Model Electronic Railway Group
The Leading Society for Model Railway Electronics
Members Pages
| 3D-Smartrax John Broadley (M2273) John's SmarTrax control and simulation software pages. |
| Brian Lambert Model Railway Site Brian Lambert (M-2067) Website covering many aspects of model railway construction, including electrics and DCC |
| Colchester MRC Paul Evans (M612) The word on the Colchester club by our former secretary. |
| Grovenor Sidings Keith Norgrove (764) Keith offers a variety of pages including servo point drives and some locomotive conversions. |
| MegaPoints Controllers David Fenton (6182) A range of modules for model railway control including the MegaPoints Servo Controller |
| Servo Mounts David Ingoldby M3904 Details on David's servo mounts |
| Sprog Andrew Crosland (1522) Andrew offers the Pi-SPROG and SPROG for DCC programming and Operation. |
| Tapiola Parish Model Railway Club Pekka Siiskonen (756) An overview of how train operation and control is achieved on their club layout, including circuit details for the transistor throttle controllers and turnout controls |
| Using CBUS on the 2mm Freshwater Layout Ian Morgan (M2775) Ian Morgan describes the use of CBUS and his work in getting it ready for the Basingstoke 2mm Area Group |
Electronic/Industrial suppliers
| A1micromotive Suppliers of the Red Arrow infrared locomotive control system originally introduced by Exactoscale. |
| All Components A bit of an exaggeration but a useful range of controllers and other parts for model railway electronics and they do have on-line ordering. |
| Anglia Components Good prices if you are buying enough, watch for the minimum order value. |
| Antenna Models Suppliers of Radio Control for Model Railways, good site for information. |
| Banggood China based company. Supply a very wide range of items incluging electronics and mechatronics bits such as sub miniature stepper motors and linear servos (although these look a bit crude). |
| Bitsbox A hobby oriented supplier for those odd components. |
| Bowood Electronics A supplier of electronic components to hobbyists with an easy to search site. |
| Branor Products Offers model eailway electronics including fibre-optic lighting and video camera trucks. |
| Brian Jones Engineering Specialist supplier of radio control for garden railways and other miscellaneous goodies. |
| CPC Combined Precision Components, another on-line and mail order supplier apparently associated with Farnell. |
| CR Signals Supply Colour light signals and other illuminated accessories, mainly N gauge. |
| ESR Electronic Supplies An interesting range of electronic kit for the hobby. .pdf catalogue for download. |
| Express Models Express provide a wide range of coach and locomotive lighting as well as other gadgets. |
| Farnell One of the major mail order component suppliers, on line ordering too. |
| Grizzly Mountain Engineering Sound systems including synchronising cams. |
| Heathcote Electronics. Supplier of the well known IRDOT modules. the site has a detailed description. For US readers try the importer |
| Howes Models A range of model railway supplies as well as servo motors. |
| JLC Enterprises Sells all the parts for the well known Bruce Chubb C/MRI including a current transformer based TOTI |
| Locolinc Offer a radio control system for scales from N to G |
| Magenta Electronics Offers various kits including the PIC driven stepper motor - useful for the 16C84 EE PIC programming. |
| Micromark American supplier of modelling tools. |
| Miniatronics Specialist in lighting for the hobbyist. |
| Modelex A wide variety of DC controllers and electronic modules |
| Morley Controllers A range of traditional styled controllers using 'centre off' style controls and with the added benefit of built in CDUs. |
| Motion Company UK based company. Good selection of mechatronics bits including sub-miniature conventional motors, gears, racks, toothed belts, bearings. |
| New York Railway Supply Provide turntable indexing systems using stepper motors. |
| Nigel Lawton 00-9 kits and supplies, good source for small motors and gearing. |
| Phoenix Sound Systems Maker of sophisticated sound systems for the larger scales. |
| Rapid Electronics One of the best on-line suppliers in the UK, reasonable prices and rapid delivery. |
| Riedon A resistor manufacturer this site has a resistor handbook and technical data. |
| RS Components Once the famous 'Radio Spares' now an industrial supplier but can come in handy. On line ordering and lots of downloadable data sheets. |
| Scalespeed Rewinds, remagnetising and DCC for Hornby Dublo and Triang. |
| Signal Research Offer a digital block control system, the site has now been expanded and has an interesting system description. |
| Technobots UK based company. Very good service. Do a variety of electronics (inc Arduino, Raspberry Pi) bits and some mechatronics bits. A lot of stepper motors (NMEA std), plastic chain transmission. |
| The Servo Shop For a huge range of servo motors, useful to check specs. |
| Viessmann Models German manufacturer of signals, lighting and other accessories. |
Model Railway Electronics
| Absolute Aspects Supplier of bespoke signals formerly supplied by Roger Murray. |
| Adventure in Miniature A dutch modelling site with some interesting electronic and DCC projects including memory wire point actuation. |
| DCC N gauge David Harris - David shares some of his ideas |
| DCC4PC A site desribing development of a model railway automation system using 'railcom' readers |
| Electronic Circuits A collection of circuits culled from magazines etc and presented in a rather unusual way |
| Gateway NMRA This NMRA region has an interesting section on electronics. |
| Hobby Projects A collection of model railway related electronic resources. |
| Model Railroad Electronics Circuits Rob Paisley describes many of the circuits used on the large 'O' scale layout of the London Model Railroad Group in Ontario, Canada. Now available again. |
| Model Railroad System A collection of applications for controlling and operating model railways, by Robert Heller of Deepwoods Software. |
| Model Railroading Constant brightness lighting using the LM334Z |
| My Loco Sound Offers sound boards for large scale (eg. garden railway) DC and DCC trains and also RTR units fitted in vans. |
| Turntable Controls - An article Fine Positioning using an Optical Interrupter |
Computer Software
| CTI electronics Provide modules, accessories and software for remote control of layouts from your PC, can be used with conventional or dcc systems. |
| DCC Train Automation A DCC supplier concentrating on automation products including Itrain |
| GPPSoftware Graham Plowman offers 'SSI', also designed to drive the RPC system. |
| JMRI Java Model Railroad Interface: This site supports a collaborative effort to develop Model Railway software in the open-source tradition. JMRI supports CBUS. |
| Model Train Catalogue Cataloguing software as described in MERG Journal 2016 No 4 |
| QTU, TCC etc. New Zealand based, Howard Amos's site supports his software and hardware designs for layout automation. |
| Railroad & Co. A computer program to operate a layout from a PC running MS Windows. |
| Rocrail (3498) Rocrail is an open source software project for layout automation and provides an alternative to JMRI. Rocrail supports CBUS. |
| Sandia Software Offers various model railway related software including 'Cadrail', a CAD program for model railway design. |
| Wagonflow Judi Rastall M3086 Software for generating traffic based on prototype practice and producing schedules and timetables, worth a look. |
| WinRail Layout design package. The demonstration version on-line for download contains libraries of 'Peco' and 'Hornby' track templates. |
| XTrkCad A well featured program for designing a layout, "XTrkCad" includes templates for most commercial track and even for P4 track. Formerly offered as shareware XTrkCad is now available as a free download. |
DCC - non-commercial
| DCC Conversions for LGB A useful set of pages for the Garden Railway lovers. |
| DCC decoder plugs and sockets. Information on the 21pin plugs and sockets. Also covers the Plux series. Article dated 2013. |
| DCC DIY function only decoder Interesting function decoders, economical if you want fancy lighting in coaches etc. By Paul Harman |
| DCC Helpful Hints Dick Bronson covers DCC including block occupancy detection and remote control uncouplers. |
| Embedded loconet Arduino libraries for Model rail, including embedded loconet and OpenDCC. |
| MiniDCC A DIY DCC System |
| National Model Railroad Association The organisation administering the DCC Standard. Search the site for the official Standards and Recommended Practices for the NMRA DCC specification. Also for the list of commercial products that have been awarded NMRA Conformance Warrants and a links page with over 3000 railroad sites. See also John Balogh's NMRA site>/a> |
| NEM/MOROP The European standards for model railways are available here, generally they adopt the NMRA standards for DCC but there are often presented a bit differently! |
| Wiring for DCC These excellent pages by Allan Gartner give advice on wiring layouts for DCC. See also Alan's Q&A forum. |
DCC - UK
| Coastal DCC Supplier of DCC systems and sound projects, based in Ipswich. |
| DCC Supplies A UK specialist DCC supplier, selling a wide range of the major equipment plus accessories. They are also UK distributors for Pricom (DCC testers and Dream Players). They specialise mainly in DCC, supplying Lenz, ESU, Gaugemaster, Digitrax, NCE, Digirails, Zimo etc. and also a full range of maintenance and other essentials, including track. |
| DCCconcepts Now based in Settle, UK, this supplier of DCC systems and related accessories moved from Australia. Good on advice and assistance, especially for DCC sound and LED lighting and other nice things. |
| Digitrains Ltd Offer DCC kit and associated accessories, dealers for NCE, TCS, ESU/Loksound and others. |
| Dynamis by Bachmann A site to extoll the virtues of the new Bachmann DCC system, very high spec for the price. |
| Gaugemaster After years of selling standard DC controllers Gaugemaster have expanded into DCC with a range based on the American MRC Prodigy advance. |
| Heathcote Electronics. Supplier of DCC controlled coach lighting units |
| Scalerail Scalerail of Horley, Surrey sell Lenz and provide on-line sales. |
| South West Digital Supplier of ESU Loksound dcc, they have the manuals on line in English. |
| Sunningwell Command Control Ted Smale imports Digitrax and Soundtrax equipment. |
| Wickness Models Wickness Models offers a bespoke conversion service for OO and N gauge models covering UK, European and US manufacturers. They also offer a line of Lenz, CT Elektronik and Hornby DCC equipment and decoders. All enquires welcome. (Run by MERG Member No: 3363) |
DCC - Europe
| CT elektronic Austrian supplier of decoders and some other electronic goodies. |
| Dietz Modelbahntechnik Offer a variety of DCC items |
| ESU Loksound German alternative to Soundtraxx with some innovative features. |
| Fleischmann Manufacturer of FMZ, now upgraded to a dual NMRA and FMZ system. <em>(German language)</em>. |
| HDL Multilingual Hobby site by Hans Deloof with an economical range of accessory boards for use with Loconet, includes Servo drivers, block detectors and I/O boards. |
| Helmo Offer a transponder system for feedback from dcc systems (German language). |
| LDT Littfinski have a variety of DCC modules including accessory decoders. |
| Lenz German manufacturer producing products to the NMRA DCC specification. |
| Marklin German manufacturer well known for their model railway products not NMRA compatible but their own Marklin format dcc. <em>(German language)</em>. |
| Uhlenbrock German manufacturer of analogue and digital items including the "Intellibox" multiprotocol command station, site is in German but English manuals are available for downloading. |
| Umelec Swiss manufacturer of very sophisticated decoders incorporating sound and an auto signalling feature. |
| Viessmann Models German manufacturer of accessory decoders, DCC command station and booster, all kinds of model items like lights and signals, Kibri and Volmer models, catenary system items, figures, etc. |
| VSDM A Swiss DCC Group connected with Tanner of Winlok, offering electronic modules for model railways. (German language) |
| Zimo Austrian manufacturer producing high specification DCC products. |
DCC - USA
| Blackstone Models A division of Soundtraxx established to market DCC and Sound equipped H0n3 trains. |
| CVP Products Supplier of the EasyDCC system ready made or as the kits featured in Model Railroader Magazine. |
| Digitrax Manufacturer of DCC products that are popular with North American users. |
| Model Rectifier Corp. Makers of the Prodigy and Prodigy advance DCC system. |
| North Coast Engineering Manufacturer of the North Coast Master Series DCC System and North Coast Decoders. North Coast now have their own site. |
| Soundtraxx. DCC Sound Systems, site includes samples. |
| Team Digital A variety of advanced DCC accessories |
| Train Control Systems. A supplier of decoders. |
Courses
| Missenden Abbey An annual weekend course on model railway electronics as well as others on other modelling topics. Tutors for the electronics course come from MERG and it is masterminded by member Chris Langdon. |
Helpful sites
| Control of Stepping Motors, a Tutorial Doug Jones at the University of Iowa provides a description of how to control stepper motors for turntables and similar applications. |
| Flexinol Wires Information on "Flexinol" Memory Wire by the US manufacturer Dynalloy Inc. |
| UK Model Shop Directory Probably the largest and most comprehensive directory of online resources for UK modellers. |
| What is Linux A good general description about Linux |
3D printing
| 3D Designs (Thingiverse) Masses of designs for 3D printers. |
| Filament Supplier (3DFilaprint) Several MERG members buy their filament (ABS and PLA) from this UK based supplier. The prices are considerably cheaper than other suppliers. A large range of "novelty" filaments are also available such as "cement" and "wood". Sample packs ("wraps") of 10m of filament are available at a very reasonable price. |
| Makerbot upgrades (bc technologies) US company that supplies heated glass bed plates and replacement aluminium arms for the makerbot 3D printers. |
| Makerbot upgrades (p3-d) US based company that supplies glass bed plates (unheated) and aluminium arm stiffeners for the Makerbot printers. |
Microprocessors
| Building a DCC Monitor with an Arduino Details from MynaBay Inc. on interfacing an Arduino to DCC to monitor DCC packets. |
| Online @ Microchip Producer of PICmicro devices. Pages include product Application Notes and Datasheets. |
| PIC Microcontrollers On-line book on PIC programming from 'mikroElektronika', 9 chapters, very comprehensive introduction. |
| Talking Electronics This site provides a lot of beginners information and tutorials with particular emphasis on the use of PICs. Kits are on offer to support the tutorials and include a PIC programmer. |
Layouts and Museums
| Pendon Museum A UK registered charity and home to a permanent and automated railway modelling exhibit, Pendon Museum has a long association with MERG. |
| Pro-Rail Once supplied memory wire specially developed for modelling applications (refer to TB G22/1 by Mike Walshaw) but manufacturing now ceased. The Website covers the development of the Ferbach layout |
| Sierra Western & Santa Fe A large US layout controlled by DCC. Pages include an overview of the Locomotive Control System. |