always eagerly awaited
and never ending interest in old models ensures
that the Scalextric brand remains at the forefront
of model cars.
Model Trains
and more for Stockton Modeller.
From time to time we
come across personal web sites of readers and
other model trains and railway enthusiasts. We
found this one a little time ago and would like
to share this with you.
This is a personal
model railway of Robin Sharman
in Nottingham, he has some other pieces of information
on his web site, but we thought we would introduce
his layout to you.
http://homepages.tesco.net/~jksharman/robin1.htm,
go to his web address for more pictures of this
great set up, drop him an email and let him know
you saw his set up on Stockton Modellers ezine.
 The
Town of Sherlock
In the four or five
years up to 1998 I built the N-scale model railway
shown in the accompanying photographs. It was
the last in a series of U.S.-inspired layouts
which I made whilst we lived in an English village
pub between 1987 and 1999.
The baseboard was built
in three 4 foot sections to fit into the room
available with the intention also of fitting into
a garage or a 12 foot shed when our lease on the
pub expired and it was time to move. (In fact
I decided to scrap the layout and start afresh,
and now ensconced in our new house I am actively
surveying the loft and drawing up plans for the
approval of the domestic authorities!) The railway
was controlled from the left hand side at the
front using twin cab control and the panel shown
below, which gives a good diagrammatic picture
of the track layout.
The town of Sherlock
lay to the left hand side of the layout and the
tracks looped round behind the back scene so that
(for example) the container train going into Moriarty
Tunnel (below left) would reappear on the point
work at the front edge. The back scene was Instant
Horizons bought both in England and by mail order
from America. The buildings were by D.P.M. and
were readily available by mail-order in England.
The girder bridges were by Peco as were the engine
shed and the houses out in the country on the
top road.
 View
across Sherlock yard with locomotive shed and
running tracks behind
A close look into one
of the windows of Mrs Hudson's lodging rooms revealed
something of my sense of humour. Some girls have
no shame! The overviews of the junction and the
left hand end of Sherlock yard are self-explanatory.
The turnouts at the end of the hidden storage
tracks at the rear of the layout were actually
under the brown building in front of the Sherlock
Bank. This building and the road section here
were removable to allow easy access in case of
derailment or breakdown, although you could get
to this section from the rear.
The track and turnouts
were Peco. The turnout motors by Seep and Peco
were operated by an electric pencil system on
the track diagram (shown in the second photograph)
through a capacitor discharge unit. The signals
were scratch built from brass tubing, a washer
and a bi-colour l.e.d.; and, although they were
over scale, they worked very well and were very
inexpensive. The operation of these signals was
mostly automatic with manual over-ride facility.
The automatic operation was done using a crude
but effective method whereby two Peco accessory
switches were mounted on top of a Peco motor and
wired to form a D.P.D.T switch. As trains passed
certain positions on the track, they actuated
the appropriate motor which switched its signal
to red or green (by changing the direction of
the current to that signal) as required. The same
method was used to start up and stop the flashing
lights at the level crossing, which were supplied
through a home-made bi-stable electronic circuit.
This method necessitated ensuring that the "off"
trigger was far away from the crossing to take
account of the longest train.
The loco depot office
block was originally a British modern image station
building. The bar on the top road was obviously
a popular stopping-off point! The Peco loco shed
had its doors and central pillars removed to accommodate
the dimensions of American locomotives which are
much larger than the British ones for which it
was designed.
The locos used were
all models of diesel traction - mostly by Bachmann.
They were originally used because they were very
good value for money. Part way through the project
Bachmann introduced their Spectrum series of locomotives
and I bought two of these. They were a vast improvement
of their predecessors, and their flywheel drive
made them far better runners and so much smoother.
If I return to N scale American modeling I shall
have to use locomotives at least as good as these.
The first freight cars
I bought were Bachmann - again because they were
so reasonably priced. Later I bought some Atlas
and Con-Cor models, and these were far better
runners than their Bachmann counterparts. All
of the stock was fitted with Arnold style couplings
and I would dearly have liked to change over to
Magne-matic knuckle couplers for their better
appearance and automatic operation. once again
the cost factor always seemed to rule this out.
Perhaps it is better to have fewer items of better
specification, but I was keen to reproduce long
trains as quickly as possible.
At the right hand end
of the layout the running tracks diverged. They
disappeared into the single bore Milverton Tunnel
and the twin bore Mycroft Tunnel. The scenario
here was that Milverton was the original tunnel,
and Mycroft was built to increase traffic-carrying
capacity through the mountains.
 Mycroft
Tunnel
On the model trains
entered the left hand bore of Mycroft Tunnel and
swung round 180 degrees to reappear from Milverton
Tunnel. Directly after emerging from this tunnel
mouth the single track split into two to give
the trains alternative routes when they got to
the left hand end of the layout. The right hand
bore of Mycroft Tunnel led round to the three
hidden storage tracks which ran directly under
the road along the back. The track between the
level crossing and the hidden storage yard was
operated as a bi-directional line, and normally
one or two trains were made up for clockwise running.
This railway progressed
as far as I wished to take it, although it would
have benefited from further detailing. As stated
above, it was built with the intention of taking
it with us when we moved in 1999. However, I changed
my mind and now "Sherlock" is no more
and I shall start afresh at our new home. Building
this layout taught me a lot about building a model
railway, it was absorbing and along the way I
learned a lot about American railroads and the
Union Pacific in particular. Membership of the
N.M.R.A. and the availability of the monthly magazines
"Trains" and "Model Railroader"
at the UK's best known newsagents were particularly
helpful. Above all the project was good fun -
something that many British modellers seem to
me to have lost by taking their hobby too seriously!
Once more thanks to
Robin for allowing us to publish this and don't
forget pay his site a visit.
Coming Soon:
We shall be running
future articles on the range of switches available,
hoping to take away some of the confusion that
they bring. Other articles include track cleaning
pads, scenic's, seep point motors, tunnels, continental
products and more. So plenty to come.
Future Offer:
As from next week anyone
who purchases a Train Set from Stockton Modeller
through the online shop can have a free wagon
to the value of £7.00. You may if you wish
select a wagon to a higher value and we will automatically
add the difference to the order value. We will
send a quick email early next week when we have
the system set up fully.
Should we not have
the offer process fully functional when you buy
your train set from Monday, just drop us a quick
email following your purchase with your preferred
wagon and we will send that out to you.
What the customers
say:
Hi, received
train set today - thank you, when i replied to
your message that you left
on my phone it was 6pm & the phone still got
answered(amazing). Then the chap
phoned me back to say item had already been despatched,
this was at 6.30pm an
hour after you close - great service. you all
deserve wage rises, thanks again & merry christmas
to all.
Kevin Leadbetter
(a chuffed to bits customer)
Thanks Kevin, we sent
this email to the boss several times highlighting
the "you deserve wage rises" part of
your message, not worked yet. Thanks for your
comments we enjoy being appreciated by the customers
it spurs us on to keep our service to a very high
standard.
Dear Stockton
Modeller,
"Just a quick
note to say that I came across your name almost
by chance when I
was looking for a fun present for my 73 year old
young man. I was absolutely
delighted with the service I received ; the parcel
is here on time despite the
seasonal rush. I am sure that the recipient will
be equally delighted with the
contents of the parcel on Christmas Day - probably
to the envying looks of his
grandchildren!! Thanks again for your help and
I hope you all enjoy a well-earned
rest over the Christmas weekend."
Rosemary Doidge
Humor From Stockton
Modeller
COW ON TRACKS....
A British Rail passenger
train is creeping along, slowly. Finally it creaks
to a halt. A passenger sees a conductor walking
by outside. "What's going on?" she yells
out the window.
"Cow on the track!"
replies the conductor.
Ten minutes later,
the train resumes its slow pace. Within five minutes,
however, it stops again. The woman sees the same
conductor walk again.
She leans out the window
and yells, "What happened? Did we catch up
with the cow again?"
Well that just about
covers it from Stockton Modeller this week, hopefully
you have enjoyed this Newsletter, please feel
free to pass this around, send it to everyone
you know :)
Don't forget, we always
want to hear your comments good or bad, send your
emails full of Jokes, stories, track layouts to
feedback@stocktonmodeller.co.uk
If you have any queries
with regards products or specifications, send
an email to sales@stocktonmodeller.co.uk and they
will take care of that for you. Alternatively
visit the web site and send your query from the
contact form.
Take it easy
The Stockton Modeller
Team
Earlier Newsletter
articles from Stockton Modeller.
Model Railway Figures /
Model Railway Scenery /
Model Railway Layout /
Model Railway Landscapes / Newsletter
Feb 2005
Stockist's of Hornby, Bachmann, Graham Farrish
and Heljan Model Trains,
Live Steam Engines, Coaches and Wagons. PLUS
Hornby Scalextric (New Online)
Full Catalogues for
Lyddle End and Scaledale track scenery
For an introduction visit
http://www.stocktonmodeller.co.uk/scaledale-model-railway-scenery.html
Also stock all accessories for model trains to
compliment your set with full kits available.
http://www.stocktonmodeller.co.uk
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