Gordonwis

621 - 633 (1984-5) are 10 years younger than 611 - 620 (1973), so its the older batch that is most at risk . Four of the 1973 batch have already been stopped (a precursor to scrapping), but 611 will not be stopped because the green livery is not accurate on the later locos as they were delivered in red livery.

Yes I was referring to the actual physical repaint not the concept of preserving stuff in green - the concept was known as early as October 2021 .

If I was needing to achieve the same thing, I would probably reach for my age old stock of scalelink metal N scale fencing. It is still available: https://www.scalelinkfretcetera.co.uk/product/snf024/ .

Sure beats its previous hideous 'Login' livery!

This repaint was flagged on SRS facebook a few days ago. Rollout has come sooner than some expected. .

Despite my instant reaction being definitely 'railings', based on dozens of visits the RhB over 60 years - this question made me doubt myself! So I had to go back to lots of photos of RhB to double check. I would definitely add railings. Even if not the modern version, all pictures of my own and published in books show railings on all but the shortest bridge. I have seen a few short 'culvert' bridges and retaining walls apparently without railings but it looks as though the rule might be that railings are required on anything longer than a single arch structure. My 2010 pictures show no railings on the small bridge on the lower loop at Berguen, but railings on the small bridge on the middle level. To add additional debate - I find the size of the stone blocks in your small viaduct too large. Looking at RhB stone infrastructure, IMO each stone block should be about the size of a headlight on an RhB loco

The trick with specialised words like this is to not look at a 'translation' dictionary (eg French/English) but to look up a 'single language' dictionary (eg Larousse for French) I did exactly that and large barrel is one of the definitions. There is a background info note against said definition which explains that the word was borrowed from German (Fuder).

Yes, I mentioned the bi-foudres because that is exactly what you already have behind the loco in your lead-off post - twin barrel wine wagons. No wine in Brittany so if they were used they would almost certainly not have Etat railway markings. Most Bi-foudres had private owner markings plus railway allocation PLM or PO-Midi for wine wholesalers in the south of France or the Paris region. I recommend you letter them up as the latter. Here is an example: http://www.maquetland.com/article-phototheque/10558-wagon-bi-foudre-1910-sete-2016

In contrast, I do see the point. The superelevation on my layout Chamossaire definitely helps long intermodal and express passenger trains get round the curves into the fiddle yard with less risk of derailment due to excessive drag or buffer lock. .

The most plausible vignette I can come up with is a small layout serving a warehouse (perhaps bottling plant?), where the bi-foudres arrive from either Paris or further afield (usually south)

triebfahrzeuge.ch

The mobile substations occur all over Switzerland - I've seen them frequently on my travels

I have some of the largest radius Unitrack superelevated double track. I will try and put a few sections together and photograph it for the benefit of this thread. However I think even the largest radius is quite tight to represent the Burgdorf - Wynigen section.

Another source suggests they only ran regularly for about 16 years and in a limited area, which is quite limited usage IMHO.

This should read 3-230E 960-84 (all SNCF locos have a letter suffix of some kind)

This model comes into the category of 'very tangentially French' railway models in various scales produced by German manufacturers - who in order to say they had produced something French issued repaints of German prototypes - such models are generally referred to as 'Francisé / 'Frenchified'. My personal categorisation for these is as follows: 1) very / incredibly tangential 🤣 (ie spent little of very little time in France or were early withdrawals) 2) 'worth the effort' - ie prototypes that spent an extended period running in France and /or survived into 'modern SNCF era Personally I have never invested in a model in category 1 (I work in N scale) but I have a collection of stuff in category 2 Category 1 includes the type under discussion here, plus things like Category 2 includes much better known SNCF classes including 150X (DRG 44), 150Y (DRG 52), 040D (DRG 55), 1-230F (ie Est region 230F - Prussian P8, DRG 38). The 040D is particularly good as the last examples were still at Calais after steam had ended in the UK!

I remember seeing Denges yard being built...😲

Could I politely suggest that if you are posting about trains on the other side of Switzerland from Romandie, that you post in a separate thread. Because my 70 year family connection with Romandie has very sadly now been broken by the death of my late Uncle, I am most interested in your updates from Suisse Romande - a region I have been closely associated with for all of my 64 years on this earth - and where the railways are much less commonly visited and talked about by English speaking enthusiasts than further East in Switzerland, but I believe a study of the Bernina - much more visited / photographed / reported upon by the same enthusiasts demographic, IMHO really belongs in a separate thread. Just an idea: perhaps you could split this thread into two ongoing threads 'Romandie' and 'beyond Romandie'

It should just be clarified that at the time of the photo the border at Bad Schandau was between the DDR and Czechoslovakia. Also, the source says 'around 1965' which matches my guess that it is 'mid 60s' rather than late 60's. It's a great photo, I would not have thought that a BR ferry van would have been circulating 'intra-Warsaw Pact' as early as the mid 60s, although I did see such a van in Sopron (Hungary) marshalling yard in 1985 (being passed by a Hungarian steam loco!)

One each of 1st and 2nd class 'new' 2020 livery N gauge Fleischmann EW4 from Scograil at Ally Pally today

HO scale TeII from the collection of the late Ian Thomson being sold today on the French Railways Society stand at Ally Pally. Some parts need refitting but great stuff for £45 when it is my secondary scale

As someone who travelled frequently to family in Ferney Voltaire for 60 years by various means, the inception of the even just the first bit of Paris - Lyon HS line and thus the creation of Paris - Geneva TGV services in 1981 (when I was living in Peterborough) made it possible for one to travel from not just London but a few places north of London to Geneva in one day for the first time. The fact that this 'high speed bonanza' was not taken to advantage by Britain is an indictment of this country's transport ( and other) policy over decades and decades. Sadly the Thatcher government's security and safety paranoia put paid to any sensible train services (nightstar and cross channel locals included...) being introduced , because of the ridiculous rolling stock technical requirements and refusal to make border / customs arrangements simple. Put bluntly, it is absolutely ludicrous - and has been since the inception of the Channel Tunnel, that there is no direct train service from London to Geneva. It was the most blatantly obvious opportunity when the Channel tunnel was built given that: Geneva already had a ready made platform with customs hall and facilities into which a train from London could have been run. Geneva is crammed full of English speakers and expat Brits There are about 10 flights a day just from London - every one almost always full The erstwhile London - Bourg St Maurice Eurostar proved that a similar train to Geneva could easily have been created with the right political will. For the last few years I have been dealing with the legacy of my uncle's vast railway photo etc collection, such that I am still taking items from my house back to Geneva (to the AGMT tramway museum ) - I did two trips in 2023 and have one trip coming up where I will be forced to do my now usual thing - a 5am taxi from home to Gatwick, fester at Gatwick then plod along the taxiway in the giant queue of morning flight departures; Easyjet to Geneva. On both my trips in 2023 I left my office near Euston thinking how nice it would be to be able to amble after work over to St Pancras and arrive in Cornavin the following morning. .

Here are the Busch cheapies on my layout Chamossaire at ESNG last September

The other problem with Mafen signals is that the 'nicest' aka most 'imposing' ones (ie the multi aspect and combined 'home and distant' versions) are between 30 and 60 quid a pop. One reason why I went with the dummy Busch ones (pack of 12 for £15 from a discount retailer)

I did in fact mention the Kyodo Lemaco signals in my post on Tuesday. I prefer them to Mafen because you can actually see them (!) but getting hold of them now is very hard, hence my decision to use cheapy plastic German signals modified