L'heure bleue: a new French layout

[Barry Ten]

I'll have to have a close look at that tank wagon (and its packaging) to see how it's described. 

[Fat Controller]

The tank with yellow ends is named in french "un cul jaune" in English "a yellow ass".

 

This wagon is located of a crew track of a station or a yard and must stay there.

 

Police is for towns and Gendarmerie is for countryside.

 

Le gendarme de St Tropez (I like these funny movies) have light brown "summer" uniforms. Now it's always blue and dark blue colors.

The only time I've seen gendarmes as tidily presented as that pair is during visits by what are referred to as 'gros legumes', such as the Prefet, ministers etc.Most of the time, the ones around Calais are in anoraks and hoodies. I recollect the Gendarmarie are part of the Defence ministry, whilst the Police Nationale are part of the Interior Ministry. When National Service still existed in France, it was possible to do your time with the Gendarmarie; very attractive if you didn't want to spend your time in a tropical hell-hole.

[Mike Storey]

The only time I've seen gendarmes as tidily presented as that pair is during visits by what are referred to as 'gros legumes', such as the Prefet, ministers etc.Most of the time, the ones around Calais are in anoraks and hoodies. I recollect the Gendarmarie are part of the Defence ministry, whilst the Police Nationale are part of the Interior Ministry. When National Service still existed in France, it was possible to do your time with the Gendarmarie; very attractive if you didn't want to spend your time in a tropical hell-hole.

 

You have to be quick to see what they are wearing here. They rarely get out of their nice, warm cars.

[Red Devil]

I'd be tempted to try the FCS vehicle on a 1.5v battery, simple to do, remove the big rechargeable Faller battery, solder in a 1.5v battery holder either N or AAA and try that for speed, I did that with a couple and it worked nicely, also means you just pop in a re charged battery rather than re charging the vehicle which is handy if you're doing exhibition work....no down time. You can easily revert to std should you want to at a later stage.

[Barry Ten]

I'd be tempted to try the FCS vehicle on a 1.5v battery, simple to do, remove the big rechargeable Faller battery, solder in a 1.5v battery holder either N or AAA and try that for speed, I did that with a couple and it worked nicely, also means you just pop in a re charged battery rather than re charging the vehicle which is handy if you're doing exhibition work....no down time. You can easily revert to std should you want to at a later stage.

 

That sounds like a good plan. Have you had any luck getting lights to work in these vehicles?

 

At the recent Swansea layout there was a very nice, large GWR/SR layout with some Faller vehicles moving very realistically, but when I asked the team about the cars the modeller involved wasn't there, so I didn't get a chance to ask them how they'd managed the speeds.

[Red Devil]

That sounds like a good plan. Have you had any luck getting lights to work in these vehicles?

 

At the recent Swansea layout there was a very nice, large GWR/SR layout with some Faller vehicles moving very realistically, but when I asked the team about the cars the modeller involved wasn't there, so I didn't get a chance to ask them how they'd managed the speeds.

 

Never bothered with lights to be honest so can't really comment on that sorry! My preferred method now is to use a 3v battery coupled to a Nigel Lawton 12v mini motor, that gives a reasonable speed, but I have got straight Fallers running on 1.5v batteries quite nicely in the past. 

 

I'd guess at Old Elms Road on the layout? I know the guy involved with that one, he's an admin on my FB Faller Car System group!

[Barry Ten]

Never bothered with lights to be honest so can't really comment on that sorry! My preferred method now is to use a 3v battery coupled to a Nigel Lawton 12v mini motor, that gives a reasonable speed, but I have got straight Fallers running on 1.5v batteries quite nicely in the past. 

 

I'd guess at Old Elms Road on the layout? I know the guy involved with that one, he's an admin on my FB Faller Car System group!

 

Yes - Old Elms Road!

[Red Devil]

Yes - Old Elms Road!

 

You have a PM! 

[Barry Ten]

I'm pleased to report that the layout acquitted itself reasonably well at its first outing, the Cardiff Small Model Railway Exhibition, held at the Scout hall in Pontcanna. It's an annual event run by friends, with a very warm and relaxed vibe, which was just what was needed for a potentially taxing stress-test. The layout survived transportation and set-up without incident, barring a slight chip to one of the cast walls, which will be easily replaced (and substituted with something more resilient). We did a quick test of all the track and points and all seemed well, although one of the points did throw a wobbly about half an hour into proceedings. Rather than get stressed out about it, we opted to do without the run-round and still were able to run some interesting shunting moves, with two locos top and tailing each other. The point started behaving itself after a little while but we opted not to depend on it for the rest of the day, which I think was the wise move. 

 

My very capable operators were Marc Smith and Dave Stone (Wenlock) of this parish, for which many thanks; they put up with the occasional glitch caused (mainly) by issues with the Kadee couplings, some of which were snagging at various points, largely because I'd only completed some of the coupler conversions late the night before, so hadn't done any testing. The positives were that we had no derailments at all, other than one incident when we ran a loco across a slip that hadn't been set for the correct road, and only one or two incidents of stalling, quite late in the day, which I think was due to a gradual accumulation of dirt. The main star of the show, the REE tank, behaved impeccably most of the time and the sound on it seemed to down well. We were slightly limited with the 141R, due to it lacking a front coupler, but that can now be rectified as I've discovered a handy conversion kit.

 

I didn't take any photos, but John (RE6/6) very kindly put some up on another part of RMweb:

 

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/138741-the-cardiff-small-model-railway-show-2019/page-3

 

 

Thanks to all who stopped by, to the organisers of the show - Brian, Paul, Rob, Peter (Lord and Butler) and again to my able helpers. Cheers!

[wenlock]

I'm pleased to report that the layout acquitted itself reasonably well at its first outing, the Cardiff Small Model Railway Exhibition, held at the Scout hall in Pontcanna. It's an annual event run by friends, with a very warm and relaxed vibe, which was just what was needed for a potentially taxing stress-test. The layout survived transportation and set-up without incident, barring a slight chip to one of the cast walls, which will be easily replaced (and substituted with something more resilient). We did a quick test of all the track and points and all seemed well, although one of the points did throw a wobbly about half an hour into proceedings. Rather than get stressed out about it, we opted to do without the run-round and still were able to run some interesting shunting moves, with two locos top and tailing each other. The point started behaving itself after a little while but we opted not to depend on it for the rest of the day, which I think was the wise move. 

 

My very capable operators were Marc Smith and Dave Stone (Wenlock) of this parish, for which many thanks; they put up with the occasional glitch caused (mainly) by issues with the Kadee couplings, some of which were snagging at various points, largely because I'd only completed some of the coupler conversions late the night before, so hadn't done any testing. The positives were that we had no derailments at all, other than one incident when we ran a loco across a slip that hadn't been set for the correct road, and only one or two incidents of stalling, quite late in the day, which I think was due to a gradual accumulation of dirt. The main star of the show, the REE tank, behaved impeccably most of the time and the sound on it seemed to down well. We were slightly limited with the 141R, due to it lacking a front coupler, but that can now be rectified as I've discovered a handy conversion kit.

 

I didn't take any photos, but John (RE6/6) very kindly put some up on another part of RMweb:

 

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/138741-the-cardiff-small-model-railway-show-2019/page-3

 

 

Thanks to all who stopped by, to the organisers of the show - Brian, Paul, Rob, Peter (Lord and Butler) and again to my able helpers. Cheers!

A thoroughly enjoyable day out, enhanced by excellent bacon baps!  The layout performed really well and the blue cast to the lighting really adds to the layouts atmosphere.

 

I took a few pictures of the layout during the day.

 

[Andy Hayter]

Nice, very nice indeed.

[Barry Ten]

Thanks for the pics, Dave - much appreciated,

[NHY 581]

Bonnet de douche, Al.

 

Rob.

[Rivercider]

Hi Al,

 

it was great to meet up and see the layout at Cardiff, it is a lovely atmospheric piece of work, the photos don't fully do justice.

 

cheers

[Pacific231G]

On 27/01/2019 at 21:50, Barry Ten said:

I'm pleased to report that the layout acquitted itself reasonably well at its first outing, the Cardiff Small Model Railway Exhibition, held at the Scout hall in Pontcanna.......The main star of the show, the REE tank, behaved impeccably most of the time and the sound on it seemed to down well. We were slightly limited with the 141R, due to it lacking a front coupler, but that can now be rectified as I've discovered a handy conversion kit.

 

 

For some reason I've only just caught up on this thread though I was reading it with great interest last year.

It would be great to see this layout but Cardiff was a bit far. I'm glad to hear that went well so have you any plans/invitations to exhibit it elsewhere?

BTW the notes from Cardiff described it as being set in "a town in northern France". I was convinced it was set in Paris possibly somewhere on or near the Petite Ceinture not far from the Canal St. Martin at the top end of the 10th or bottom of the 19th.

 

Edited June 19, 2019 by Pacific231G

[Barry Ten]

Thanks for the very kind words, David. It's great to hear it hits the spot and evokes something of the Paris atmosphere.

 

It has a provisional booking for the main Cardiff show in 2020 but nothing else in the calendar.  It does need a small van to transport, unfortunately, due to the boxy shape of the enclosed baseboards.  I have some plans to extend it before that show, however -  either as an end-to-end format, or (ideally) a continuous run, which would allow passenger trains to pass through the scene while shunting goes on in the foreground. However, it's all pipe-dreaming at the moment!

[DanielB]

Well, this will teach me for not checking out every section of the forum! What a beautiful layout, Al.

[Barry Ten]

Thanks, Dan - it's currently looking rather less beautiful as the right side of the layout has been heavily gutted and reworked to eliminate the gradient on the main line. But, it's all part of a masterplan to extend the layout by another eight feet, incorporating a passenger terminus. Watch this space ... err, at some point in the next 18 - 24  months! It has a very, very tentative booking for Cardiff 2021. (It was going to be 2020, see above, but I'm on the Sherton Abbas team fthat weekend).

Edited January 11, 2020 by Barry Ten

[Mikkel]

Just (re-) discovered this Al, trés chic!

 

I look forward to seeing that terminus develop (now you've announced it, there's no going back!).

[Barry Ten]

1 hour ago, Mikkel said:

Just (re-) discovered this Al, trés chic!

 

I look forward to seeing that terminus develop (now you've announced it, there's no going back!).

 

The boards are sitting on my workbench waiting to be assembled, so it's definitely going to happen!

[wenlock]

Any updates on your progress Al?  January was a very long time ago!

 

BW

 

Dave

[Barry Ten]

10 minutes ago, wenlock said:

Any updates on your progress Al?  January was a very long time ago!

 

BW

 

Dave

 

Some photos will be forthcoming!

[Barry Ten]

As promised, glimmers of progress.

 

I must admit that, while I have worked on the layout on and off over the summer. there's been no real incentive to progress with it quickly, as I think any likelihood of it being exhibited in 2021 is very slim, so I've been quite content just to dabble with it when I'm in the mood.

 

Setting aside the promised extension (for which I have now built the boards) all the work has been on levelling the track on the existing two modules. As mentioned, the original format had the single track main line gaining about half an inch going from left to right, the sole point of which was to gain enough height to enable the Faller car system to creep under the main while on a rising gradient of its own, so as to eventually meet the level of the goods shed.

 

While this gradient added visual interest, it did create a few operational headaches, and while it looked acceptable with goods wagons, the effect with long coaches was unrealistic. So I decided to rethink the layout and eliminate the rising trackwork. Obviously this in turn meant removing part of the Faller car system,so  the long rat-run around the back of the scenery, and the associated turn-off point for the vehicles had to go.

 

 

Although it's not much to look at, here's a first glimpse of the flattened mainline and associated sidings:

 

 

In the previous format, that diesel would already have been on the start of a gradient, with the crossover to the right of it being inclined. That's all level now, necessitating most of the track being lifted, relaid and (although still not finished) reballasted. Along the way, quite a lot of the background scenery, such as walls, got damaged or needed to be relocated in view of the eliminated gradient.

 

 

In this pic (please ignore the lens distortion) some of the walling has begun to be reinstated. Comparison with earlier shots will show that there are now two blocks of flats instead of the original one (to the right). I liked this Artitec facade so well as a dull but believable urban backdrop that I decided to add two more of them. Unfortunately by the time I decided this, I couldn't find anyone supplying them. My only recourse was the expensive option of ordering them from an American importer of European models, so they've been over the Atlantic twice! Since the Artitec castings include a lot of neat but very specific detail, such as bricked in windows and electrical conduits., I spent a fair bit of time altering the newer block so that it wasn't identical to the first. And, there's a third to be added as well, as well as a duplicate of the smaller block I used on the left hand side of the layout. which in turn got nicked from Cogirep.

 

The elimination of the Faller car system run from the rear of the layout doesn't mean that I still can't have fun with the cars, as the stretch of the road along the front, which runs past this gantry, will now pass through onto the newer part of the layout.

 

And that's where we are for now. Hopefully there will be more slow but steady progress to come.

 

Cheers!

Edited August 31, 2020 by Barry Ten

[NHY 581]

Mon aéroglisseur est plein d’anguilles.

 

Rob. 

[Joseph_Pestell]

2 minutes ago, NHY 581 said:

Mon aéroglisseur est plein d’anguilles.

 

Rob. 

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