L'heure bleue: a new French layout

[chuffinghell]

1 hour ago, NHY 581 said:

Mon aéroglisseur est plein d’anguilles.

 

Rob. 

mange-tout rodney, mange-tout

[Mikkel]

Nice work Al, looking at those shots I am reminded of the scenery from the window of many a trip South in the good old days. 

 

3 hours ago, NHY 581 said:

Mon aéroglisseur est plein d’anguilles.

 

Funny thing Rob, I didn't know those two words in French - but immediately understood what it meant. I suppose it shows that we have all been on here too long 

[wenlock]

Big improvement Al! Ripping up and relaying track is always a bit of an ordeal, but the level main line looks much better for it. The blocks of flats are a perfect backdrop and really help the illusion of depth to the layout.  Looking forward to seeing what comes next

[Pacific231G]

On 31/08/2020 at 16:15, Joseph_Pestell said:

I always did wonder why the French hovercraft (Jean Bertin) was so much less reliable than the SRN6s.

This is probably but I think it was was the SRN4 car carrying hovercraft  that the N500 was compared with as both were used on same cross channel services. The SRN6s were far smaller* and only carried passengers

The N500s were larger than the original SRN4  but in the end had a lower carrying capacity and only two were built by SEDAM (Société d'Etude et de Développement des Aéroglisseurs Marins), the Ingenieur Jean Bertin and the Côte d'Argent. The latter was destroyed by fire during maintenance before it went into service so only the Ingenieur Jean Bertin (named after SEDAM's founder who'd died a few years before it was built) was used on the Cross Channel route.

N500 Ingenieur Jean Beriin arriving Dover:  photo by  John Ragia CC by SA3.0 

 

I used the cross channel hovercraft service quite often- it was a lot faster than the ferry and, with a car, actually quicker than Eurotunnel, but never travelled on the Jean Bertin; from what I've heard that may have been a mercy!  I did though see it in action at Boulogne and my impression was that it was less agile than the SRN4s and possibly underpowered. 

 

I suspect the underlying reason for SEDAM's relative lack of success was partly lack of experience but mainly being a small and financially stretched company winning a contract to build a fairly enormous craft. They'd built a number of smaller aeroglisseurs  (which they called Naviplanes hence the N prefix) one of which ran a service from Nice Airport to Cannes, Saint-Tropez, Monaco and San-Remo but probably didn't have the same depth of expertise as Saunders-Roe with its long background in flying boats. Saunders-Roe built the first experimental hovercraft the SRN-1 in 1959, six years before Jean Bertin set up SEDAM along with his Société d'étude de l'Aérotrain to develop a high speed  air cushion vehicle running on a concrete track.

.

 

 

*Something I've always wondered was why the smaller SRN6 that was in service well before the SRN4 had a higher model number.

Edited September 1, 2020 by Pacific231G

[jivebunny]

10 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

N500 Ingenieur Jean Beriin arriving Dover:  photo by  John Ragia CC by SA3.0 

 

Townsend Thoresen of Herald of Free Enterprise infamy in the background there (although it doesn't seem to be the HOFE itself). Hadn't seen that name in a while...

 

I do miss taking the hovercraft though. As a child in the 80s I was fascinated by these beautiful machines, a fascination which was then taken over by the Seacat and ultimately by the Channel Tunnel, much like Hoverspeed's market share...

 

Steering the topic firmly back on course: I can't remember if this is analog or digital, but if it's the latter have you seen the new Roco Y8000? I have one on pre-order and it's due for release next week. Would be perfect for your layout: DCC sound, digital couplers (compatible with standard French loop couplings) and a powerful stay-alive... They're only releasing the DCC version for now though, and it'll set you back around 230-250€...

 

https://www.roco.cc/fr/product/243671-0-0-0-0-0-0-002003-0/products.html

 

Alan

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by jivebunny

[Oldddudders]

My last boss had had something to do with Seaspeed. He and a colleague had calculated that the bouncing motion of the hovercraft would take quite a lot out of the suspension on a car even on such a short trip. No similar effect on a ferry, of course.

 

By contrast, a friend took his Ferrari across on one, and was terribly impressed by the care with which the staff made him get onto the loading ramp inch by inch to avoid scraping the nose. 

[Barry Ten]

I've only been on the Isle of Wight hovercraft. One time we were booked to take the cross-channel one, but on the day it was cancelled because of high winds and the service finished soon after.

 

For a few years thereafter, when we were travelling to and from Holland, we used to take the high-speed Seacat from Hoek van Holland to Harwich, but that only lasted a while as well.

 

Alan: I'll have a look at that Roco shunter,, I'm sure it's a great model. The couplings aren't much use to me, though, as I standardised on Kadees long ago for all my French stuff.

 

I've got the EPM Turbotrain on order so no pre-orders for me for a while!

[jivebunny]

3 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

I've got the EPM Turbotrain on order so no pre-orders for me for a while!

 

Ouch, not the cheapest of sets! It certainly looks stunning though, and a far cry from the old Jouef one... Can't imagine it'll cover much distance on l'heure bleue before having to brake 

[St Enodoc]

16 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

I've only been on the Isle of Wight hovercraft.

Me too, in 1964 or 1965. We went the day it was filmed for "Look at Life", so we enjoyed our 15 seconds of fame in the local Odeon later in the year!

[Metr0Land]

13 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

This is probably but I think it was was the SRN4 car carrying hovercraft  that the N500 was compared with as both were used on same cross channel services. The SRN6s were far smaller* and only carried passengers

The N500s were larger than the original SRN4  but in the end had a lower carrying capacity and only two were built by SEDAM (Société d'Etude et de Développement des Aéroglisseurs Marins), the Ingenieur Jean Bertin and the Côte d'Argent. The latter was destroyed by fire during maintenance before it went into service so only the Ingenieur Jean Bertin (named after SEDAM's founder who'd died a few years before it was built) was used on the Cross Channel route.

N500 Ingenieur Jean Beriin arriving Dover:  photo by  John Ragia CC by SA3.0 

 

I used the cross channel hovercraft service quite often- it was a lot faster than the ferry and, with a car, actually quicker than Eurotunnel, but never travelled on the Jean Bertin; from what I've heard that may have been a mercy!  I did though see it in action at Boulogne and my impression was that it was less agile than the SRN4s and possibly underpowered. 

 

I suspect the underlying reason for SEDAM's relative lack of success was partly lack of experience but mainly being a small and financially stretched company winning a contract to build a fairly enormous craft. They'd built a number of smaller aeroglisseurs  (which they called Naviplanes hence the N prefix) one of which ran a service from Nice Airport to Cannes, Saint-Tropez, Monaco and San-Remo but probably didn't have the same depth of expertise as Saunders-Roe with its long background in flying boats. Saunders-Roe built the first experimental hovercraft the SRN-1 in 1959, six years before Jean Bertin set up SEDAM along with his Société d'étude de l'Aérotrain to develop a high speed  air cushion vehicle running on a concrete track.

.

 

 

*Something I've always wondered was why the smaller SRN6 that was in service well before the SRN4 had a higher model number.

 

We're prob drifting off topic here but this is rmweb.  According to this article the original SRN4 was started much earlier then put on hold whilst they redesigned it and gave higher priority to SRN5 which morphed into SRN6.  Thus the higher model number enetered service first but it was later in the design queue.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR.N4

[St Enodoc]

1 minute ago, Metr0Land said:

We're prob drifting off topic here but this is rmweb.  According to this article the original SRN4 was started much earlier then put on hold whilst they redesigned it and gave higher priority to SRN5 which morphed into SRN6.  Thus the higher model number enetered service first but it was later in the design queue.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR.N4

I think, without checking, that the SRN5 was built for the Royal Navy, so probably received a higher priority than the SRN4 as a result.

[Barry Ten]

There's really only one hovercraft that matters:

 

 

[jivebunny]

17 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

There's really only one hovercraft that matters:

 

 

 

Didn't realise Spectrum operated Channel crossings in their twilight years  

 

Think we're definitely off-topic now though...

[BernardTPM]

"And we bid the hovercraft farewell as it skims off into a bright future..."

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by BernardTPM

[Allegheny1600]

3 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

"And we bid the hovercraft farewell as it skims off into a bright future..."

Sob!

I enjoyed quite a few trips across "le manche" in/on hovercraft, it always amused the young me when everything relating to the trips was referred to, in the aviation style - yes, I know now that we were "flying" but at such a low altitude! The main problem for me, was that you couldn't see anything but spray out of the windows!

I found it very sad a few years ago, to see one of the quite huge SRN4s (?) sitting rotting away at Dover, reading the Wiki article above though, it appears that "Princess Anne" is preserved.

Sorry about the further thread drift, Al - the layout is looking good.

Cheers,

John.

[JZ]

On 02/09/2020 at 13:12, Barry Ten said:

I've got the EPM Turbotrain on order so no pre-orders for me for a while!

Look forward to seeing that. Travelled on one from Boulogne-sur-Mer Hoverport to Gare de Nord for a week in Paris. Very comfortable ride after BR to Dover Hoverport.

[Pacific231G]

17 hours ago, JZ said:

Look forward to seeing that. Travelled on one from Boulogne-sur-Mer Hoverport to Gare de Nord for a week in Paris. Very comfortable ride after BR to Dover Hoverport.

So did I but only for a short break in Paris. I had a look round there four or five years ago and the derelict Boulogne-Aeroglisseurs station, terminal and apron were still there 

I'm pretty sure it was an RTG (I'd forgotten they were also known as turbotrains) that I saw  at Easter 1980 crossing the tarmac at Le Touquet Aeroport for the Silver Arrow service. We'd come over on the Air UK service from Southampton that also connected with the train to Paris though I was picking up a hire car at the airport. The track left the main line just south of Etaples and ran over to the airport ,pasing between the main runway and the end of the old cross runway before crossing one of the taxiways and the apron before reaching the  station at the side of the terminal building where the platform was actually "groundside" rather than "airside" (and I think was gated off from the apron) . The track remained in situ for years after the service closed in September 1980 and one had to be quite careful crossing it in a light aircraft to not "ding" the prop when crossing the not entirely level crossing. 

Edited February 13, 2021 by Pacific231G
clarity

[Philou]

You can still see the outline of the track alignment via Google ....... I think it was the only case of a railway crossing a live runway (stand to be corrected of course).

 

As a very young lad, I travelled on an RTG from Paris to Dieppe with my French grandmother who was accompanying me back to the UK, Easter 1960 possibly.

 

Nice looking layout and if based on the 'Petite Ceinture', I saw that before the line and viaduct was removed between the Gare d'Auteuil and the Pont de Garigliano. The viaduct that ran down the middle of Boulevard Exelmans was mass concrete and took a while to demolish due to the close proximity of residential flats overlooking it. They rebuilt the Pont at the same time.

 

I really, really hope to get to Cardiff for the 2022 show and see the layout in the flesh!

 

Cheers et bonne chance!

 

Philip

 

PS: As an edit, I remembered there was a picture on Google showing a train crossing the runway. It's still up but I can't link it due to an Error 404 in accessing the full-size picture. The picture is of the Turbotrain crossing in front of a British Caledonian aircraft.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Philou

[Pacific231G]

15 hours ago, Philou said:

You can still see the outline of the track alignment via Google ....... I think it was the only case of a railway crossing a live runway (stand to be corrected of course).

 

As a very young lad, I travelled on an RTG from Paris to Dieppe with my French grandmother who was accompanying me back to the UK, Easter 1960 possibly.

 

Nice looking layout and if based on the 'Petite Ceinture', I saw that before the line and viaduct was removed between the Gare d'Auteuil and the Pont de Garigliano. The viaduct that ran down the middle of Boulevard Exelmans was mass concrete and took a while to demolish due to the close proximity of residential flats overlooking it. They rebuilt the Pont at the same time.

 

I really, really hope to get to Cardiff for the 2022 show and see the layout in the flesh!

 

Cheers et bonne chance!

 

Philip

 

PS: As an edit, I remembered there was a picture on Google showing a train crossing the runway. It's still up but I can't link it due to an Error 404 in accessing the full-size picture. The picture is of the Turbotrain crossing in front of a British Caledonian aircraft.

Hi Philip

Probably going a bit off piste but was this the image you saw? I think it's a frame from a video 

The BCal is actually parked in the usual spot for passengers to board and  disembark and the RTG is on the part of the line that crossed the apron. The main runway 14/32 is running across the picture in front of the buildings in the distance (actually Etaples the other side of the Canche river)

They were very fond of posing publicity photos of this juxtaposition of train and plane implying that one could simply step from one to the other. In reality passenger had to go via the terminal and the  railway station is beside the terminal behind us in this view.  

Technically the railway didn't actually cross a runway. It ran to the south of the main runway  but did cross the starter extension of runway 06/24. That was the shorter 1200m runway that was only used by lighter aircraft of less than 5.7 tonnes when cross-winds made using the main runway difficult*  and it had a displaced threshold so you wouldn't actually have run over the track while landing . 06/24 was also only open when ATC was operating so no aircraft would have been cleared to land or take-off on it when a train was anywhere near to crossing.

You can see the route of the railway from this 2011 chart. Though by then both 06/24 and the railway had closed. 

 

The displaced threshold was roughly where the cross (showing the runway to be closed) is, between the railway and T3 on this chart.

There have been several other aerodromes where a railway crossed the active part of the runway including Peshawara in Pakistan which apparently still sees the occasional excursion train, at Gisborne in New Zealand, though the line thrre has been mothballed for several years and  at Manakara Airport in Madagascar where both aerodrome and railway are apparently still in use. The situation isn't as scary as people seem to think. I don't know the details of the others but at  Gisborne there are flashing red do not land lights interlocked with the railway signalling when a train is approaching.  

 

 

* I've only landed at Le Touquet twice, a few days apart towards the end of July 2000,  and the second time it was on 24 in a very nastily gusting 20- 28 kt wind.  The SW end of that runway was surrounded by trees which pushed the winds in every direction. My colleague was distinctly unimpressed by my landing until he did the take-off in the same conditions an hour later. I'm afraid that during the landing when I would have passed over the tracks  I was far too busy to notice whether the track was still actually inset into the  runway extension but I think it was. On the previous visit, couple of day earlier, we used the main runway 32 and I handled the take-off ,  I can remember passing very gingerly over the track as it crossed the T3 taxiway. The track crossing the apron and the disused platform beside the terminal were also definitely still there even though it was almost twenty years since either had been used. 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2021 by Pacific231G
clarity

[Darius43]

6 hours ago, Philou said:

You can still see the outline of the track alignment via Google ....... I think it was the only case of a railway crossing a live runway (stand to be corrected of course)

 

The Belfast to Londonderry main line crossed the main runway of RAF Ballykelly when it was extended (for use by Coastal Command Liberators) in 1943.  Apparently the trains had priority.

 

The airfield is disused now (as an airfield) but you can still see the remains of the runway from the train.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[St Enodoc]

8 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

 

The Belfast to Londonderry main line crossed the main runway of RAF Ballykelly when it was extended (for use by Coastal Command Liberators) in 1943.  Apparently the trains had priority.

 

The airfield is disused now (as an airfield) but you can still see the remains of the runway from the train.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

There were (at least?) two examples in Australia, both now gone.

 

- at Mascot, now Sydney Kingsford-Smith Airport, the Botany Bay freight line crossed the northern end of the main runway until the line was diverted when the airport was expanded. There was an incident where a train and aeroplane collided in 1950: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18165029

 

- at Wynyard, in Tasmania, a railway line crossed the northern end of the secondary runway. This arrangement continued until the line was closed in 2005: http://www.airwaysmuseum.com/WYY rail crossing 1.htm

[Philou]

@Pacific231G Yes, that's image that still up, but the link to it was down yesterday.

 

I've only been to le Touquet once and that was by car, though I do know someone that used to fly from Essex to do a round of golf and then fly back!

 

Interesting to know that the situation wasn't unique.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Chas Levin]

On 22/11/2018 at 23:46, Barry Ten said:

These rather tasty 141Rs, for instance - almost the "raison d'etre" for the whole project (pardon my French):

 

 

These are bloody great models, and the sound on them is the best I've heard from any big RTR engine, but there's no NEM pocket for the front pony truck, so any Kadee fixture would need to be bodged in place.

Just found this thread and very much enjoyed reading through it: lovely layout and I particularly like the building lighting!

 

I know they're from a couple of years back now, but these 141R models also caught my eye - whose are they please?

[Barry Ten]

11 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

Just found this thread and very much enjoyed reading through it: lovely layout and I particularly like the building lighting!

 

I know they're from a couple of years back now, but these 141R models also caught my eye - whose are they please?

 

Hi Chas

 

Thanks for the kind words. Progress is slow, but I've built another pair of baseboards ready to extend the layout, so some developments may occur this year. The locos are both Jouef 141Rs. These are the more recent models (post 2011 I think) rather than the much older one which Jouef did (not in itself a bad model, I think, just dated). They are absolutely fantastic models, and surprisingly compact when you put them next to an 00 loco. It made me realise how much more bang for your buck you get in HO in the same layout area!

[Chas Levin]

3 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

 

Hi Chas

 

Thanks for the kind words. Progress is slow, but I've built another pair of baseboards ready to extend the layout, so some developments may occur this year. The locos are both Jouef 141Rs. These are the more recent models (post 2011 I think) rather than the much older one which Jouef did (not in itself a bad model, I think, just dated). They are absolutely fantastic models, and surprisingly compact when you put them next to an 00 loco. It made me realise how much more bang for your buck you get in HO in the same layout area!

Ahh - thank you! Might have to aquire one of those...

 

I suppose that in HO, as it's 3.5 mm to the foot compared to OO's 4mm, you get 1/8th more space to play with, which in Bang for Buck currency equals 12.5 cents...?

 

I look forward to seeing the layout grow