I grade meetings at work by how many doodles I manage in my notes. A productive meeting usually has very little: perhaps a one-point micro layout or a small Celtic knot. Slightly less interesting meetings will usually result in a more complex plan like a locomotive depot or a factory. The plan above was the only thing that stopped me going to sleep a couple of weeks ago, so I present it here for posterity, still on the notepaper I had at the time (which is devoid of notes from work)

A couple of other blogs have been discussing the idea of a ‘small empire‘ type model, (Started by the ‘Eastmoor’ blog) where you have several stations/freight sources and a line connecting them, designed to fit into a small room, which is the absolute maximum most of us have available. In 1:55 scale it would be easy to try and squeeze too much in, and two or more stations would be rather tight, so this may be a compromise, a sort of ‘empirette’.

The idea is that the station is one stop before ‘Spitzenwald’, serving one of the many walled towns in the Black Forest. The station is the generic through station of many single track European lines, with a goods loop and two through lines. The town has recently built a new bypass, and the roundabout to access this is cut by the railway, a method in place in at least one place in Stuttgart. I’ve seen it in Duisburg as well. I’m not so sure about the city gate: on this plan the station is outside the old city, but I think I’d need more buildings between the station and the wall itself.

I’ve long dreamt of having a spiral on a model. I just like spirals for some reason: perhaps it’s because I’d get a much longer run and two levels of track. At the bottom of the spiral is another incarnation of ‘Sägewerk Pfeifle‘, with a siding just long enough for a wagon. This would probably be brought down as a single wagon load between trains to and from Spitzenwald. The station could also be the terminus at Spitzenwald, of course, although after the Zillertalbahn has added a double track section, I’d be tempted to leave it as a through station with double track to the left but perhaps that’s a bit too ambitious.

I’ll keep it ready for the future when I have time to build the model. At the moment there are too many meetings…

The youth centre I work at was having a clear out and I ended up tidying the workshop. No-one else wanted to do it, but then, no-one else has a use for lots of plywood offcuts and funny shaped bits of metal.  I think this is because they have a social life. So I parked the Bakfiets outside the door and loaded up while everyone else was sweeping. This is the second load, the first being about 60kg of firewood delivered to a friend. The third was enough dowel and aluminium tube to make a steampunk oil refinery.

I’ve now got enough wood to make a baseboard like that used on Port Pennan on RM Web. (Keep scrolling down for pictures…) The baseboard on that model was built using cardboard fruit boxes and ply, and the result was a cheap, lightweight and very strong baseboard, which makes me hopeful that I may even be able to start on a proper model over the next year.

Which means I need to get building rolling stock. More anon.

At the beginning of November the Zillertalbahn -a 760mm gauge line in the Austrian Tyrol- quietly announced that they had finished some minor work to improve a level crossing and seperate a section of track from the road where it was previously a bit dangerous, as part of a scheme of improvements costing about 5 million Euro.

About a third of the way down the article/press release quietly added: “The scheme also included laying a double track section on the Zillertalbahn between Kaltenbach and Aschau“

To put it another way, the Zillertalbahn has so much traffic that they had to make the middle 6km or so double track to avoid a bottleneck.

In the UK this would have required massive lobbying in London to get the idea included in a ‘five-year-plan’ from Network Rail, who own the majority of the standard gauge system, or a grant from the national lottery. Austria has a much more federal structure so the costs of the scheme were simply covered by the railway and the  Tyrol (the state), with local villages paying towards the cost as well. This photo shows one good reason why they consider it a worthwhile investment- imagine that lot being hauled down the valley in trucks.

Meanwhile, if you’re wondering why progress on the Körschtalbahn seems to be non-existent, it’s because I’m working on a new (work) project which was keeping me busy last week until my system seemed to rebel against the early mornings and late nights. Unfortunately it chose the weekend to make the point, which rather defeated the exercise. I spent much of Saturday with a fever, listening to BBC Radio 7 and scrolling through the Narrow Gauge Railways at Exhibition photo pool on Flickr.

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…

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…

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.]

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.

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…

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.

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.