Rail transport modelling

The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, tracks, signalling, cranes, and landscapes including: countryside, roads, bridges, buildings, vehicles, harbors, urban landscape, model figures, lights, and features such as rivers, hills, tunnels, and canyons.

The first documented model railway was the Railway of the Prince Imperial (French: Chemin de fer du Prince Impérial) built in 1859 by Emperor Napoleon III for his then 3-year-old son, also Napoleon, in the grounds of the Château de Saint-Cloud in Paris.

The model was built as a training exercise by apprentices of the company's Horwich Works and supplied with rolling stock by Bassett-Lowke.

Layouts vary from a circle or oval of track to realistic reproductions of real places modelled to scale.

The museum also houses one of the earliest scenic models – the Madder Valley layout built by John Ahern.

The largest live steam layout, with 25 miles (40 km) of track is Train Mountain in Chiloquin, Oregon, U.S.[3] Operations form an important aspect of rail transport modelling with many layouts being dedicated to emulating the operational aspects of a working railway.

The Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) at MIT in the 1950s pioneered automatic control of track-switching by using telephone relays.

The oldest society is 'The Model Railway Club'[5] (established 1910), near Kings Cross, London, UK.

Aided by trade associations such as the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) and Normen Europäischer Modellbahnen (NEM), manufacturers and hobbyists soon arrived at de facto standards for interchangeability, such as gauge, but trains were only a rough approximation to the real thing.

These are used by modellers but have not spread to mass-production because the inaccuracies and overscale properties of the commercial scales ensure reliable operation and allow for shortcuts necessary for cost control.

A fairly common alternative is to use representations of chain couplings as found on the prototype, though these require large radius curves to be used to avoid derailments.

Constructing scenery involves preparing a sub-terrain using a wide variety of building materials, including (but not limited to) screen wire, a lattice of cardboard strips, or carved stacks of expanded polystyrene (styrofoam) sheets.

Scatter or flock is a substance used in the building of dioramas and model railways to simulate the effect of grass, poppies, fireweed, track ballast and other scenic ground cover.

Scatter which simulates coloured grass is usually tinted sawdust, wood chips or ground foam.

Trees can be fabricated from materials such as Western sagebrush, candytuft, and caspia, to which adhesive and model foliage are applied; or they can be bought ready-made from specialist manufacturers.

There are many weather techniques that include, but are not limited to, painting (by either drybrushing or an airbrush), sanding, breaking, and even the use of chemicals to cause corrosion.

In some cases, evidence of accidents or repairs may be added, such as dents or freshly painted replacement parts, and weathered models can be nearly indistinguishable from their prototypes when photographed appropriately.

In addition the notion of accurate models had yet to evolve and toy trains and track were crude tinplate.

This system precludes some track layouts that occur in the real world but would create short circuits in a two-rail model.

Other systems such as Märklin instead used fine metal studs to replace the central rail, allowing existing three-rail models to use more realistic track.

Today, inexpensive train sets running on batteries are again common but regarded as toys and seldom used by hobbyists.

The high power consumption and current draw of large-scale garden models is more easily and safely met with internal rechargeable batteries.

Hornby Railways produce live steam locomotives in OO, based on designs first arrived at by an amateur modeller.

Modern manufacturing techniques can allow mass-produced models to cost-effectively achieve a high degree of precision and realism.

Laser machining techniques have extended this ability to thicker materials for scale steam and other locomotive types.

The advent of electric trains, which appeared commercially in the 1890s, allowed control of the speed by varying the current or voltage.

Three-rail systems often insulate one of the common rails on a section of track, and use a passing train to complete the circuit and activate an accessory.

The advantages of DCC are that track voltage is constant (usually in the range of 20 volts AC) and the command throttle sends a signal to small circuit cards, or decoders, hidden inside the piece of equipment which control several functions of an individual locomotive, including speed, direction of travel, lights, smoke and various sound effects.

Several organizations exist to set standardizations for connectibility between individual layout sections (commonly called "modules").

This is so several (or hundreds, given enough space and power) people or groups can bring together their own modules, connect them together with as little trouble as possible, and operate their trains.