Ever since I was a young boy I had this fascination for trains. Surely not because I was surrounded by them as there are no trains operating in Malta nowadays. Mind you, there used to be a small railway in days of old, built by the British during their ruling period and opened in 1883. It lasted only a few decades and was closed in 1931. Some say that the arrival of Trams and later Motor Buses led to the demise of the only railway that ever existed on this Island. A real shame really. Nothing except maybe for a few traces here and there, is left of this railway. The best relics to be available are a Station Building and a restored 3rd class coach in Birkirkara. A photo album of some of the Railway's memories can be found here. You will also find some Malta Railway postcards here. I also have a few old photographs of the Malta Railway which I got more than twenty years ago. Finally, here you can also find a list of all the locomotives that have pulled the coaches of the Malta Railway from 1883 to 1931.
The only book about the Maltese Railway is now back in print in a new revised edition. "The Malta Railway" by Joseph Bonnici and Michael Cassar was the first of the trilogy on Maltese transport. This new edition has been revised and reset to compliment the authors' "The Malta Buses" and "The Malta Tramway and Barracca Lift". It includes additional information on the fate of the railway after March 31, 1931, hitherto unpublished photographs and an enlarged guide to the railway relics.
As I mentioned earlier, I was fascinated with steam trains and sooner or later I had to have a model railway as part of my very limited toy collection. So one birthday, I managed to persuade my dad to buy me my first electric train set. It was a Lima train set and it consisted of a Diesel Locomotive and a couple of freight wagons running on a round layout. It was battery operated but later I purchased a replacement electrical controller. Despite being a fan of the Steam era, Lima had only a couple of steam locomotives on their catalogue and these were not included in starter train sets. Furthermore, these were not stocked by the local toy shop. Incidentally my cousin was also into model railways and his hobby had evolved into a fairly large layout with a number of steam locomotives from the British steam era. His model railway was made up of Triang - Hornby stock. Among his steam locomotives was one B12 4-6-0 which had a smoke generator. I was amazed with this feature and became hooked on the Triang - Hornby brand ever since. This brand was entirely focused on the British railway scene and since I was interested in British Railways, Hornby was the manufacturer to stick to. In my opinion Hornby made superior models than Lima at the time, albeit far more expensive. Nowadays I believe that every model railway manufacturer is setting new standards of detail which are quickly followed by competitors if they want to stay in business.
After long years of storage in cardboard boxes in the garage, my childhood hobby was finally rekindled. I don't know what sparked back this interest but I guess it was an advert I read in a Sunday paper magazine. I read that a computer store had acquired the Hornby brand after long years of absence following the closure of the previous toy stores that marketed the brand before. The same fate happened to Lima trains and I do not recall any store taking over the brand. Having said that, there are many UK model shops who have a presence on the internet and who are happy to ship any model worldwide. You even find discontinued or even second hand models available which may be yours with a few clicks and a handy credit card account. A few links to model shops I have ordered items from are found below.
There are various scales one can choose to start building a model railway layout but the most popular scale sizes for home use, starting from the smallest are: "N", "HO", "OO", and "O" gauges.
N Gauge is one of but not the smallest gauge available. the scale is either 1:160 or 1:148 for the British N Gauge. Track Gauge is 9mm.
HO is exactly half of "O" Gauge. The scale is 1:87 and the track gauge is 16.5mm.
OO Gauge reproduces models in a scale of 1:76 or as it is better known, 4 mm to 1 foot. The track gauge is identical to HO at 16.5mm.
There are 3 variations of the "O" Gauge. The American version has a scale of 1:48 and a track gauge of 32 mm. This is also referred to as the quarter-gauge. The European version of this gauge has a scale of 1:45 and an identical track gauge of 32 mm. The British version of this gauge has a scale of 1:43.5, a track gauge of 32 mm and is often referred to as the 7 mm gauge.
My railway layout is based on the OO/HO scale and started with a French diesel shunting engine and freight stock. I later added a small German electric shunting engine and added a few freight wagons to the set. I was always captivated by the steam era and as soon as the first Lima British steam locos were available at my local toyshop, I saved every penny I got until I had enough to buy my first. It was an 0-2-0 steam engine that saw service North of the British border, probably in Scotland. This was later supplemented by a British Railways (BR) 0-6-0 tank loco in traditional BR Black livery. A list of pictures of my Lima model collection can be found here. All pictures have been scanned from the 1973, 1974 and 1976 catalogues which are proudly stacked on my railway books and publications shelf. All models are in full working order despite being more than 25 years old. A few drops of oil here and there as well as careful cleaning of the motors' brushes saw them back healthily on track.
As I mentioned earlier, I turned my attention now to Hornby models but am also considering a purchase or two from the interesting Bachmann range. They also manufacture very detailed British steam locomotives which are not presently available in the Hornby catalogue.
There are many ways you can choose to start a model railway layout. You can model a real life portion of a railway or an historic line. This is however very difficult if you do not live near one to do research and take as many pictures as you can to assist you in recreating the actual scene. it also requires a skilled modeller to model the buildings and roads accurately. Another option is to create your own layout using your imagination to make best use of the space available in your chosen room. This is a little difficult to do without miniature modelling pieces as otherwise you need lots of track pieces to be able to try many different combinations. ultimately you may end up with a number of track pieces which you will not use. To help in this "freehand" approach, a computer software called "Virtual Railway" designed by Hornby has been released recently. with this tool you can play around with your layout using all track pieces currently available in the Hornby range until you have designed the layout that suits you. Once finished you can also test the completed design by putting locomotives and rolling stock on the layout and work at the controls to simulate the finished project. Finally you can purchase a Track Plans book filled with different model designs and select one from there. Designs vary in size and complexity depending on the room size available. They usually start from a layout that can be fitted on a 6' x 4' board to something up to 18.5' x 5.5'. Again Hornby publish a Track Plans book which includes all the information you need to start into this hobby.
I have chosen a plan measuring 8' x 4' from the Hornby 9th Edition Track Plans book and modified it considerably with the Hornby Virtual Railway software to maximise the use of the board size chosen.
Layout plan Modelled plan Modified layout plan
As soon as the plan is ready, you get an inventory of how many pieces of each track are required so it is relatively easy to draw up a shopping list of the track pieces required. Once I knew what I needed, I paid a visit to my local model shop and bought the tracks and points required. The board had already been delivered by this time and so I laid down on the floor and started joining the tracks together.
The first mistake I made was that I did not start laying the scenery first. Many modelling companies supply scenic materials to simulate any type of surface, from tarmac to meadows and even track ballast. These are available in either ready made mats or supplied in plastic bags to be glued straight onto the surface. I have preferred the former due to the possibility of having to store the entire layout upright when not in use. Otherwise any scatter that may not have glued properly to the surface will eventually fall off.
At the time, when I was building the layout, ballast mats were not available neither through my local model shop nor through mail order. I had therefore to choose the least realistic solution of using the foam track underlay. While this is very close to real ballast just the same it also serves the purpose of reducing the overall running noise of the models when in use. Another disadvantage of using the foam underlay is that I had trouble working with point motors because of the difficulty I had in aligning them properly to the points. For the time being I removed all point motors opting for manual change. After all, my layout is not very big and all points can be reached with ease. Of course having them change automatically would have been preferred, but for the time being I gave up on them.
To be continued........... this page is under construction.
In the meantime here are a few useful links for the Railway Modelling enthusiast.
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| Hatton's Models |
| Rails of Sheffield |
| Holt Model Railways |
| Metcalfe Die Cut Card Kits |