Overseas railways worth modelling

[Johann Marsbar]

21 minutes ago, whart57 said:

Queensland Railways are another line overlooked in this thread so far.

 

Well, one of these is on the "to do" list at some stage......

https://www.rosewoodrailway.org.au/rm64-the-bug/

[MGR Hooper!]

1 hour ago, whart57 said:

Queensland Railways are another line overlooked in this thread so far.

 

Overlooked in this thread for sure....but the QR lines are so popular. Over the last month or so we've received orders to design no less than 7 QR locos and rolling stock. 

 

Seems to be quite popular nowadays

[Allegheny1600]

4 hours ago, whart57 said:

Queensland Railways are another line overlooked in this thread so far.

I once considered modelling them! And or Tasmanian railways.

That would have been 12mm gauge, H0m (overlooking the slight difference) , quite a few kits were available then Wuiske models of Queensland, Australia started producing RTR models in either standard H0 or H0m gauges.

https://www.wuiskemodels.com
Both railways seemed to use a fair bit of English Electric power so the idea of a narrow gauge six axle version of a British Rail class 20 was very appealing.

One day, perhaps I may revisit this idea. In the meantime, I believe my old friend from the Mickleover club, Paul Martin, imports them: https://ngtrains.com/shop/brand/wuiske-qr/

 

[Michael Edge]

HOm is closer to 3'6" than it is to metre gauge - curiously it seems that no modellers in New Zealand use it.

[DavidB-AU]

8 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

I once considered modelling them! And or Tasmanian railways.

 

Interestingly the most popular scale for modelling the classic era (pre-ANR) Tasmanian railways in Tasmania is OO. The gauge is closer to 3'6" than standard and the availability of off components makes it attractive. For example they had off the shelf Sentinel Cammell steam railcars, the TGR V class diesel an off the shelf Vulcan-Drewry (basically a narrow gauge class 04) and the main line diesels were English Electric with common bogies to many British designs.

 

Post-ANR when the motive power was mainly ex-Queensland locos and a smattering of 830s from South Australia, HOn3½ is more logical.

 

Cheers

David

Edited January 27, 2021 by DavidB-AU

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

HOm is closer to 3'6" than it is to metre gauge - curiously it seems that no modellers in New Zealand use it.

S scale on 16.5mm gauge track is popular in NZ, followed by 9mm scale on 32mm gauge.

 

https://www.nzmrg.org.nz/index.php?option=com_webpage&id=123

[MGR Hooper!]

21 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

S scale on 16.5mm gauge track is popular in NZ, followed by 9mm scale on 32mm gauge.

 

https://www.nzmrg.org.nz/index.php?option=com_webpage&id=123

9mm (N scale) on 32.0mm gauge track?

[St Enodoc]

8 minutes ago, MGR Hooper! said:

9mm (N scale) on 32.0mm gauge track?

No, 9mm = 1 foot scale.

[Michael Edge]

I'm now working in 1:48 scale for NZ which uses the same track gauge (more or less) as standard gauge S scale. My point about HOm was that this is a commercially supported scale/gauge with a huge amount of stuff available, it's almost exactly accurate and yet nobody uses it.

My view is that the track gauge is by far the easiest thing to change so why not use a well supported scale - HO, 4mm, 7mm etc, at least the new NZ scale is the same as American O gauge.

[Hobby]

5 hours ago, MGR Hooper! said:

9mm (N scale) on 32.0mm gauge track?

 

You're mixing your "scales" and "gauges" up, which the manufacturers seem to do all the time! 

[Ian Morgan]

I thought NZ120 was quite popular too, TT scale on N gauge track.

 

 

[Michael Edge]

I do sometimes think that every Kiwi modeller uses his own scale/gauge........

I have done some work in 1:120 scale though - we did do some NZ loco etches in HO - but they went to Canada!

[whart57]

I was going through my half-finished kits and came across this white metal kit by DJH

 

 

My intention had been to build it in its late NS stage when the class were running trains on the Haarlemmermeer lines south of Amsterdam. (Nearly every visitor to the Netherlands will have been to the Haarlemmermeer, it's where Schiphol airport is). The Haarlemmermeer lines were light railways (or local railways in Dutch parlance) which were late opening (first lines opened in 1912) and barely lasted forty years as passenger lines. They would last a bit longer - until 1986 - for freight only and part of the network and the line's Amsterdam terminus are used by the museum tramline in Amsterdam. One model of this line has made the model press, a description of Vinkeveen appeared in Continental Modeller some years ago.

 

However any plans I had for a model of the Haarlemmermeer lines were shelved many years ago so in dusting off the kit for a club project (I need something to run on their 16.5mm gauge layouts) I thought of finishing it in the original Netherlands Central Railway condition.

 

So what was the Netherlands Central Railway and why am I writing about it in a thread titled Overseas Railways Worth Modelling?

 

The answer is that for a dozen or so years, from the start of the 20th century to the start of the Great War, the NCS ran some very striking trains, particularly on their local lines. An example of one of the carriages used by the NCS is preserved in the Utrecht railway museum.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons - photographer Erik Swierstra)

Rather posh. Third class passengers didn't have quite the same upholstery admittedly, though third class did have same varnished teak outsides and balcony ends. The NCS did have one first class carriage in this style, but it was reserved for the use of the then Queen Mother Emma, mother of Queen Wilhelmina. And that gives a clue why the NCS had such high quality local train carriages. Their local lines served an area with a number of royal palaces as well as the country houses of Amsterdam bankers and stockbrokers. Imagine a British branch line that served Windsor Castle, Sandringham and the Surrey stockbroker belt all within a few miles. That line wouldn't be using mid 19th century boneshakers relegated from mainline use either.

 

At the front of the train the locomotives were pretty flash too. In the 1890s the company changed from a plainish green to adopting the yellow colour of the LBSCR. (OK "improved engine green", but Stroudley must have been colour blind if he couldn't see it was yellow). With olive green bands and red, black and white lining. Sadly this was before colour photography and there is no preserved example. There is however a model in the Utrecht Railway museum in full NCS livery

 

 

 

So could the NCS be modelled?

 

I'm not sure the DJH kit is still available. It is definitely a 1980s vintage kit and needs improvement. There is someone called Garrattfan on the internet who has built one - https://modelrailroading.nl/Projects/NS7000n/en.html

 

Another NCS local train loco might be easier. This 2-4-0T is in its NS state but it would have carried the same yellow livery in the first decade of the 20th century

 

 

This was a rebuild, this class were the original locos from the opening of the first NCS line (Utrecht-Zwolle) in the 1860s and rebuilt as tank engines when the local railway network was rolled out. Electrotren did a Spanish 2-4-0 in HO which might be the basis for a conversion if one could be obtained second hand

 

 

So yes it might be possible to model these local lines.

 

As for the NCS, the yellow livery and varnished teak disappeared in 1915 as a wartime economy measure. (The Netherlands remained neutral in WW1 but still suffered an economic slump because of the war). The Netherlands went through their grouping in 1921 (only one group) but two years before, in 1919, the NCS handed over operation of their lines to the SS, the (private) company that ran the state owned lines. The NCS then only existed on paper, and then only until 1937 when all railways in the Netherlands were nationalised.

[pete_mcfarlane]

There a rather nice book called 'Steam in Europe' that has photos by a Dutch gentleman called Lodewijk Derens, which covers Dutch railways of this period (amongst other things - he seems to have had a thing for the 'Great Bear'). Some of the Dutch locos of this period are very nice, with a mix of British and German built locos (and some that look like the Dutch asked the Germans to copy British designs).

 

I got mine from Camden, but they don't seem to list it any more. It's an English edition of a Dutch book, published by Stenvalls in Sweden. 

 

https://www.stenvalls.com/jarnvagar-railways/bocker/steam-in-europe-1894-1947

[Northroader]

The best book for this is:

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?an=waldorp&tn=onze nederlandse stoomlocomotieven woord&sortby=17&cm_sp=plpafe-_-all-_-link

All in Dutch, of course, but it’s fairly easy to get the drift, and it’s well illustrated with photos and drawings.

[EddieB]

6 hours ago, Northroader said:

The best book for this is:

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?an=waldorp&tn=onze nederlandse stoomlocomotieven woord&sortby=17&cm_sp=plpafe-_-all-_-link

All in Dutch, of course, but it’s fairly easy to get the drift, and it’s well illustrated with photos and drawings.

While that is an excellent reference, through many, many editions, I would suggest an even better work is this one:

 

https://www.bol.com/nl/nl/p/de-nederlandse-stoomlocomotieven/1001004002069001/

 

(I'm not posting the direct link, but there's a copy in the UK on abebooks going for an absolute steal).

[whart57]

While we are on matters Dutch, the bits and pieces in my cupboard reminded me of another small Dutch railway that is worth considering for a model. In fact I believe it has been attempted.

 

The starting point is this Roco NS class 200, the so called Sik (goat) on account of the bleating nature of the exhaust powered whistle.

 

 

This example here is an old version from the 1970s, Roco seem to have a new DCC version with automatic uncoupling now.

 

There were a lot of Siks running around on Dutch railways, they were used both for yard shunting and for short trip working, for example on the aforementioned Haarlemmermeer  lines in their latter days. Here is one at Vinkeveen in February 1986

 

 

The line I am going to suggest though is in Amsterdam. At the dawn of the twentieth century the city of Amsterdam had designated some new polders on the north side of the Y river to be industrial terrains. A rail connection was needed but all the railways were on the south side of the Y or a long way away towards Zaandam. The Holland Railway decided on a train ferry instead.

 

This became the Distelwegveer, and connected the new industrial estate along the Distelweg with the railway yards of the Amsterdam Rietlanden. The first factory, opened in 1913, was one making margarine from coconut flesh. A century later the entrepreneurs behind that are recognised as being among the founders of Unilever. That particular plant moved away in the 1930s but by the 1950s there was a healthy industrial base there served by its own, isolated, rail network which was connected by ferry to the rest of the NS system.

 

 

Just for orientation purposes, this screen capture from Googlemaps shows where the Distelweg is in relation to the centre of Amsterdam

 

 

At its peak, there were three or four ferry trips a day, and a Sik from Rietlanden would be shipped over each day

 

 

It strikes me that this railway has the potential to be a nice shunting shelf layout. Only one locomotive and a dozen assorted freight wagons would be needed. Around half a dozen factories had sidings or loading bays and there was also the facility  to use the Distelweg itself as an unloading area from wagon to lorries. The ferry itself would be the fiddle yard.

 

As more and more freight went to road in the 1960s the need for the ferry fell away and the last trips to Distelweg ended in 1973. The tracks were lifted and since 2000 the entire area has been cleared and is now being built up with luxury flats and apartments. A foot passenger ferry still connects the Distelweg to the former Rietlanden, with a half hourly service for most of the day.

 

There are two good websites describing this train ferry, both unfortunately in Dutch, but we have Google Translate these days don't we.

 

https://www.amsterdam.nl/nieuws/achtergrond/locomotief-ij-verdween/

 

https://www.aga-museum.nl/electro-spoorpontje/

Edited March 14, 2022 by whart57

[whart57]

I've been clearing out some cupboards and as part of the process I am going through old copies of Rail Magazine, a Dutch magazine covering both model railways and the full size thing. Like many I guess, I cut out the articles that remain of interest and file them and then take the rest to paper recycling at the amenity tip.

 

I came across three articles on standard gauge tramways in Friesland that survived until the 1960s as goods only lines. Those lines form another overseas railway worth modelling, so let's take a look.

 

Friesland is generally rural and the major industry is dairy farming and processing. (Where do you think Frisian cows come from .....)  As a result some pretty small towns had a dairy plant churning out cheese and butter as well as milk for the big cities of the West and as a result a healthy freight traffic for the remnants of what was once an extensive steam tramway system. Certainly until the roads improved and motorways were built in the mid 1960s.

 

Netherlands Railways took over these tramlines in 1947. Passenger services stopped to be replaced by bus services and pretty soon the steam tramway engines went for scrap too. To tell the truth, had it not been for the war, the Occupation and the aftermath, these lines would have closed five or six years earlier.

 

The NS operated these lines using the 200 class diesel shunter. This was in itself a cost saving as not only did they only require a crew of one, that one did not even have to be a fully qualified driver. The trains did however take a shunter/guard along for the paperwork and to assist with shunting moves and the various crossings of main roads.

 

A typical goods tram of the period would be like this

 

 

A dairy is in the background with a van at the loading bay and the train also has opens for coal traffic. The opening up of the Groningen gas field and the near simultaneous closing of the Limburg coal mines would be a death knell for lines like this all over the Netherlands. Note also the driver controlling his engine from the footboard. Clearly still shunting the dairy sidings.

 

What would make a model of these lines different from just any standard gauge freight line is that , as former tramways, they indulges in street running

 

 

This could be quite picturesque as Dutch, or not to offend regional sensibilities, Frisian towns can be quite pretty. Though Frisians can park cars as badly as anyone

 

So what we have here is a railway system where nearly everything is available in HO at least. Roco produce the 200 class, now with DCC and remote controlled uncouplers. The vans, opens and rongenwagens are available suitably lettered as are the later self-unloading coal hoppers. Artitec provide some resin cast house frontages for those street scenes but a lot could be done with card and downloaded brickpaper.

 

Shapeways' designers have come up with bodies for the 200 class in other scales. In view of PECO's recent announcement a body in TT:120 might be interesting, particularly if it is possible to mount it on a Hornby-Arnold Köf chassis.

 

For reference the Railmagazine issue numbers are 315, 316 and 345

[Pacific231G]

On 14/03/2022 at 15:06, whart57 said:

While we are on matters Dutch, the bits and pieces in my cupboard reminded me of another small Dutch railway that is worth considering for a model. In fact I believe it has been attempted.

 

The starting point is this Roco NS class 200, the so called Sik (goat) on account of the bleating nature of the exhaust powered whistle.

 

 

This example here is an old version from the 1970s, Roco seem to have a new DCC version with automatic uncoupling now.

 

There were a lot of Siks running around on Dutch railways, they were used both for yard shunting and for short trip working, for example on the aforementioned Haarlemmermeer  lines in their latter days. Here is one at Vinkeveen in February 1986

 

 

The line I am going to suggest though is in Amsterdam. At the dawn of the twentieth century the city of Amsterdam had designated some new polders on the north side of the Y river to be industrial terrains. A rail connection was needed but all the railways were on the south side of the Y or a long way away towards Zaandam. The Holland Railway decided on a train ferry instead.

 

This became the Distelwegveer, and connected the new industrial estate along the Distelweg with the railway yards of the Amsterdam Rietlanden. The first factory, opened in 1913, was one making margarine from coconut flesh. A century later the entrepreneurs behind that are recognised as being among the founders of Unilever. That particular plant moved away in the 1930s but by the 1950s there was a healthy industrial base there served by its own, isolated, rail network which was connected by ferry to the rest of the NS system.

 

 

Just for orientation purposes, this screen capture from Googlemaps shows where the Distelweg is in relation to the centre of Amsterdam

 

 

At its peak, there were three or four ferry trips a day, and a Sik from Rietlanden would be shipped over each day

 

 

It strikes me that this railway has the potential to be a nice shunting shelf layout. Only one locomotive and a dozen assorted freight wagons would be needed. Around half a dozen factories had sidings or loading bays and there was also the facility  to use the Distelweg itself as an unloading area from wagon to lorries. The ferry itself would be the fiddle yard.

 

As more and more freight went to road in the 1960s the need for the ferry fell away and the last trips to Distelweg ended in 1973. The tracks were lifted and since 2000 the entire area has been cleared and is now being built up with luxury flats and apartments. A foot passenger ferry still connects the Distelweg to the former Rietlanden, with a half hourly service for most of the day.

 

There are two good websites describing this train ferry, both unfortunately in Dutch, but we have Google Translate these days don't we.

 

https://www.amsterdam.nl/nieuws/achtergrond/locomotief-ij-verdween/

 

https://www.aga-museum.nl/electro-spoorpontje/

Fascinating and rather reminiscent of the yards served by car floats in NYC. I loved the story of Olga but did wonder how much trouble those  involved found themselves in afterwards. 

 

There used to be car floats in the docks in Venice. (I'm ashamed to admit that I found the Vaporetto that ran through the docks just as interesting as those on the more obvious tourist trail) though I think they may have been out of or barely still in service when I first went there in the 1970s. Like those in NYC they weren't self propelled so were hauled around by hatbour tugs . 

More recently there was a railway wagon ferry across the Bosphorous from close to the throat of Sirkeci Gari (traditional terminus of the Orient Express) to the Asian side. That though was connecting the railway systems of Europe and Asia rather than serving an isolated yard.

There was also a small wagon ferry that, until comparatively recently, crossed the river Rhone near its mouth  to connect an isolated chemical salt extraction works with the French railway network. ISTR that the locomotive- a small shunter- went over with the wagons - presumably to avoid the need for a second loco.

 

[jjb1970]

I Am honestly struggling to think of a train system that wouldn't make a nice model, even the generally ignored by modeller metro systems.

I have quite a collection of overseas stuff I have accumulated over the years, mainly North American, Italian and Japanese but three systems I would love to model properly one day are China, Japan or Indonesia.

China has a vast rail network of with intensive operations. There's a great mix of passenger and freight and locomotive hauled passenger trains are still normal. The trains are varied and for the most part good looking, even if the newer electric locomotives have adopted a rather generic look. And for modelling there's plenty of ready to run HO and a growing range of N, done to exceptionally high standards.

Japan again is a huge network with very intensive operations and a wealth of stylish rolling stock, including some very odd stuff. And there is more superb N gauge stuff than you can shake a stick at. There's no shortage of 1/80 models but prices can be quite high. 

Maybe the odd choice of my three is Indonesia. A railway which is all but unknown to most outside of Indonesia but which is actually quite a large system which is seeing a lot of investment. The scenic opportunities are outstanding and there are some interesting trains. There have been models of Indonesian trains but standards lag what we now take for granted and it would need kit-bashing and scratch building.

[whart57]

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Maybe the odd choice of my three is Indonesia. A railway which is all but unknown to most outside of Indonesia but which is actually quite a large system which is seeing a lot of investment. The scenic opportunities are outstanding and there are some interesting trains. There have been models of Indonesian trains but standards lag what we now take for granted and it would need kit-bashing and scratch building.

 

And then of course there is Thailand, which is what I am actually modelling when I don't get distracted by little things like Colonel Stephen's light railways, sub two foot narrow gauge and freelance tramways.

[009 micro modeller]

Honduras: 

 

 

Honduras used both 3ft and 3ft 6in and I’m not sure which gauges are shown in the videos.

Edited November 28, 2022 by 009 micro modeller

[doctor quinn]

On 10/07/2022 at 16:06, Pacific231G said:

 

There was also a small wagon ferry that, until comparatively recently, crossed the river Rhone near its mouth  to connect an isolated chemical salt extraction works with the French railway network. ISTR that the locomotive- a small shunter- went over with the wagons - presumably to avoid the need for a second loco.

 

Indeed it did ( photo credit Wesley Van Dongelen via Flickr)

 

 

Edited November 28, 2022 by doctor quinn

[Engineer]

 

I have a side interest in tramways of Western and Eastern Europe and while browsing noticed a scene where the major attention of the image is a railway. 

 

Ust-Ilimsk Northern Pulp Mill and Combined Heat/Power Plant on June 26 2011

This is Siberia, vast landscapes juxtaposed with raw industry and bleak cities, and particularly I find the latter two elements quite inspiring for modelled scenes. 

 

The locality is Ust-Ilimsk and I found the image while looking up the city's 'tramway', closing down this month after about 35 years of operation.  The closure has stimulated activity among photographers in recent months:

Ust-Ilimsk near Lesnaya village on 11 November 2022

Ust-Ilimsk near the Angara Pulp Mill on 15 December 2022

Ust-Ilimsk type 71-605 cars 055, 056 on December 21, 2022 

 

A video snippet of the vehicles, too [the most numerous type of tram ever built, though now disappearing]:

https://transphoto.org/video/7881/

 

 

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by Engineer
typing

[Vecchio]

The third photo could be used as a Christmas card...