Railway Modeller

Published monthly by Peco Publications, Railway Modeller is a guide to creating railscapes of every era of train, from steam to electric, and caters for modellers of all abilities. Each issue features the best from the hobby for those modelling Britain's railways in all the popular scales and offers a unique blend of articles by experts and beginners alike, including a special section for newcomers wanting to learn all about the hobby and model making in general.

Model railway enthusiasts can now subscribe to the complete digital archive of leading magazine Railway Modeller , which stretches back to 1949 and encompasses more than 800 fully-searchable issues. The archive is organised into neat stacks of decades and years, which can be browsed across web, iOS and Android platforms for a flexible reading experience.

Every contents page is fully-linked to facilitate easy navigation to specific articles and features. The archive also benefits from the Exact Editions platform’s advanced search function, which allows readers to search for keywords across individual issues and the complete archive at the touch of a button.

This month, Railway Modeller marks its 75th anniversary with a  special issue, the magazine having been launched as a bi-monthly publication for October/November 1949. We take a look back at that first issue, together with those from 50 and 25 years ago in October 1974 and 1999, to see how it and the model railway hobby have evolved since. 
Railway of the Month is a stunning OO gauge layout of Bournemouth West, famous as the southern terminus of the much-loved Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway, now set to continue on the exhibition circuit in the hands of Salisbury & South Wilts Railway Society. 
Other layouts include Grange-over-Sands, an N gauge model first featured in RM 25 years ago in the October 1999 issue, but which has now 'moved forward in time' to depict the diesel era; Llanforen Shed, a rare model of the pre-Grouping Barry Railway in OO gauge; and Bunkers Lane in O9, inspired by the Leighton Buzzard Light Railway. 
In the first of a new series, Chris Ford begins the construction of an OO9 layout based on the Ffestiniog Railway, while Callum Willcox shows how to construct the new TT:120 signal kit from Peco, and the Scale Drawings feature depicts a Great Western Railway tender converted to carry fuel oil nearly 80 years ago. 
The highlights of the new product reviews this month are the Metropolitan Railway E Class 0-4-4T from Rapido Trains UK, and the Hawthorn Leslie 0-4-0ST from Dapol, both in OO gauge. Others include Stanier 57' coaches and 'merry-go-round' hoppers in TT:120 from Hornby, nuclear flask carriers from Revolution Trains in N, and Bulleid flat wagons from Irish Railway Models in OO.