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These photos are great, and not just the Swiss ones. Please do keep them coming!

Very sad to see these go, even if we knew it was coming. Apart from anything else, in my view one of the handsomest electric locos in Swizterland - really rather cute! Still, as they've pointed out, it's not completely the end for them all and shouldn't be for quite a while.

Great, thanks a lot - shall keep an eye out for those two.

Those barns look particularly nice - suspect I could do with one or two on my layout! Can you by any chance recall which Kibri model numbers those are? Thanks!

Well, as I read this I am sitting on a German train, trying to escape the chaos that is Germany's railway system, with a new, sound-equipped Bemo Ge 6/6 II (703 St Moritz, as you ask!) on the table in front of me, having diverted my journey home from the Czech Republic via Modellbahnshop Lippe's fine establishment in Detmold..... in an attempt to evade the post-Brexit costs and tedium of getting it sent to me via DHL...! Given the state of DB these days (I may well not make it home today despite all the extra hours' allowances I'd planned to take account of what we know all too well about German railways), you could well argue that any saving I may or may not make will be something of a pyrrhic victory...!!

Personally I think it looks hellfire! Out if interest, why did you go for scratch-building rather than, say, Sommerfeldt stuff? Cheers

That looks genuinely stunning. If my vaguely similar-sized RhB layout ever looks one tenth as good as that, I'll be very happy indeed! Question: on the third track from the station building (goods loop), is that a check-rail on there? Don't think I'd noticed them on RhB before, but it's a while (too long!) since I've been in Langwies. Oh, just one thing, though: I think that German police car is a little out of its jurisdiction.....! ;-) Perhaps one of these might suit...: http://www.mf-modellbau.eu/contents/de/d699.html I do look forward to seeing it with the OLE in place - no small job, I suspect... good luck! PS Ad the screenshots from Google Maps, there are ways around this - I suspect that the Windows Snipping Tool and possibly even just using the (Alt+)Print Screen button on your keyboard might be able to do it for you?

Would it be bad and wrong to say I'd be delighted if the modernised Bemo RhB Ge 6/6 II, first announced some time in the late 19th century*, were actually to put in an appearance before the heat-death of the universe? * This may possibly be a slight exaggeration.

Excellent! The thing to be aware of - as you may have already realised! - is to make sure that when you are taking the body off, the bodyside windows stay on the body. Halved cocktail sticks (four of them!) are you friend here, so you can make sure that the pointy bits go inside the windows rather than outside. With four cocktail sticks correctly placed the body should just slide off very nicely. I'd also take the couplings off first too, before doing this, and possibly also the snow ploughs, as both are easy to remove and replace again when you're finished.

That's a hellfire Loki!

I'd be very surprised if D+R were, after quite a long time, active again - but it would lovely to be wrong! I have a few of their items, all I think acquired from a well-known internet auction concern, including the EW IV that you're after, and would say that they're perhaps not quite as finely detailed as Bemo, but overall are quite OK. I definitely wouldn't hold my breath for a stockist ordering them for you, though!

That looks an amazing layout. I built myself the Faller lasercut kits of both the goods shed and the station at Langwies, and am really happy with the results of both... Trouble is, the rest of the station has yet to be built!

Maybe just one suggestion to add to Jim's excellent and comprehensive reply: when removing the loco body, it's helpful gently to prise the body away from the chassis, and I find that cocktail sticks (possibly halved ones!) are helpful. When doing this, make sure that the point engages between the vents in the bodyside and the chassis, not between the body and the vents, as the vents should remain in the body when you open the loco. That probably sounds obvious, but it's quite easy to get inadvertently between the vents and the body housing instead! (Much the same incidentally with the Ge 4/4 II should you ever acquire one: they have big windows in the bodysides.)

The homepage also makes clear that he's very happy to do one-off bespoke orders too, which could help here? (I do like the fact that, as somebody who specialises in decals, his name is "Andreas Nothaft"!)

Thanks! Yes, that sounds a potentially straightforward solution. Of course I've just belatedly realised that my segment turntable itself lends itself to being the isolating section...! Should have been obvious to me, but there you go....... Cheers

Developing my layout, I have a siding in mind that lends itself to being a dual-purpose, integral programming track. My layout being small, I've decided to keep my basic Roco Multimaus (with 10764 amplifier / booster) just to run the trains (trains only, accessories are analogue). But for programming, I've treated myself to a SPROG II which I will hook up to my laptop to read and write to locos. So I'd like to be able to switch the power going to the siding between the track output of the Roco system (to make life simpler the 10764 doesn't even have a separate programming output anyway!) and the SPROG's output (again, helpfully, that only has one output too!). Ignoring, just for now, the question of whether I need to have an intermediate isolating track (see below - I suspect I may not!), am I right in thinking that I could use a DPDT switch (centre off), with one end activating the output from the Roco unit and the other end activating the SPROG's output? Apologies that the above is probably a somewhat stupid question, but I haven't got a great head for electrics, to say the least! Separately, the track layout approaching the siding in question is a bit unusual: a train will leave the mainline and travel to the end of a short branch / siding.... then it will, if going to the programming siding, go onto a segment turntable, and then reverse out onto the actual siding which doubles as a programming track. Because I have this segment turntable separating the programming track from the rest of the layout, I'm thinking that I really don't need an extra isolating section... so what I propose above with a "simple" (ahem!) DPDT switch might be adequate and 'safe'? Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated - as I say, I'm a bit of a numpty in these things in all honesty. Thanks a lot!

Aha, thanks! That was an education! (Actually it genuinely was a worthwhile read.)

Another, and relatively cheap, solution is these: https://www.noch.de/de/reinigungszwerge.html They clip simply to H0m wagons' axles (rigid rather than bogie stock). My own experience is limited as my layout is still under construction, but my guess is that they are reasonably effective but probably wouldn't eradicate more stubborn dirt, as there isn't much weight pressing down on the pads. But they certainly do turn black, implying something is happening! At the other end of the cost scale, I've had one of these on pre-order for about a year now - maybe it might actually one day come into existence...! - https://www.modellbahnshop-lippe.com/Funktionsmodelle/Reinigungswagen/LUX-9650/de/modell_263459.html Would I be right (dare I ask, but I'm a beginner too!) that the track-rubber debate relates to the dust that they obviously do create? They don't half get the rails clean though....!

I know it won't console much at this stage, but last year I acquired the Faller laser-cut H0-scale model of Litzirüti, and I've been really impressed by it - and it is a very good representation of the prototype! Sorry....!

Very nice entertainment for a rainy Sunday morning! Striking how much has changed: traction (advent of Allegra and Capricorn, and the excellent Ge 6/6 II will soon be gone), stations (especially the smaller ones being modernised) and rolling stock (those old two-axle vans!).

Even nicer, one of its local stations is called "Zug-Schutzengel", probably my favourite station name anywhere. "Schutzengel" means 'guardian angel' - I love the idea that trains have angels watching over their wellbeing... ;-) PS It also took me years to work out the suffixes, Welly!

Yes, I've done the Faller laser-cut models of Litirüti station and the small goods shed from Langwies (both on the Arosa line), and they were easy to make and look, in my opinion, really attractive.

That sounds hugely interesting, thanks very much - but unfortunately at least for my part, Youtube says "this video is private" so I'm unable to view it. Are any others having this problem?