Cheap garden railways, dry-brushing, more Canada and some DCC in BRM

This month, special promotional packs containing BRM and the June issue of Garden Rail will be available in some supermarkets, and digital readers will get this too.

As part of the promotion, I've written about building garden railways on a budget. The truth is that large-scale doesn't have to be expensive, and in many cases, can look better value than the small stuff. In 3 pages, I can't go into great detail, but have done my best to provide pointers to get anyone who fancies railway building outside started.

 We've reached the final chapter of the Canada story with my trip to the show and the travails of travelling with a model railway, especially when Air Canada manage to damage it (they did say they should have been given the chance to repair the damage, but I didn't have time for that before the show). Digi readers get some extra prototype photos as a bonus too if they fancy photos of foreign trains.

While abroad and in the Rapido offices, I interviewed the team to get an idea how you go about producing a high-quality RTR model. They were very happy to explain the challenges involved - it's not a case of 3D scanning something, sending the data to China and waiting for a box of finished models to arrive!

Blog readers will know that I've a small collection of ancient DCC equipment and for Tail Lamp, I've explained why I'm interested and suggest that this is an interesting area for those who are keen on old model railway items. There's not a lot of demand at the moment, but values could rise...

 Getting practical on the DVD, I'm teaching our editor, Andy McVittie, how to weather wagons using dry-brushing. It's a very valuable technique but difficult to teach in writing. Being able to use video makes a big difference.

BRM July 2018 issue.