Farnkopf Hbf u. Bw

[Allegheny1600]

This is the story of a new layout built by three friends, Doug, James and John. All three friends model European outline in H0 scale.
A layout had been built over the course of several years at Doug’s previous residence but that had to be painfully torn down some two and a half years previously. This time, Doug was determined to have something larger and more ambitious so half of a double garage was given over to the new railway.
Doug knew that he wanted a layout where he could watch the trains go by and James and John developed the vision into something that could be built. About the only other specification was that there should be a “Bw” (Bahnbetriebswerk) or loco shed in English. John actually sketched out the plan whilst in Greece and had it ‘approved’ by Doug in England and James in Singapore! Truly, an international team.
Doug’s new house and garage was being prepared for much of the intervening two and a half years so wood for the layout was ordered in about July 2019 and John started constructing the framework for the layout shortly after that time.

The initial site. Note the installation of a reasonable amount of lighting!

 

 

A start is made with metric equivalent 2”x2” legs being fastened to the walls of the garage.

The floor of the garage is screed concrete coated with several coats of concrete floor paint but is on a gentle slope from the back down to the door opening. This entailed a fair few calculations in order to get a level datum from which to calculate all other slopes.

Additional spars being attached to the initial legs.

 

 

In very short time, the inner wall framework was well under way.

A week or so later, the whole framework was essentially complete.

 

 

Here, the framework has had a simple ‘test’ oval of quarter circle cutouts of 18mm plywood and matching straight strips very quickly assembled, Fleischmann ‘profi’ track loosely laid on top and a temporary wiring loom added and trains were running.
This was largely due to a return visit from James so we could see how things were progressing and discuss our next steps.
 

Edited January 3, 2020 by Allegheny1600

[Allegheny1600]

With holidays out of the way and some ‘playing‘ done with, plans could be shaped better, firmed up if you like.
The station was to be Johns model of ‘Dammtor’ station, a huge kit by Trix and we were going to have a tram line circulating underneath the high level main lines. However, on Johns next trip to Greece, he realised that in later years, he would have to ship the fully completed model out to Greece! Reluctantly, he had to withdraw the offer of loaning the model to Doug but a compromise was reached where Doug would simply make his own copy of the kit!
Much time was spent discussing this, mock-ups were built and slowly, realisations began to dawn upon us. There simply wasn’t space for everything! This was with a central garage ‘station’ section 3 feet in width. Eventually we realised that the Dammtor idea had to go, along with a continuous tram line, this would have to become an end to end line instead and the main station building relocated onto drop down boards added to the ‘room’ side of the garage.
With only a few weeks to go before Christmas and another visit from James, John suggested starting on the gradients. By filling Dougs garage with his tools and spending plenty of time there, thanks to a very understanding wife, John set to work.

 

The previously made cutouts of quarter circles were re-arranged and added to, along with more straight sections and the overall track plan laid out full size.

 

 

Hopefully, you can see that each quadrant was made to allow Fleischmann ‘Profi’ radius 3 and 4 quarter circles of double track to fit easily.

 

The was almost zero clearance between the two lines where there will be a bridge, John hoped his calculations would turn out to be correct!

 

James had suggested this long sweeping curve, it took some setting up.

 

 

Here, the segments of roadbed are being roughly tested for height (this might work!)
 

[Sir Madog]

Why was a name chosen, which is obviously a literal translation of "Fernhead", but so explicitly not German at all?

[Ian Morgan]

I had assumed some possible link to the Außerfernbahn which I have ridden on.

 

[Allegheny1600]

17 hours ago, Sir Madog said:

Why was a name chosen, which is obviously a literal translation of "Fernhead", but so explicitly not German at all?

Hi Ulrich,

It is simply the area of Warrington in which Doug lives!

It's just a tradition carried on from previous location and layout, hope that makes sense?

Cheers,

John.

[Allegheny1600]

Having discovered that I haven't added anything to this topic for some time, I thought it best to bring things up to date somewhat!

This is somewhat of a recap of a previous post, sorry about that but Flickr has messed up the order of my pictures somehow.

 

Getting the "bridge" section sorted. Ultimately, I had to replace the 18mm roadbed with 3mm stuff and still had to chamfer it down to nothing at one edge.

 

After crossing each other, the upper tracks will come around into the high level station on RHS while the lower tracks run parallel but some 6" lower.

 

The first stages of setting up the station (Hbf) boards at rear and right.

 

Now looking in the other direction from the bridge section.

 

Turning around the opposite end of the layout, again both sets of tracks are different levels and orientations (climbing opposite directions).

 

First glimpse of the depot area and working out how it fits into the upper level station.

 

Getting the actual levels sorted out.

 

All the levels pretty well sorted.

 

Next, preparing the roadbed and getting the track down. Doug prefers Fleischmann Profi track for it's simplicity and robustness as his previous layout used it for years with zero problems.

Cheers,

John

[Allegheny1600]

Doug set to work and painted all the roadbeds so track could be laid as a temporary measure.

The main station area, we decided to leave the Bw (loco depot) unpainted until we can work it's details out.

 

Ready for track.

 

Pretty much all the track laid and ready for action.

 

One of or the first trains around was Dougies class 101 and international coaches. You can see the wiring loom? That was ripped out of Johns former test track layout, heavy duty speaker cable was it's intended purpose.

 

(sorry about the thumb or finger)

There is clearance under this bridge for a electric loco with it's unrestrained pantograph high, there might be enough for a US outline double stack container train, if Doug might allow such a thing!

 

As you can see here, there is bags of room for conventional stock.

 

More testing in progress. As you can see, we like to run long trains here and it was heartening to find that the gradient of approximately 1 in 40 is no barrier, even to steam locos with 12 bogie coaches on.

Now to try and find a couple of videos,

John.

[Joseph_Pestell]

On 31/12/2019 at 10:26, Allegheny1600 said:

Hi Ulrich,

It is simply the area of Warrington in which Doug lives!

It's just a tradition carried on from previous location and layout, hope that makes sense?

Cheers,

John.

 

My German is rather limited. But surely there must be a word that means "head" as in head of valley rather than cranium.

 

I have been reading property details for the last few days. Some of the alleged translations are completely incomprehensible without a good knowledge of the original language. They would so better not to bother!

[Allegheny1600]

Thanks Joseph!

There must be something along those lines but none of us knows the language to a sufficient degree to know for sure, "Oberhaupt" or simply "Haupt" perhaps?

 

Anyway, I found a video of a session from last December;

Sorry about the ladies talking in the background, my dodgy spelling and shaky (iphone) camera work.

 

Here is a more recent one taken with my ipad;

Cheers,

John.

[readingtype]

On 20/04/2020 at 18:17, Allegheny1600 said:

There must be something along those lines but none of us knows the language to a sufficient degree to know for sure, "Oberhaupt" or simply "Haupt" perhaps?

 

I had a look in a reputable dictionary. It offers das Kopfende and das Oberes Ende.

 

Would that reflect the 'Head' in the English name? If it's actually a place where the ground sticks up then maybe you want something with Berg in it...

[jpendle]

On 31/12/2019 at 03:26, Allegheny1600 said:

Hi Ulrich,

It is simply the area of Warrington in which Doug lives!

It's just a tradition carried on from previous location and layout, hope that makes sense?

Cheers,

John.

And of course follows in the dubious  fine tradition of Greenall Whitley's Grunhalle lager 

 

John P

[47137]

On 28/12/2019 at 18:05, Allegheny1600 said:

Eventually we realised that the Dammtor idea had to go, along with a continuous tram line, this would have to become an end to end line instead and the main station building relocated onto drop down boards added to the ‘room’ side of the garage.

 

It's reassuring to see the sort of compromises we have make, even with a garage to build the layout in.

 

That Dammtor kit is vast. It's still underscale but there is an expansion kit to take it to full scale length. It would be a fabulous model to build, but I think for most of us it would have to be a static diorama. If you have the space to build a layout to hold it, you probably need a club layout or a team you pay to build and maintain the layout.

 

- Richard.

[Allegheny1600]

A brief update on this project.

Extensive “testing” of the layout revealed that certain of today’s models that are rather more sophisticated than older ones, like articulated high speed trains for instance, baulked at a couple of the tighter bends on the layout.

This was not just the severity of the bends themselves (Fleischmann radius 3 & 4) but the changes of angle through the curve. Due to my using quadrants cut from plywood, with added short straight sections of plywood to elongate the curves, there were a couple of “uppy, downy” bits and although most trains were fine, the sophisticated models were not.

One of the pleasures of this hobby is being able to run trains on each other’s layouts so I had to resolve this issue.

Rather than the cheaper plywood I had been using, I opted to go for the best quality birch ply (phew! 18mm birch is expensive) and very carefully calculated the required segments needed to cover each curve.

 I then placed each segment over the curves, still in situ and drew around them from underneath, then I could cut the exact shape out and hopefully, replace each curve. Obviously, I had removed all the track, additional timber work and so forth, prior to this operation.

Once the new curves were cut out, the old curves were removed and the new ones offered up into position, success!

Bar a little bit of fettling on the risers, it worked.

Finally, the track was relayed and electrically connected and trains could run again, much more smoothly now.

My pictures show the curves beforehand and a more distant shot of afterwards. 
Cheers,

John

[Allegheny1600]

I’ve finally worked out how to transfer video from my iPad onto here, go via YouTube!

A couple of trains running, unfortunately not showing the curves, sorry but it does show how the trains run;

John

[Ian Morgan]

It is really worth the effort to get the trackwork right before progressing with the scenic work. There are so many layouts at exhibitions (remember them?) with badly aligned track, sudden changes in direction and/or height, and you just know it is too late to put it right, and that the operators will always have problems with derailments, uncoupling or jumping wagons.

 

Keep up the good work.