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Saturday  - afternoon

 

I've been reading about the project to construct a brand-new main line interchange station into the hillside at Pfaffenthal-Kirchberg to link with the new funicular railway being built to run up to Kirchberg plateau for some years now;

It opened in December 2017. Time to give it a go.

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Heading North from Luxembourg station the line has a downhill gradient to the Alzette valley floor at Dommelgange, cutting across the river Alzette as it loops beneath a series of four sandstone viaducts decreasing in size, with Pulvermuhl being the first with views back over the old city, fortifications, and the Grund at its feet
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Clausen is next with views back up to the Bock and Hollow Tooth.
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Pfaffenthahl is third
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and Gruenewald the last and smallest
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before arriving at the new Pfaffenthal-Kirchberg station, sitting right underneath the red bridge.
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And oh look. The trams are back (albeit the wrong livery and gauge).
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For the moment the line just runs from Kirchberg Expo to Place de l'Etoile, but will be extended 2020/21 to Gare Centrale and then onwards to Bonnevoie. Pont Adolphe has already been massively refurbished and is back with the tram tracks again ready and waiting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_Bridge

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So a quick spin Op de Tram and back to the funicular and the mainline - I fancy a trip 5 stops up the line to Mersch.

 

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I have always liked the quirky station architectural style - has an Adams Family-esque feeling to it; the top room in the something-gothic-about-it tower must have a rectangular room with only two small round windows - what utility could that have in railway operations?
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And I've puzzled about this little building right at the side of the platform; circular with just the one door and one circular window above it - what on earth could it have been for?
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I can only conclude that it was the base for a circular water tank and that with the end of steam CFL removed the tank and replaced it with a natty little conical roof.

 

Mersch had the grain silos and a couple of railway-connected factories that generated traffic for the small yard and exchange siding along side the platforms. Like everywhere else - gone now, but looks like the track was only lifted quite recently.

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And now back off to Luxembourg to find out just how expensive the station parking really is...

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  • 2 weeks later...

The scale of my ambition

Right then, that's enough gallivanting about, back to model railways. I am still in the process of cobbling salvaged baseboards together.

 

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Boards from 3 different layouts are visible in this view and I'm putting them together more or less as I come across them.

 

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I should, perhaps, at this point confess that I do not have an actual plan.

 

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Grandiose convoluted trackplans in the backs of exercise books were something of a interest as a teenager; scribbling away in the back row in class disguised as studious note-taking. And I know of people who spend months obsessively beavering away on Templot before cutting that first millimetre-exact crossing sleeper...

 

But after having to constantly completely re-consider the layout plan with each unsuccessful potential house viewing (am I in loft/garage/shed in the garden...), I just got bored with it.

Rather I've now just got an outline list in my head of certain design ideas, concepts or features that ideally I'd like to see and try to incorporate. Such as; roundy-roundy operated and viewed from the middle, multiple circuits on different levels, hidden multi-road storage yards capable of holding full formations, bridges, embankments, tunnels and multiple scales.

 

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That last one relies on TT being in size half-way between OO and N. Even if I have succumbed to the siren call of HO I'm far too attached to TT to want to give it up now. For a while now I've been wondering if it can be combined in a layout together with HO/OO? Can different circuits in different scale/gauges be stacked at different heights to give a false-perspective view that large=nearer and small=further away?

 

So to see how this might work in the flesh I've been blue-petering a mock-up with card and UHU, like this:

 

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At the front  there is a narrow scenic strip (road/river), with the 1st single-track circuit HO/OO running on a low embankment, a scenic strip up to the 2nd level double-track circuit HO/OO, with then another scenic strip up to the top level double-track TT circuit, with the final scenic strip/backscene behind it.

 

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With stock added it looks like this:

 

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I think it looks ok, the TT doesn't look glaringly out of place, but that may depend on the angle it's viewed from and be different when things are moving rather than static. But other than maybe lowering the top edge of the backscene a few cm, I think it works.

 

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The scenic strips with buildings, structures and trees could also maybe give the opportunity to help force things a bit if they are at different scales as they go towards the back. So OO at 1/76 right at the front, HO at 1/87 behind it, HO/TT at 1/100 the next level and then TT at 1/120 at the top and backscene.



 

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  • 1 month later...

Io Saturnalia!

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A flurry of activity in late December finishing off the carpentry for the top-left hand corner leaves me happy in the knowledge that once with paterfamilias duties out of the way I will still have window of 6 days for gardening/modelling opportunities during the Saturnalia festivities.

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Obviously a key characteristic of modelling the Luxembourg "look and feel" is substantial sandstone viaducts, and so is #1 on my "must have" features for the layout list. Auhagen produce a nice 4-arch single-track kit, so I'm going to try combining the parts from 3 kits to make a 6-arch double-track viaduct, which is probably the biggest that I can coherently squeeze in.

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A flying visit from the building regs inspector making sure that all is in order - it's on with the gluing.

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And gluing.

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And gluing - actually it's going together a treat, so my thoughts turn to the rear storage yard - ideally I'd like a 4-track ladder with 2 longer roads split into 2 isolating sections and shorter ones having a single section, giving storage for up to 6 or 7 trains.
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I'm going to be using 1980's-90's vintage Jouef electric points. Coarse, but compatible across a wide range of different HO brand stock (or so I seem to remember from my and Dad's attic layout of some 25 years ago...)

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A test rig helps to re-familiarise myself with how to wire them up. Just a straightforward bzzzt of 16v AC - none of your new-fangled digital DCC here, oh no.

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Happy new year! E gudd neit Joër!

Edited by TT-Pete
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  • 3 weeks later...

Time for a bit of 3D doodling (thanks to Alan at Hufeisental for the term) - starting to form the outline of the picture of the idea inside my head using bits of cardboard and plywood cut-outs to work out the heights of different levels.

 

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The bridge deck has been set down into the structure to shave off 5mm in height which makes the approach gradient about 1 in 20. This is a little bit more than I ideally wanted to go, but decreasing it to my ideal 1 in 25 would mean shifting the bridge about 50cm to the left. Allowing for the scenic break I could shift it something like 35cm, so the question is - is the difference in impact on loco performance between 1 in 20 and 1 in 22.5 big enough to warrant making the change?

 

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I've dug an old control desk out of the salvage heap. It has two Gaugemaster transformers giving 2x 16v A.C with two DIN 4-pin connectors for connecting two Gaugemaster walkabout controllers for 2 separate loops, each with a switch panel controlling the points and isolating sections. I built it for stall motors so all the point switches will have to be replaced and rewired for 16v A.C bzzzt operation and the 12v DC transformer is now redundant (although may be used for lighting when I get that far).

 

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  • 3 months later...

With things having dragged on a bit over the past few months I finally lost patience and set myself a challenge over the Easter weekend to just get the blinkin' carpentry finished!

 

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Three more salvaged boards joined together to form an L and attached to the adjoining boards with a few woodscrews so that it could be taken apart as a single unit with the backscene if required.

 

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The lower circuit riser is in. This view will hopefully be interesting with the lower single-track circuit climbing up to the left, the upper double circuit descending on a curve right to left, crossing over on a girder bridge, and finally the TT circuit curving across the background.

 

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Tracklaying has advanced with a 4-road yard laid and wired up to the control panel using mostly salvaged or "new old stock" materials. Track is a mixture of elderly Jouef and Roco points and flexitrack, I may get around to DCC for a different part of the layout, but this bit is unashamedly analogue with 16v ac bzzt turnouts and 9 isolating sections.

 

(It’s nice getting toys out of boxes that haven’t seen daylight for years.)

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It turns out that the 4 roads will comfortably accomodate;

- EP III DB Eilzug with a BR23 2-6-2 and 7 bogies

- EP IV CFL freight with an 1800 and fourteen 2-wheel mineral open/van/flat wagons

- EP IV SNCB serie/reeks 60 with three bogie and three 4-wheel Ferrywagons

- EP IV CFL 1600 Nordstreck service with 3 Wegemann coach formation

 

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One thing that I've never tried my hand at modelling before is painting/weathering sandstone, which is a pity as there's quite a bit of it in Luxembourg...

 

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Having seen a few photos photos and weathering articles I have a rough idea, so try it out I build two bridges with proprietary steelwork deck kits from Noch and Auhagen, and scratchbuilt abutments and retaining walls.

 

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The stonework has a tan base with random stones picked out in a darker reddish-brown or a more green-ish kahki. Over this I have dry-brushed German Overall Sand to tone things down before a wash of heavily-diluted dark grey which is wiped off when half-dry to highlight deeper detail.

 

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And even though making a whopping 1cm measuring error resulting in invasive use of razorsaw and glue-based "bodge" engineering; I'm quite pleased with the result and have resisted the urge to fiddle and spoil them further :^)

 

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And the Supervisor has also been back for an inspection, although she is a little bit unsure of moving trains and keeps a wary eye on them.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hooray for Bank holiday Monday. :^)

 

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With the body clock still in work mode having woken up early and with the beginnings of the scenic mock-up in place it's nice for the first time in years to be

able to sit back with a coffee, watch trains go by and rummage in stock boxes.


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I find a couple of brand new Roco CFL timber wagons I bought at Ally Pally some 4 years ago and decide to assemble them.

 

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Which leads me to a strange almost out of body experience as I am removing the parts from the sprue; even as I can feel the craft knife blade still slicing through

the tip of my finger almost in slow motion and as if I'm a dispassionate onlooker, thinking Gosh, that's deep! folllowed by That is going to hurt and a heartbeat

later That is going to bleed.

 

Having now woken the rest of the household with intemperate language and the racket of spilling the medicine cabinet contents in a one-handed search for sticking plasters, the game is up.  

 

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  • 4 months later...

Crikey. 5 months since the last update.

 

Two things have taken a lot of time of late, firstly dealing with the verdant wilderness out there because after months of regular strimming and mowing, the banks of brambles and nettles just keep on coming back the second my back is turned. (I can hear the little swines out there right now, growing...) And secondly, redundancy. (Don't know why it has hit me hard this time, I had only just been there a year and it was not unforseeable given the announcement that over 130 staff were to be cut.) But every cloud an' all that; "Well, you'll have more time to work on your layout then" said Madame.

 

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It's not that there hasn't been any progress, just a bit slow. The first corner of the upper-level TT section has been constructed and laid with Tillig 12mm gauge flexi track on cork sheet, so finally I have a couple of metres to trundle trains back and forth on.

 

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By far the biggest mental block has been painting the first bridge. Like I said before, apart from the couple of bridge abutments I've not tried representing sandstone before, and this is a big structure to get it wrong on! After a first overall coat of light beige I picked out stones randomly in two different shades of brown before running a very dilute dark grey wash down the joins to accentuate shadows, then finally dry-brushing with two different shades of sand to tone it down and even it all out. The temptation is to keep going with the weathering, but caution says it might be better to wait and see how it fits into the layout with the rest of the scenery first.

 

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Talking of rest of the scenery, the next job is going to be the arch bridge that sits behind and up at the TT level. Unfortunately I haven't been able to identify either a TT 1:120 or a TT/HO 1:100 scale bridge that fits the bill, so I am going to go with this Kibri HO single track bridge and adapt it for a TT double track deck by widening the whole structure by 2cm. Or such is the theory...

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well, at least I have been making good use of my time over the past couple of weeks. The Noch bridge started off with 2cm-wide plasticard sections being spliced into the piers

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arches

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and deck

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before being painted to blend in with the HO bridge.

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The railings provided with the kit just looked awful and all wrong next to TT scale stock, so a bit of a rummage in Dad's ancient "bits, bobs & leftovers box" turned up some much more fitting (probably 1970's era) replacements that slotted straight in and that were co-incidentally of exactly the right length;

 

Yes! Big Jim says :- Remember! NEVER throw anything away kids!

 

The elevated track base sections are (just about) level with cork sheeted ply and the bridges slot in nicely.

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There's a nice positive feeling about seeing things moving forward, I've been told by the Doc not to wear shoes and to stay home next week and not to put weight on my foot to give it a chance to heal, so I'm effectively "off games" and contemplating things to be doing... :^)

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  • 1 month later...

With the Solstice marking the shortest day and new beginnings just around the corner, it's perhaps a fitting moment for a quick review of progress in December;

 

Starting with site clearance.

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And might the riser not have been completed in half the time had some nitwit not decided to overcomplicate by starting construction simultaneously at both ends and de/ascending to meet in the middle? So therefore not starting at the bottom and working his way up, as he had done at the other end of the layout? And then compounding this error by using one constant as a negative, rather than as a plus, in one of the two separate calculations he was using to work out the rate of descent for cutting the support piers to the correct heights?  Hmm.

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Also it is unfortunate that it is only later with tracks laid that it becomes apparent that some of the trestles have a slightly wavy character, so trains in motion have a rather undulating passage in places. A few supports have to be cut to adjust up or down by a couple of mm to address this.

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Faire le pont - making the bridge.

 

I have had a lot of fun with this bridge and have decided to name it "Dupont" simply because I like the sound of Pont Dupont  :^)

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The girders come from Dad's old layout salvage box, I can remember them on layouts back in the 90's, so it's nice to be able to recycle them. The deck is a sheet of plasticard and the two abutments are made from Auhagen stone wall sheeting and leftover bits from the previous viaduct kit.

 

Pont Dupont has been the opportunity to try out a few different things at the same time, once the deck is fixed in place it will be difficult to "get at" under the bridge, so a small area under the bridge needed to be completed before it was stuck on.

 

So a test of new ideas, like using Celotex sheets for the scenery base (I've got a stash of these left over from the build hidden behind the garden shed). I've not used this material before but turns out it is easy to work with, forms a solid base and can easily be cut and shaped.

 

And a test and refresh of old skills like ballasting. (Abysmal. 3 out of 10. See me after class.) And a delve into the scenery box for ground flock (tea from dried teabags) and some foliage.
 

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Season's greetings, joyeaux noel, frohes Fest, Io Saturnalia!

 

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  • 2 months later...

Time flies when you're having fun...

 

After Xmas (and doesn't that now just feel like aeons ago?) the first job was creating a culvert wall.

 

Walking around the Salisbury Model Centre on Fisherton Street seeking inspiration it struck me that the stone arch of the Wills N gauge overbridge kit is quite attractive,

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...so it has been incorporated into a structure built up from Plastikard, some stone walling cut from plastic sheets  that have been lying around for at least the past 15 years, and some Auhagen coping stone strips to finish off.

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Suitably warmed up, attention then turned to building the bridge that will sit on a curve in the back corner laid with with double 12mm gauge track.

 

If I want to use this layout for sometimes running trains from other areas of my model railway interests (some stock I have never seen running as it has only previously ever lived in display cabinets), then this bridge will need to have clearances on the curve to clear the overhang for the scales of the 3 different types of 12mm gauge stock that will be running over it:

  • Continental TT @ 1:120
  • UK TT @ 1:100
  • HOm @ 1:87

A requirement that unfortunately only occurs to me after I have already measured and glued the spans together on the basis that I would be running 1:120 stock over them in a straight line, so consequently the decks are too narrow. D'oh!

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The four girder spans come from the old Tri-Ang TT T.104 "Girder Bridge" set and were picked out of the "50p an item" scrap rummage box, not because I needed them but because "they might come in useful one day", from the 2nd-hand stall at a 3mm Society meet years and years ago.

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So the spans were sliced down the middle of the deck and a 5mm wide strip was glued in, they should (hopefully) now be just about wide enough, so everything is glued up and trial fitted before track laying, gauging trials and finally ballasting when everything (fingers crossed) seems to be properly aligned.

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I've no idea how I'm going to do the backscene, so for the moment it's just a daub to give me an impression of perspective when cutting and shaping the foam insulation blocks to form the embankments and hills (which given the mess is accompanied by a lot of hoovering necessary for appeasing the domestic authorities...).  

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With the benefit of hindsight I'd have made the decks an additional 4mm wider, I can get two long wheebase H0m bogie coaches to pass each other (the widest and longest items of rolling stock I will be using and so the worst case) without striking the girders or each other, but it's a squeeze and the track is a bit wiggly in places as a result. Given its' kinked appearance and the wiggly track I have named it Hënnbeen Bréck - dogs' leg bridge.

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So for the first time in years I now get to watch my TT stock in operation, albeit just a shuttle back and forth for the timebeing.

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But hey, look, it even works for foreign interlopers! .... :^)

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  • 2 months later...

Coming up for 2 years later and I am still gradually sorting through and scanning my packets of photos. With so much cross-border traffic It was always interesting that there was such variety in the nationality of locomotives and foreign stock coming through Luxembourg. So hope you like some pics of SNCF and DB trains running over CFL metals back in the 80's...

 

SNCF - 15032 12.12 Bruxelles to Chur at Fentange 3-4-86

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DB - 181.201 18.39 Lux to Koblenz at Oetrange 10-8-89

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DB- class 181 12.11 Koblez to Lux on Pfaffenthal viaduct 27-8-83

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DB - 181.208 12.40 Lux to Koblenz at Wecker 5-5-86

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DB - 181.218 14.18 Lux to Trier at Oetrange 5-5-86

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SNCF - 15032 12.12 Bruxelles to Chur at Fentange 3-4-86

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SNCF - 15038 12.20 Bruxelles to Basel at Bettembourg 10-8-89

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DB - 181.208 09.13 Koblenz to Lux coming off the Pfaffenthal viaduct 5-5-86

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Edited by TT-Pete
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Just when you think you'd got to the bottom of the pile, another couple show up...

 

DB - 181.202 at Lux Gare c.1978

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DB - 181.218 at Lux Gare c.1978

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The Baureihe 181 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB-Baureihe_181  were dual-voltage 15 Kv / 25 Kv D-Zug locos built for cross border traffic into France and Luxembourg. Both pics date from around c.1978 as 181.218 is freshly painted in the new DB blau/beige livery that was starting to be introduced around that time.

 

 

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Hi Joseph, absolutely. 3 or 4 coaches were the norm and even the cross-border express to Liege and beyond usually didn't have more than 7 coaches - with pictures showing that this could consist of CFL/SNCB traction with a rake that could be a mix of CFL, SNCB, NS (Netherlands), FS (Italy) and SBB (Swiss) coaching stock of varying ages (and decrepitude when referring to SNCB stock) and eventually I want to run most of the combinations.

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We had a visit to the Lux tram museum on the same day they had an open day at the new tram depot. The new tram was giving rides round the depot,  yes, there's a circular track round the depot complex!

 

The first hing I noticed in the tram museum was an AEC Regal IV bus from 1959, same chassis as used on the famous London RF buses of 1952. The Lux version had the bigger 11 litre engine and electrically operated gearbox as fitted to the Routemaster bus! they had quite a fleet of AECs and Guy buses. There's also pictures on the wall of the London RT buses that visited Lux in 1952 promoting visit Britain.

 

All worth a visit next time anyone visits Luxembourg. I think our visit was September 2018, just before the new trams started running.

 

There was an article in an early 1960s Railway Modeller about "modelling in prespective". It might be worth looking out for that edition.

 

Edited by roythebus
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Another interesting item in the Luxembourg museum is a typically Parisienne bus. Apparently, German soldiers retreating from France took this from Paris, but it broke down in Luxembourg. The Germans then commandeered a Luxembourg bus to get home. The Luxembourg authorities saw this as a fair exchange, repaired the bus and then continued to use it.

 

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  • 1 month later...

If nothing else lockdown has given the luxury of time to assess where things are going.


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The problem with building a layout based only on a headful of outline ideas as opposed to carefully worked out detailed scale plans is that I've always got a nagging thought at the back of my mind that maybe this ain't actually gonna work... Therefore a public declaration of "I am going to build a fully signalled and proportionately dimensioned layout of Clapham Junction correct down to the brand of thermos and dufflecoats of the spotters at the end of platform 4" turns shamfecedly into an inglenook rural GWR branch terminus with 14xx and autocoach as it turns out that that is all that is actually achievable with the available space, resources and, um, personal competencies.

 

As things have trundled along it has turned out that some ideas worked out as hoped, others have had to be re-worked and some have been dropped as impractical or simply barking. After some 18 months of various trial error and hacking it about as I go along, I now feel a bit more confident about what I think I can actually achieve.

 

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The storage yard is now about 85% complete and has grown organically from the initial broad brush idea of the HO section having 3 separate running circuits each with 3 to 4 road storage. The actual details have worked themselves out as track has gone down; visualising how trains would actually run with isolating sections, headshunt, through-running between circuits, running around/reversing direction etc..

 

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With 2 of the 3 circuits completed the yard is proudly analog with 17 turnouts, 1 scissors crossover and 14 isolating sections. This section will eventually be hidden under the TT scale scenic board that will sit above it, so the running needs to be 100% reliable -  it's a golden opportunity to dig down into the stock boxes and run lots of test trains to identify potential trouble spots.

 

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I've always envisaged having two distinct scenic sections to the layout, one Luxembourg city and the other countryside (Ardennes) - or as far as my modelling skills can stretch to get them to scenically represent the characterisitcs of both.

 

This great shot by Niels Ritsma neatly encapsulates the essence of Luxembourg' city character that I want to try to capture:

 

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Taken from the Fort Thungen (three acorns) side of the valley it looks out over Pfaffenthal viaduct to the Bock ruin with the city skyline behind. It features an 1800 loco with Wegemann coaches, steep valley sides, the river, viaduct, steep roads, hairpin turns, city walls, the ruined fort and a Spanish tower in the foreground.

 

Historically Luxembourg was an important military fortress and changed hands many times between conquerors and occupiers over the centuries (If a general can take Luxembourg, he can take Europe - Napoleon.B) so that by 1720 Luxembourg had become a singular Vauban fortification with a few city blocks swallowed inside it. It became known as "the Gibraltar of the North" -

 

 

 

Cutting a long and complicated story short, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg lost about two thirds of it's territory (the entire Belgian province of "Luxembourg" was part of the country up to 1839) before becoming independent in 1867 following the signing of the Treaty of London, thereby ending the "Luxembourg Crisis" and the entire fortifications were pulled down or blown up.

 

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But some remnants are still visible today, such as the "Spanish towers" - a type of sentry box/observation post that were placed at strategic intervals on the fortress walls under Spanish occupation in the 1640's and that have now become one of the city hallmarks and touristic destinations in themselves;

 

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So how on earth can you possibly try to model a representation of Luxembourg and not have a Spanish tower?

 

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Oh, well these might just come in handy then... :^)

 

But back to 1867 for a moment if I may -

 

Mighty France and Prussia have almost just gone Defcon1 all-out war over the squabble of who should have posession of titchy little Luxembourg (the Franco-Prussian war began 3 years later in 1870, so it is clear that the two are already spoiling for a fight at this time). Crisis was averted when the toy was taken away, under the Treaty of London Luxembourg would become an independent state and the fortifications would be destroyed to remove any military or strategic value (if you can't play nicely, then neither of you shall have it). Starting 1867 this demolition work took 16 years and cost the astronomical sum of 1.5 million gold francs.

 

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The belt of Vauban redoubts and bastions were levelled and became today's leafy Parc de Ville, but the Bock presented a challenge. This rocky outcrop is the oldest part of the city, initially a Roman fort stood here at the crossing of major Roman roads from Trier (Augusta Treverorum) to Reims and Metz to Liege. And it was here in the year 963 that Count Siegfried built a castle on the Roman remains, thereby founding Luxembourg as an entity. Over time it had extended and developed as each occupier perfected and adapted the defensives, so as the central keep, the final bastion, it was of some significance and solidity. It was blown up.

 

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Maybe by this point after perhaps 16 years or so they were getting a little fed-up with the tedious job of demolishing fortifications, so the prospect of letting a very large quantity of explosives and gravity do the hard work was probably quite attractive.

 

The blast and subsequent clean-up took the Bock citadel down to the foundations, but two fragments survive;

 

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The remains of the lower tower that had stood guard over a drawbridge although severely damaged, were not pulled down but stabilised and preserved. It is now known as de Huelen Zant "the Hollow Tooth" and has become another city landmark.  

 

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But there is also another remnant of the old fortifications that I would like to try to model.

 

Nordstreck construction started in 1858 and it opened in 1862, 4 years during which time the city was still a functioning and fully-garrisoned military fortress. The appointed line engineering company Waring Bros of London (they of St Pancras fame) as well as having to deal with the gradient and curving massive viaducts, had to also carefully thread their line between, through and around the various fortifications:

 

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A double-track gateway with heavy doors was constructed where the line breaches the Nothern wall, sandwiched in the gap between road, river and valley side. Again, this was spared demolition when the walls were taken down but was difficult to view until the opening of the Red Bridge in 1966 from which vantage point you could look directly down onto it

 

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When the line was electrified in the late 90's there was insufficient clearance and so the structure was raised to fit the knitting under it

 

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Well, not "raised" as such, "taken down and totally rebuilt" more like. Just how much (or little) of the original structure remains can be judged from comparing the white clearance warning paint bewteen the two pictures:

 

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Not only has the trackbed been raised, but the start of the arch is now much higher and so the upper structure is now an interpretation of what was previously there rather than a faithful reconstruction...

 

Ah well, so much for inspiration. All now depends on my execution - puddings are proven by the eating of and the devils lurk in details....

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Edited by TT-Pete
"Assess" rather than "asses" - slightly different meaning... :^)
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That’s a really fascinating account and I can see why you want to incorporate a slice of that in your layout. I always think it’s a shame when old fortifications were removed, as it’s a great loss to the scenic potential. I suppose Gloucester or Worcester would look much more interesting if the old city walls hadn’t been demolished after the civil war. The fiddle yard is very neatly done, so bodes very well for the next steps.

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On 10/08/2020 at 16:46, Northroader said:

The fiddle yard is very neatly done, so bodes very well for the next steps.


Thanks, I just tried to keep things straight and level, after a week's running I've only had to replace one turnout that a lot of stock took a dislike to and straighten out a few slightly kinky rail joints. Most frequent de-railers are 1970's DDR-era PIKO wagons as the wheels have often slipped on the axles and are out of gauge.

 

And after a bit of puzzling, wtf and why aren't things working, it turns out that I wired the isolating section switches DOWN-on UP-off on the left panel, but DOWN-off UP-on on the right-hand one. :^)

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The city section has required some major re-thinking - starting off my 3D mental picture had lots of buildings and even more embankments, bridges and streets, but the cardboard mock-up stage soon showed that there was no way of getting it all in without bending the space-time continuum with things like 1 in 10 gradients, or having a baseboard twice as wide and long, so I've scaled back. The bridges are now the focal point, but hopefully I can fill the edges with stuff.

 

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In this picture the cuvature of the train of coal hoppers behind 1812 demonstrates how ferocious my 1 in 20ish gradient is. If left to their own devices locos crawl the up grade and then whizz away with accelerating trains clattering behind them once over the summit, but no runaways or wrecks as yet. Although it is just about workable some older 60-70's vintage locos may have to have shorter and lighter trains - I would definitely aim for gentler gradients if ever doing this again.

 

The wall sections are an expanded foam made by Noch, I've been looking but haven't found anything more suitable yet, so even though on the expensive side I'll probably stick with them.

 

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The SNCB interloper is a B-Models serie 55 with a rake of Treinshop Olaerts Type "L" coaches seeing daylight and running for the first time, and very good runners and nicely-detailed they are too. :^)

 

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The river is going to need water at some point. The Alzette is quite murky and not fast-flowing most of the time (and also used to occasionally change colour alarmingly back in the days when the steelworks still discharged into it) so some kind of poured resin might be suitable, but there seems to be lots of different types available on the market - any recommendations?

 

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Seeing this image made me realise just how tight the clearance is on this portal so I had another dig in the stock box to check UK OO and US HO gauging;

 

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The Wessie and southern kettle are fine, but my Pennsy SD45 from Kato would lose her horns if sent through full throttle, so the structure will need to be raised about 2mm.
 

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The boxcars are another I've never seen running before today item. Bought in Vancouver on honeymoon a few years back this rake of 6 brand-new and very tidily constructed Proto 2000 New York Central boxcars were in the secondhand section at Central Hobbies (https://www.central-hobbies.com) marked down to the absolute giveaway of $9.99 CDN each (I love Canada, eh?).

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Unfortunately they subsequently wedged in a tunnel section up against a support strut (to be sawn/chiselled down a few mm if I can get at it), but that's the whole point of running trials...

 

Funny how whenever I see the make "Kato" mentioned anywhere it always puts me in mind of the other one...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghBY8dakqJ4

Edited by TT-Pete
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7 hours ago, TT-Pete said:

The river is going to need water at some point. The Alzette is quite murky and not fast-flowing most of the time (and also used to occasionally change colour alarmingly back in the days when the steelworks still discharged into it) so some kind of poured resin might be suitable, but there seems to be lots of different types available on the market - any recommendations?

 

Not recommending a brand, but from experiences in the Great Model Railway Challenge, make sure the underlying paint is absolutely thoroughly dried before pouring any resin, and have something underneath to catch the inevitable leaks.

 

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First off, an inspirational shot:


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The North of Luxembourg is hilly with forests and steep sided valleys so the Nordstreck cuts through it with tunnels, embankments and stone bridges across meandering rivers. And there are a lot of trees. Lots.

 

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This bit of the layout has progressed faster probably because my initial vision was simpler so at the cardboard mock-up stage I had a clear picture and things have very much fallen into line,

 

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The lower circuit comes out of a tunnel, crosses a river, then a level crossing with the road coming out of a road tunnel and passes a signal, before starting the climb up and under the main line circuits which are descending over a bridge, with the TT circuit visible up in the background.

 

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Celotex insulation left over from the house build and sheet cardboard (the inserts from inside jumbo packs of cat food - which we seem to get through rather a lot of) are my landscaping materials of choice, stuck down with splodges of cheap Hobbycraft school PVA glue.

 

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The celotex is plastered, painted with brown poster paint, painted with PVA and covered with dried tea scatter. Loose tea is hoovered off for re-use and then everything gets another good slathering of PVA and a scattering of a mix of two different Woodland Scenics coarse turf shades; burnt grass and medium green, and finally the surplus again hoovered off.

 

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And did I get a shock when I started looking in to the types and prices of model trees. Crikey! I can buy saplings at the garden centre for what some of the individual handmade ones go for! :^) For the moment I'm using up bits out of the leftovers scenic materials box, lichen kept in a box for 30 years develops an interesting texture and the East German DDR-era vivid green coloured sawdust that passed as scatter has finally been chucked, but there's enough salvage to be getting on with for the moment. I've bought a tree making kit as a trial as the cheapest way seems to be to make them yourself.

 

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My ballasting is a little bit improved (but still too uneven) after a few trials in not-so-visible tunnel areas and I think I've got the right mix of Gaugemaster grey ballasts now; light was too light and medium too dark, so I mix them 50/50.

 

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The Brawa crossing lights and Jouef signal are not correct for CFL, but I want to use them out of nostalgia as they are yet again out of Dad's box of odd bits and I can remember them knocking about on our attic layout back in the late 1970's. The bulbs and blink mechanism for the level crossing lights were lost decades ago and the signal has never been wired up to anything, so it'll be interesting to get them working...

 

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  • 2 months later...

Things didn't progress hugely into Autumn one reason and another (mainly cidermaking!), but a bit of work has been going on at the Heulen Zant end of the layout.

 

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Basically still using cardboard, but a much stiffer and compact one, I'm building the underlying structure that the stone walling/roadway will eventually be stuck to. I got quite excited trying the lights out, old Brawa 1970's vintage grain of wheat lamps that I distinctly remember stripping off and packing away when my attic TT layout was dismantled back in 1987, and untouched since.

 

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Putting a few figures and cars in the landscape helps get an idea of the overall proportions, the "Hollow tooth" is perhaps a little oversize and the corner will need to be shaved off the overbridge where the car turns right. The side of the tunnel mouth is going to be a bit of a challenge, but I might hide it with a bit more ruined fortress that the train then bursts out of.

 

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Speaking of which I also think that the tunnel mouth could do with being a little lower, I'll start off removing the lowest stone course and see how that looks bringing down the height a bit more in line with the Hollow tooth on the left.

 

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I'll be starting a new job later this month all being well, it's a bit of a radical career change and involves shift work (I wonder what the first night shift in 31 years will feel like?), so no idea how much time spare time I'll be having in future...

 

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