Mike at C&M

Most likely a mis-identification of the source by me, so my apologies for leading you astray. There are many of the European photos on your thread that have brought back happy memories of my European travels in the past.

The most memorable one for me was the early years of the Venice-Simplon-Orient Express. I got up early one morning when staying in Brig to watch it pass through on it's southbound journey towards Venice. I have never seen so many 'half-cut' people in the same vicinity at the same time! One of the more interesting Italian stock workings was the Trans-European Express "Cisalpino", before it downgraded to a EuroCity service. This was formed of Italian coaches, in the traditional red/cream livery. The locomotive on the front is one of the four Re4/4IV locomotives. This photograph suggests it is taken after that downgrading, as the rear of the train is formed of orange liveried Eurofima coaches, probably also belonging the 'FS' The following photograph is not one of mine, but has been pinched from a Facebook group, and often serves as a wallpaper on my laptop. It shows one of the TEE liveried Re4/4II locomotives on a rake on SNCF inox liveried coaches - can anyone confirm if this is Mistral69 stock? I believe the service to be "Lemano" which probably ran from Milan to Paris, via Geneva. Lemano presumably being the Italian name for Lake Geneva (Lac Leman in French)

PM sent.

We have been e-mailing for several days. Interestingly, no e-mails have been bounced back as undeliverable. If Accurascale are reading this, C&M Models in Carlisle want to pay you money in return for the Class 37s we have ordered, and for which you have acknowledged the orders.

Add us to the list of retailers trying to unlock our trade orders for the Class 37s. You should have several e-mails from us in your e-mail inbox already. We look forward to throwing money your way, in return for the 37s that we have ordered, and which you have acknowledged the orders for.

C&M Models are one such retailer. https://cmmodels.7.ekm.shop/class-56-diesel-locomotive-575-c.asp

I have used the Faller background "Karwendel" on my Austrian/German layout. The chimney breast behind where the backscene stands is bigger than the backscene itself, and I decided the best method was to use Deluxe Materials backscene glue to 'paste' the backscene on to a couple of large pieces of card, these were thick pieces which had a previous life as advertising displays in a shop. Because of the size of the attic hatch, this would need to be done within the attic, and therefore done a little bit at a time - the whole process to attach backscene to the card took about a week. Even doing a small section at a time, I still had large air bubbles which can easily be seen. However, as stated in the original post, it is a better alternative than looking the brickwork of a chimney breast.

Following a huge landslide in the mountains above the valley between Teifencastel and Surava, all modes of transport through the Landwasser valley have been closed, and where necessary, evacuations have taken place. It is unknown how long this closure will be in place. The landslide happened through the night, and the authorities are today assessing the lie of the land - quite literally. The area was known to be a danger and steps had been taken, including evacuating the village of Brienz (not the one near Interlaken) some 3 weeks ago. The local television station, BlickTV, have a live webcam on it, unfortunately the landslide occurred under darkness, or the footage would undoubtedly gone viral on the internet. The live feed is on https://www.blick.ch/schweiz/graubuenden/wann-kommt-der-bergsturz-verfolge-die-situation-in-brienz-im-livestream-id18571815.html A Blick TV report is on https://www.blick.ch/schweiz/graubuenden/felssturz-droht-phase-blau-in-brienz-gr-id18559784.html . See how your Romansch language is! And if you follow Tom Scott on Youtube, be did a video about this

Seeing as how this is a railway-based forum, it has to be "Wagon Wheels". The large ones, of course, that used to be available when I-were-a-lad.

Bits and pieces of progress, over recent weeks, mainly with the farmhouse. All the window shutters and window sills are now fitted, and painted. Also, the 3 exterior walls have multiple layers of dark paint on the inside, to stop any light bleed, once interior lighting is fitted. The balconies have been assembled. These are strips of Wills MP201, Wood Planking. Either 5 or 6 planks wide, depending on whether they are for the front or the side of the house. The balcony supports are small strips of Plastruct. The 3D printed shell was designed with small square ledges, upon which the balconies would fit. As this was the first such 3D print my friend did, it was not anticipated that the underside of these ledges would have a small overprint. The ledge, as printed, is one Plastruct width. The middle piece of Plastruct, which fits where the overprint is, simply has a small notch cut into it where the overprint is. Once painted, this should be disguised. The balconies sit roughly in place, even before painting in glueing.

Let's call the whole thing orf! Courtesy of Miss Levine....

C&M are delighted to be celebrating their 20th birthday, today

Little, and not so often has been the progress on the farmhouse, as other matters have had to take preference. I tried a number of different techniques to get the window shutters I wanted, and all showed that I was trying to be too clever. In the end, a simple piece of Plastruct with a couple of cross-pieces at the top and bottom, and then painted green was the simple solution. Once glued in place, the desired effect is achieved. The lower storey is complete, and once the other storeys are complete, it will be the balconies next.

Two of my latest acquisitions are items I have waited years for to complete my D-zug for the Munchen - Zurich train, which will have a double-headed DB Class 218 and Class 210 on the front - sound-fitted, of course. Whilst LS Models have released the passenger coaches for the UIC series previously, it is only recently that the full luggage car has been made available by itself. They have also made available the UIC restaurant car in maroon and Eurofima orange, for the Era IV time period. But instead, I have settled for the EWI restaurant car - I am reasonably certain that I saw these vehicles at Munchen Hbf. at some point in the early 1980s. The other recent purchase satisfies my love of Era IV electrics from the Swiss network, a BLS Ae8/8. Looking forward to seeing this at the front end of a long freight train!

This kit was produced for the Carlisle-based firm of "Model Loco" in the early 1980s, by DJH. We have been contacted by a lady from Australia who has one of these kits, but it is without any instructions and any other paperwork that may have been with the kit. If anyone is able to let me have a copy, please p.m. me, with a view to us obtaining a copy that we can e-mail on to Australia. Thank you, Mike Parsons C&M Models, Carlisle

If you like your geography quirky, then 'The Tim Traveller' - the author of this video, has lots of lovely stuff on his Youtube channel

Slight confusion here. it is "City of Glasgow" that does not have the cabside numbers - the numbers are in large case on the inside of the cab doors. "City of Birmingham" has cabside numbers in the usual place under the cab window

My only knowledge of a purple/white livery was a brief experiment, which I think took place on the then new Inlandreisezugwagen in the early 1980s. I never saw it, and all the Inlandreisezugwagen I saw were in the traditional 'Jaffa' red/ivory livery.

There is a discussion about the orange liveried Eurofima coaches that were very common in Austria during the time that I am modelling. The link is:

The photo at the top of the thread, by Keith, shows 4 out of the 6 types of "Eurofima" coaches modelled by Roco. Roco also do the other two types. The 'ABmz', 1st/2nd composite And the 'Bmz' 2nd class, with the drop windows. The main difference between the two styles of 'Bmz' is very noticeable by looking at the windows when the 2 coaches are next to each other in a rake. Definitely one of my favourite trains on Bayerndorf, a complete set of the orange Eurofimas with a 1044 at the front.

In order to fit a decoder into this locomotive, I need to remove the body. It needs to be remembered that this double loco model comes as a master and slave unit. The instructions are clear as to how to do this - there are four locating lugs which holding the body to the chassis - putting pieces of card between the body and chassis dis-engages these (Step 1in the diagram), and the body is rotated upwards from the inside end (step 2), then pull the body up and away. So having (accidentally) chosen the slave unit first, I managed to remove the body easily. So on to the master unit, where the decoder socket is. Step 1 - no problem, but the rear end of the body [next to the No.2 arrow] will not budge. Does anyone know how I can overcome this problem, possibly from experience. Thank you in advance.

The Austrian Eurofima coaches first started to appear in 1976 with a few hundred coaches being built up until 1980. These all carried the orange Eurofima livery, which are shown on your models. The variants built were 2nd class (Bmz, 180 examples), 1st class (Amz, 25 examples) 1st/2nd class composite (ABmz, 45 examples) and restaurant (WRmz, 10 examples). All these were air-conditioned, and had the full depth single window panes. Further examples were built with drop windows, as shown on the brake 2nd coach in your photograph above. These were 2nd class (Bmz, 105 examples) and Luggage 2nd (BDmpsz, 15 examples - interestingly, these were for internal Austrian services only, and not for international use). A complete train of OBB Eurofima stock passes through Jenbach behind 1044.68 in July 1981 Coaching stock on the international express "Mozart" which ran from Paris Est to Wien Westbahnhof. The picture was taken in August 1980 in Munchen Hbf. As well as the Austrian Eurofimas, the coach rake included a DB "Quick Pick" in blue/ivory (shown here) as well as a number of SNCF Corail coaches. The train arrived from Stuttgart with a DB Class 111 on the front, with an OBB 1044 being put on the other end of the train to rake it forward to Vienna, after reversal in Munchen. One of the 10 'WRmz' Eurofima restaurant cars seen on a Wien Westbahnhof to Bregenz working at Innsbruck Hbf. in 1982 My first sight of the new "rot/umbragrau" livery was in 1987, and obviously it took time for all the Eurofima coaches to be painted into these new colours. If you are modelling from 1990 onwards, you will need to look at the red/grey livery, but there will have been rakes in mixed liveries for several years after that. My first red/Umbragrau coach is seen at Tarvisio Centrale in summer 1987. Note that there are several orange liveried coaches within the rake, as well as an FS (Italian) restaurant car. The train was a Wien Sudbahnhof to Roma Centrale express, and was changing motive power from 1044.70 to an Italian E656, as the voltage changes from 15kV a.c to 3kv d.c.. Tarvisio Centrale is no longer served, as a new high speed line has been built to bypass almost all the old Pontebana route. My next visit to Austria was in 2002, and I do not recall seeing any orange liveried coaches then.

Little and often, this describes the work on the farmhouse over the past couple of weeks. First job was to reinforce the positioning of windows. This was done with pieces of plastruct which had to be fitted in between moulded parts of the window. In order to block any light getting through, the inside of the house was painted with a similar colour to the window frames, so any holes were filled with paint, and it would not be obvious looking at the window from the outside. This procedure continues. Another way to prevent light getting through the ill-fitting windows was to put in place window sills. These are thin, wide sections of Plastruct, and these are being painted in a mid-grey colour to make them visible. More coats of paint are needed on these. Once the painting is complete, time to move on to fitting the balaconies.

To be sung to the tune of "The Gasman Cometh" by Flanders & Swann (see below) " 'Twas on the Thursday evening, the glazier came along With his Plasticweld, his window parts, and his merry Glazier song. He put a few doors and windows in, it took no time at all. But they didn't fit quite properly, the holes needed to be small. Oh it all makes work for the working man to do." Windows from a Kibri kit were measured up ahead of designing the shell of the building, and the necessary holes placed to accept these windows. However, I have now find out that I have made the holes slightly too large. The window frames are not very secure where they are fitted, and it will require some supporting by glueing some Plastruct strip to the sides of the window frames and the inside of the walls, Otherwise, any lights fitted within the house will simply shine through the gaps that currently exist, and I would also run the risk of windows falling out For anyone who does not know the song "The Gasman Cometh", it is as relevant now as it was some 60 years ago.

Germany has a famous case of an electric train being misrouted at the end of 2021. December 12th 2021 saw the annual major timetable change. Up until December 11th, EuroCity trains between Munich and Zurich ran between Buchloe and Hergatz, via the route that served more population centres, such as Kempten. These were hauled by pairs class 218 diesels between Munich and Lindau, where a Swiss Re4/4II electric took over for the onward journey to Zurich. From December 12th, the service would be taken over by Swiss ETR610 electric units which would run the whole way through between Zurich and Munich. German railways electrified the shorter route between Hergatz and Buchloe, through Memmingem, which saved time over the former route. The new service would launched with great fanfare on the day. However...... The first service northbound reached the junction at Hergatz, and the signalman routed the ETR610 unit along the former (Kempten) route. Not only did the electric run out of wires, it brought them down as it hit gantries. Rescue of the stranded unit and repairs meant the both routes were closed for most of the day, so the celebrations of the new, wonderful service has to be cancelled.