The Allegra

The Rhätische Bahn in Switzerland took delivery of a new electric unit from Stadler a couple of weeks ago (RHB Press release). It’s being tested at the moment with a view to introduction in the May 2010 timetable change. I’ve not been able to glean a lot of information except that it’s an (/12 wheel arrangement (8 0f 12 axles powered) and called the ‘Allegra’ which sounds like something you get on your foot in English: I’m sure it sounds much better in French. Pictures can be found here. Videos are a bit thin on the ground but I found one of it being hauled out for testing.

… and now another has turned up of it running under its own power, showing a good side elevation with lots of details. Notice the low floor doors, luggage section, and the very modern infrastructure (and the dual gauge track at right)

Thanks to Buntbahn.de for the heads-up.

I was hoping to have more news of stock building, but I’m stuck at the moment. I’ll tell you why in a bit…

Stock design 01: Intermodal

For the self-respecting modern, customer-orientated narrow gauge railway with freight ambitions and one eye on the bottom line, the ‘Must-have’ accesory is a container wagon. Transporter wagons or rollboks have their very useful place, but they are specialised and complicated bits of kit, whereas the good old ISBU container is simple and needs pretty normal equipment so hoist it off a truck or standard gauge train, and load it onto the narrow gauge version to be carried up into the depths of the Black Forest: Everyone has a container crane these days.

Here’s a bad picture of a design for a 40′ intermodal wagon I’ve started. The deck is already complete but it’s a lousy day for taking pictures…

I’m going for a skeletal look with either home made bogies hidden under there or cut-down versions from Cambrian Models: final decision to be based on how well or badly my own designs turn out. I’m not sure where I’ll put the weight though: I guess I’ll have to be all creative with air reservoirs or something. The wagons will need to be low, by the way so the containers can be unloaded at any siding without needing a loading bay, which makes them more flexible for customers.

Oh, I’ll admit it, it’s because I think they look nice…

Interlude

Yesterday Beautiful Wife and myself celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. Eleven years after we met in the UK, and many people reacted to our engagement with disbelief that two young people from the UK and Japan could ever see each other again, let alone organise a life together, we’ve three fantastic boys and a lot of dreams for the future. And she’s more beautiful than ever…

I love you M, thanks for a great nine years…

[If you're wondering what the picture is, it's a Celtic two-chord design, each chord forming one half of the heart, intertwined at the top and the point.]

Spitzenwald Timetable

I should be making KÖB Railcar 2.0 at the moment, but unfortunately the loft ladder is stopping me. You may recall that the loft in our new apartment now houses the model making desk, which is wonderful and I’m happily messing it up, but unfortunately the ladder to the loft (installed -at a guess- in the late 1970’s) squeaks and creaks like mad when opened so I’ll have to wait a bit until the boys are really sound asleep before attempting to open the thing. It’s a tough life.

So in the meantime I’ll blather on here. Assuming that I’m going to make ‘Spitzenwald’ like my mid 1990’s model of Aysgarth, I’ve a pretty clear idea what I need to run the it. I know British and European methods are different, but Aysgarth wasn’t remotely realistic anyway, and the KÖB will run how I think a railway ought to, which isn’t necessarily how German railways work either. I’m assuming that Spitzenwald will have a regular passenger service for schools and commuters, which will be early because schools start at 0745 in Germany. I reckon a railcar will be the minimum for this. Later, I’d expect a half-hourly passenger service, which I expect to use Railcar 2.0 for, probably attached to a coach, so I’ll need to use a shunter to release it so looks like I’ll be making Westerooge diesel 2.0 as well, unless I make a driving trailer. Whatever passengers travel in, it’ll probably also have the odd wagon on the back so the shunter will be kept busy.

Unless I assume a larger sawmill or similar nearby, that could be it, with a few wagons alongside. Of course I am assuming a larger sawmill, and probably a container unloading terminal -neither of which are far fetched in Germany- so eventually there will have to be a few more wood and container wagons, and a couple of bigger diesels to get them up the horrendous gradients. The diesels will naturally lay over in the siding at the back, although they will have to move off by evening because I expect the railcar will be stabled there overnight.

TIme to get looking at suitable prototypes- except that I’ve not heard anything from the boys room in ages, sl I think I’ll risk opening the loft.

What now? Episode 4: Back to the future.

Before I went on to do other things in my late teens I made three models: ecah one was smaller than the last. The first was a tailchaser called ‘Howden’ based on a plan out of a Hornby catalogue which was 6′x4′ and sat in a corner of my bedroom like a small elephant: the whole room had to be organised around it. Added to this it wasn’t that reliable and I gradually became dissatisfied with the realism, so after a house move the chipboard was rearranged and I made an ‘L’ shaped station with a motive power depot and a bit more scenery, called ‘Ripley’. This worked slightly better and looked more realistic if you ignored the 15″ radius curves and foam underlay. Finally, I saw a small terminus model with one set of points in an old Railway Modeller magazine, and decided to make something like it on a piece of old chiopboard and some offcuts of wood. Unusually for me I then did it, and ‘Aysgarth’ was born.

‘Aysgarth’ looks nothing like the village or even the station in Richmondshire. I didn’t care. I used a British Rail class 25, a class 03, a pacer, and a very old Triang DMU. A class 45 would come in occasionally as a light engine to fuel, just because I like them. The class 25 would haul a Mk1 brake or composite in, sometimes with a fuel tank attached to the back or a van. I know it’s not remotely accurate, but it was my first realistic model that worked properly. I had an immense amount of fun running the model and solving shunting problems.

‘Aysgarth’ had a platform, bay, and a siding at the back with a fuel point. I assumed an industrial siding just beyond the bridge and freight trains would occasionally arrive and be shunted off by the class 03. The 03 would also be kept busy turning round mixed and passenger trains in this passing loop free terminus, so it was pretty tough keeping the timetable going sometimes. I had plans to build the ‘other side of the bridge’ or even complete the passing loop, but alas it was not to be. I didn’t even photograph the model before life took over and I started work, fell in love, got married and emigrated to Germany, in that approximate order.

I never missed ‘Howden’ or ‘Ripley’ but ‘Aysgarth seems to have got under my skin somehow. It is still my favourite plan,  I know how I’d run it, and even what sort of stock I’d need, it is quite possible within my budget and now the available space. I think (he says cautiously) this may end up being the next model.

While you’ve been reading this series I’ve been working on ideas for 1:55 scale rolling stock for the line, and pondering that difficult question: should I attempt overhead wires?

EDIT: I seems that I’ve assumed you can all read my mind, again: ‘Aysgarth’ was the name of my last micro layout in the 1990’s, which was based in the UK and built to British ‘OO’ scale. The new model, if it emerges from the great pile of cardboared in the loft, will be a German narrow gauge line and will hopefully be the realisation of the long-awaited (at least by me) ‘Spitzenwald’ Probably it will be operated in a similar way to ‘Aysgarth’, but it will be firmly in the Black Forest.

Mind you, a 1:55 scale model of the Northallerton-Hawes route as an electrified metre gauge line would be interesting…

Goodbyes

It’s cold: that special early morning you-should-be-in-bed cold that starts somewhere in the bone marrow and works its way out. Mum and Dad are sorting out passports and tickets, checking how much time they have to change trains in Paris, and sorting out luggage. I’m already starting to think about the day ahead: getting the boys to school and kindy, letters to sort out and stuff to catch up with. None of us mention that this is the last time we’ll see each other until August, almost a year away. The sun hasn’t made it over the hills, but central Stuttgart is bright as ever with conflicting signs vying for attention and universally ignored by the sleepy commuters on the tram.

Stuttgart main railway station remains one of the best places to start a journey, and the TGV my parents will be taking to Paris looks the height of long distance travel elegance. Two short weeks ago we waited on the platform while another TGV came in carrying them on the final(ish) leg of their journey from the UK. By tonight, they’ll be back home.

Of course their coach is at the other end of the platform, so we haul purselves and their bags (only two and a camera bag: I’m seriously impressed with how light my parents travelled) to the correct door. I want to go in and help them, but they got here with no trouble and anyway, the train will leave soon and it’s best not to get stuck on a TGV without a ticket.They find their seats, and we have a quick goodbye and hug in the gathering dawn.

We have pantomimed conversation through the window, not helped by them being in a brightly lit train while I’m on a dark platform. Then the guard blows his whistle, the crew all check there’s no-one on the platform, the doors all close, and the train pulls out, red rear lights blinking as it passes signals and overhead wire gantries.

I walk back the length of the platform and catch the next tram up the hill and to my family where my boys are ready to go to school and to kindergarten.

The sun is coming over the hills: it’s going to be a bright day.

Now what? episode 3: Urban Joker

So I see a picture of a model without a fiddle yard. I know it’s not a new concept, but it seemed interesting, so I sketched up a couple of ideas: Here’s the ‘Joker’:

I originally thought of this as a 3mm scale, 9mm gauge shunting model with several industries and a locomotive shed. The idea was to save fiddle yard space by not having a fiddle yard. My cunning plan was instead to make the buildings big enough so it was impossible to see both sides, and make the loop hidden so the locomotive woud have to keep dissapearing when it was shunting.

I had to push it a bit further didn’t I? I figured that having a continuous run could be good (for the boys, of course, not in any way because I’m a closet ‘tail chaser’ fan) so I sketched this idea out. The plan is that a locomotive would chase its tail until we -that is, the boys- were bored, then deliver wagons into one of the two sidings on the left end to be picked up by a shunter which would distribute the wagons to the industries. The same shunter would then collect wagons from the industries and deliver them to the sidings, whereupon the train engine would collect them and take them for a jolly spin around the baseboard.

I think this would need a few more destinations to make a viable small-person-pleasing model. I originally thought of the top right corner as a loco depot to dump locos in between assignments, but I think it may need to be another industry. Extending the model along one of the sidings would be interesting.

Once again, thoughts, ideas?

One more design coming, and while you’ve been reading these posts I’ve been working on designs for rolling stock, etc.

Now what? Episode 2: Variations.

I liked the ‘Schwarzwald’ design so much that I decided to try a variation:

I was idly wondering what a waterside model would be like, so that, for example, a line built to bring in tourists was extended to a small harbour to serve a ferry parhaps, or coastal/river shipping. To make a scenic break, I envisaged a walled town: we have a few of these about in Germany, in fact there is one very close to here where the wall used to go across the river. I figured it wouldn’t be much of a push for a small market town with walls protecting the old harbour to have expanded in the industrial era, and as the walls would then no longer be needed the harbour could expand beyond. Because the enterance would be easy to see through from the front, I thought of adding a lighthouse front centre to hide it a bit.

Actually, large-scale sea defences aren’t beyond possibility either. While riding home from Amsterdam we came across many villages protected by substantial dykes and sea walls, so it’s possible the scenic break could be a gap in the barrier. I’ll look at the construction of these in more detail another time.

I know that such a construction would be more likely to have a single track section than double track. You could probably get around this by having the line follow a road through an old gap in the dyke, but if that bothers you stick with the ‘city gate’. you could even have one line running through the original gate and another running through a new portal, like the trams in Freiburgs Martinstor. Although I’d probably make something more like the old gate.

I don’t see me making this though, not yet anyway. The main problem with both of these plans is that I’d want to operate from the front at home, so the fiddle yard could be a bit of a pain to get to. And besides I’m sticking with the Bleack Forest/Spitzenwald idea for now.

More thoughts on this and other stuff coming.

Now what?

Now the dust is beginning to settle, for the time being anyway, so I can make tentative thoughts about modelmaking again.

Frankly it’s high time I built anything, but a layout would be favourite. It’d be an incentive to start stockbuilding again, and give me a focus on what I’m going to build on some stock, so I’ve been looking through some of the back-of -an-envelope doodles I’ve got filed away. Many date from back in 2005 when I started thinking about making a model railway, and a lot are unsuitable at the moment, but I’ve gathered a few together that I liked and could work, (and a ‘joker’ that’ll turn up at some point just to see what people think).

Idea #1, ‘Deep Schwarzwald’: A terminus -or possibly a through station ‘with the line closed beyond this point’ as at Sägewerk Pfeifle’, about 1500 by 500mm. I wanted a simple design, two points/switches (they cost money), and an open feeling with plenty of opportunity for scenery, the idea being that I’d have some chance for scenic work and making buildings, particularly a nice sawmill which would involve a way to load and unload wood. As the fiddle yard is at the back, I figure I could have a realistic loading/unloading sequence: even if I have to use a ‘hand out of the sky’ it would be hidden by the buildings.  Operation would consist of a passenger and parcels service to the station and empties in/wood out from the mill, possibly the odd containerised tank of chemicals (for wood treatment), and other smaller scale flows: sawdust could be one. I could even have drinks being delivered to the village on the platform. That’ll mess up the shunting at the mill, especially if there is a passenger service coming in.

Time for bed. Next time, variations on the theme.

Quality Time

It’s been much longer than I’d like since I posted here. Of course a job interview and cycling back from Amsterdam on a cargo bike didn’t help this. It’s hard to build models when you’re nowhere near your modelmaking bench. (The story of getting the bike home is gradually unfolding here).  I also want to write about the accident on the Lößnitzgrundbahn as soon as I can, but I’m waiting for more information from the investigation, as all I have at the moment is rumour and speculation.

For the last two weeks I’ve been distracted for a much better reason: my parents are here, so we’ve been showing them around and generally having a good time as a family. I caught the railway bug from Dad, so naturally we took a train from Stuttgart to Esslingen and thence to Plochingen. It was fun, of course to go and watch trains, but basically the point was time with my dad, doing something we both enjoy.

Anyway, we sent to Stuttgart, took a few pictures and thence to Esslingen in search of freight trains. There wasn’t much doing (usually freight picks up in the afternoons) so we went to scout out Plochingen, which is on the junction where the line to Tübingen meets the line to Munich, and the last port on the Neckar river, so there’s a yard next to the station. We figured there would be some shunting at least. Unfortunately, while there was a bit, it was mostly hidden behind some S-Bahn units that were loafing about near the platforms, but we were able to travel on the upper deck of one of DB’s new double deck trains, so we aren’t complaining.

I’m sure both of my readers will be more interested in pictures than my ramblings, so here’s the ones I was able to take…

Class 425. outer surburban/rural unit. These are almost identical to the new S-Bahn inner suburban units, the main difference being that they have more seats than the S-bahn ones, less doors and a toilet. They are also a bit wider, for some reason.

DB Schenker class 151. These have been DB’s workhorses since they were built in the 70’s: they aren’t glamorous but they can haul anything. DB have a couple in Geislingen (Of which this could be one) to bank freight trains up the 1 in 44,5 (2,25%) climb up towards Ulm.

Most local/stopping trains are now in the hands of Br 146 locomotives and very comfortable double deck coaches. This one is pushing an Ulm-bound train into the undergrowth in Esslingen. While we were there, an almost identical set passed heading for Lindau. Methinks it’s time for a day trip…

Old S-Bahn units in the background, and a second-generation set about to depart for Herrenberg. There are now more third generation units on order, which are streamlined like a HST. The train in the background was in the way of the yard so all we saw was a shunter occasionally shuffling stock around the distant end of the yard…

Unfortunately I’m a bit low on uploaded pictures, as Photobucket is playing up tonight. I’ll try and get it to behave, and maybe try and persuade Dad to let me put some on here as well…