“BEYOND DOVER”

[Mikkel]

Many greetings and best wishes to you also Bob, and thanks for starting this fascinating thread. An interactive exploration of European (and Egyptian) railway history, no less! The wonderful thing is that there is no end in sight, so much more to explore!

[Northroader]

DOUGHBOYS IN FRANCE.

 

There are some good models being made which draw their inspiration from the military lines built at the Western front in the First World War, generally narrow gauge, but in the past I given some references for standard gauge equipment to a modeller. Generally my cut off date is 1914, as WW1 wasn’t the best of times for my family, but obviously a lot of the trains shown on this thread would carry over into that period, so in case anyone is using the thread to gain a bit more detail for a WW1 setting, I thought the films in the link would make interesting viewing. They’re from American film archives, dating from 1918 when America entered the war. There’s a lot of General Pershing doing tours of inspection, with a crowd of hangers on, but there’s also a shipload of what became SNCF 140B coming across, old goods wagons loaded with doughboys, and supply depots forming at Saint Nazaire and La Rochelle. Then there’s my favourite bit, old Belgian engines working for the Yanks, some of the same classes were also running with ROD on the tenders, and others were running for the Germans.

https://forum.e-train.fr/viewtopic.php?p=2500560#p2500560

 

INDEX for pages 11-20:

page 11: Doughboys in France.                                page 12: Danish goods wagons links

                 ETS four wheel Austrian coaches.                            Austrian beer wagons 

                 ETS kkStB 97/197 (CSD 310.1) 0-6-0T.                      Oktoberfest

                 Austro-Hungarian Empire pre 1918.                        

                 Transylvanian trip with Burgundy

                 MAV type III (335/326) 0-6-0.                        

page 13:  FS drawings archive link.                          page 14:  NORD country station- layout?

                  FS  Kirtley Goods 0-6-0.                                              NORD passenger train link

                  Webb Compound exiles.                                           NORD old Bourbonnais 0-6-0

                  French 2-4-0T “Les Bicyclettes”.                                Simplon - Orient Express

                                                                                                          Italian & Romanian 0-6-0s

                                                                                                          SARUK link (ng preservation)

                                                                                                          KFNB wagon and map

                                                                                                          Viennese terminus - microlayout?

page 15: Paris Austerlitz station.                              page 16: Galicia Carl Ludwigs Bahn

                 Austrian - Hungarian bibliography.                           ETAT Blaye- harbour layout?

                 Belgian class 25 0-6-0.                                                 Dutch level crossing

page 17: European block bells.                                 page 18:  J.Vandenberghen database link

                “Gare Belges d’Autrefois”.                                            European pictorial maps & posters

                 Belgian passenger stock links.                                   French old postcards, locos & trains

                 Belgian freight stock links                                           France - C.F. de l’OUEST

 page 19: OUEST “Boer” 0-6-0T.                                 page 20: Popular Danish locos.

                N. Vienna termini.                                                         A trip to Polesia

                 OUEST goods wagons.                                                 Russian “O” 0-8-0

                 OUEST passenger coaches.                                         Bialowezia station

                 OUEST Normandy branchlines link.                          Scale Trains Club (Russian “RMweb”)

                                                                                                          (BEWARE of TROJANS)

                                                                                                          Russian rolling stock

 (the index for pages 21 - 30 is on page 21)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by Northroader

[Northroader]

I’ve been quiet mainly because of trying to progress my other two layouts, but the last two weeks I’ve put in a bit of work aimed at getting things operational here. The fiddle yards have been changed over, there was a problem with getting the board levels matched, and this has been sorted with the new board. For now I have just one standard gauge cassette, and one broad gauge one, and I’m waiting for the ironmongers to reopen to get some more ply for bases.

 

 

To get the line working by the Saints Day deadline last October, the electrics were a quick lash up, and this has been tidied up. Firstly the shelf for the controller was drooping, due to weak brackets, and these have been replaced with a piece of Dexion. The hole for the 240v plug has been enlarged (I prefer not to have the lead hanging over the edge of the shelf, but passing through it) There’s a small switchboard made up and mounted, with section feeds for the platform line, the loop/goods siding, and the turntable. (The point is operated by a slider switch which changes the frog polarity) These feed back through jumper leads to the track on the baseboard, but as there’s two gauges of baseboards the jumpers have got plug in connectors added. Another connector is mounted on the shelf for the controller leads to feed the switchboard.

Looking at the alignment between the cassette run off and the point, I could see a kink which I didn’t like, and running trains through showed they didn’t like it either, so Ive rebuilt the track in this area, and things are much better now.

 

 

Turning to the turntable end, the pressing need was to add a stop at the country end before disaster struck. There are now loops added at each end which can be dropped down or raised out of the way as needed, made from aluminium strip. There’s a 2”x 1” which is laid flat and extends to form an integral part of the main framework, and the turntable is mounted on this.  The turntable is fed through a jumper and connector, for now it being a sector table, as the jumper is not yet installed at the outer end, and I might need to fit a locking bolt to make sure the alignment is right.

 Trains can now operate, but I’ve found another job to be done, namely couplings. I use drawhooks with a single rigid link, mainly because a few years back I had a layout with very tight curves, and I needed to avoid buffer locking. Now on this line I’m finding propelling moves are troublesome with the single links. Trying things out I find that the buffers can be trusted when pushing through the reverse curve on the loop, as the radius is much better than on my old line, and so I must carry out a replacement programme of changing the single links to three links.

 

addition: I was looking much later on in replacing the pictures in this post, but the layout has since had a rebuild, so I’m unable to do it. Also my comments regarding couplings don’t apply because of changes, so I’ve stuck with the single long links. Funny how you go round in circles, isn’t it?

Edited August 28, 2022 by Northroader

[bgman]

23 minutes ago, Northroader said:

and one broad gauge one

 

Ooh ! That's interesting have i missed something and do you have any photographs of it please ?

[Northroader]

Calm down, lad, by “Broad Gauge” I mean the Spanish 5’6” one, which appeared last October on here, not 7’0”. Sorry.

[bgman]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

Calm down, lad, by “Broad Gauge” I mean the Spanish 5’6” one, which appeared last October on here, not 7’0”. Sorry.

 

Got my juices flowing there for a moment !

 

I perhaps should have realised having followed your interesting thread for so long, my bad.

 

Nevertheless it's still broad gauge and I like alternatives.

 

G 

[Mikkel]

I do like your cassette, with the foldable grab handles. I'm trying to work out how it is attached/not falling?

[Northroader]

Not a cassette, Mikkel, it’s a turntable, or should be. Underneath there’s a piece of wood which is integral with the main board framework, and a pivot bolt passes through both. There’s some card packing to get the rail interface right.

 

addition: I’m afraid since this was posted, changes have been made, and the picture done to illustrate has gone, sorry about that.

 

Edited August 28, 2022 by Northroader

[Mikkel]

Aha, thank you. I should have noticed the track that it connects to on the main board.

[Northroader]

ETS CZECH / AUSTRIAN FOUR WHEEL COACHES.

 

One thing that can be asked, what is available in RTR if you’re modelling old time continental O gauge? The answer is not a great deal. I’ve seen an English stockist at a show with some fabulous German Landerbahnen wagons, beautiful craftsmanship, but to me eyewatering prices. There’s also some very dear French kits, but it strikes me that there just isn’t the following we have in Britain.

One place to go is ETS of the Czech Rebublic. “But that’s tinplate,” I hear. Well, yes, but they do come out with scale proportions, which forms a good basis. Looking at some four wheeler coaches for starters, the Czech trains generally modelled by ETS fall into the 1920 - 1938 period, or 1960s onwards, and the early coaches are handmedowns of Austrian State design from pre WW1, so eligible for my purposes. Everything is assembled with small machine screws, so quite adaptable. First thing to go are the couplers, totally bombproof operation, like the old Hornby Dublo clasp design, but very oversize, and a drawhook is substituted. Then I prise the wheelsets out, they’re coarse profile, rather than finescale, but not too bad, so I pull a wheeldisc off one side, slip an 8BA washer over the journal, and replace the disc, with the washer behind the wheel seat. This increases the back to back sufficiently, and before replacing I cover the bright steel surfaces with primer and Matt black paint, except the tyre running surfaces. Otherwise they could be replaced with finescale spoked wheels. Then it’s just a case of taking away the glossy enamel tinplate finish, either with a repaint or using Matt varnish. You’ll see I’ve left the handrails, which is the last giveaway. This gives you a nice secondary train, which can cover all the ramifications of the old Austria Hungarian empire.

 

Goods wagons are more of a problem, the open is a post ww1 large body type, the goods van just about passable, the beer van ok, but probably in need of earlier scripting, and the long lowside do-able..

Edited October 21, 2022 by Northroader

[ianathompson]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

One thing that can be asked, what is available in RTR if you’re modelling old time continental O gauge? The answer is not a great deal.

 

 I reckon that I have more than sufficient stock to populate a reasonably sized O standard gauge layout, although it travels on NG transporters.

It has been acquired over many years, and yes, some of these models were expensive.

 

Given a little patience, however, E-bay is/was a good source of cheapish Raimo/Billerbahn wagons.

They produced  the  German G10 and G20 vans, a shortish open and a flat.

I obviously have no expereince of their four wheel coaches and brake van, seeing that I model narrow gauge.

 

Of course you could also try the Brawa and Lenz models, although they are more expensive, but much more detailed.

I have picked these up from the same source relatively cheaply because there is often not too much demand for them in this country.

 

Other than that I suppose it is back to cut and shut with the Lima range.

 

Ian T

 

[Northroader]

ETS kkStB class 97 / 197 0-6-0T (CSD 310.1)

 

Turning to the need for something to pull the coaches, I managed to pick up a loco at a reasonable price at a traders stand at the Bristol show a couple of years ago. ( you couldn’t do it now, it’s become a “Nightingale” hospital.)  it’s an ETS job, usually the commonest you see is as a CSD (Czechoslovak State Railways) class 310.1, I got the version after Deutsche Reichsbahn took over in the shameful events of 1938, numbered in the DRB 98.77xx series. When I got home I gave it a spin, finding it to be a really smooth, sweet runner, and then got the paint stripper and primer out, expunging the “Reichsadler” totem.

 The original prototype was built by by the kkStB as class 97. The ”kaiserliche konigliche StaatsBahn” was formed in 1884, slowly assimilating the railways in Greater Austria, a mix of radial routes spreading out from Vienna, named after the royalty, and some private firms. The locos were in classes in the range 1-99, but derivatives had multiples of 100 added to this, and in this instance, there was also a class 197. The class 97 was quite numerous, as a shunter and branch line loco, and after WW1 and the treaty of Versailles, it was found not only in Austria, but also Italy, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Poland. Class 197 was built for the KFNB as their class IX. The Kaiser Fernidands Nord Bahn ran North out of Vienna, into Bohemia and Galicia, absorbed into the kkStB in 1908. A lot of this became part of the CSD, including the 197s, which became the 310.1 class.

Main visual differences between the two classes were:

class 97, outside link valve motion, wrap over cab with oval windows, rear cab overhang, spark arrestor, and full length side tanks, round sandbox.

class 197, inside valve motion, “square” cab, shorter side tanks, square sand box.

 

 

The most noticeable variation from prototype to model is the side tanks. I’m used to scratch building, and start the superstructure by forming a base of a full length, full width running plate, so I fully understand ETS doing the same, although actually there is no running plate from the rear of the smokebox to the front of the cab, and the side tanks step up, so that the springs above the wheels are visible. I made a few changes and additions, the handrails above the sidetanks were removed as looking too oversize, the pop valves on the dome were replaced by Salter balances, a whistle, luftsauger, and tundish added, and some numberplates bodged up. Then paint in Matt black and glossy black, with a limited use of fine red lining. I think in this condition it does look a totally ravishing Belle Époque loco.

It still has the coarse back to back wheel spacing, I have seen ETS produced models of British outline locos, where the owners have just tweaked the wheels out a shade (they are a pushfit) I’m a bit chary of messing around with pushfit seatings, and in my case on the Continental line there is only one handmade point in use, with adequate clearance. There would be a nasty snatch if you tried it through a PECO point. (Note: I’ve since found it does go through a PECO point ok) The ETS drawgear was demoted as being too intrusive, which has created a problem, as I find I’m getting buffer locking propelling through the loop, which needs a solution.

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Northroader

[Northroader]

AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE pre 1918

 

Whilst going on about Old Austria, I thought a pre 1918 map of the area may be appropriate, as the political boundaries have altered  a lot in the intervening years, mainly because Austria was on the losing side in the First World War. Before then there was an emperor in Vienna, who was also King of Hungary. The shaded areas of the map denote the Austrian and Hungarian spheres of influence, with the areas becoming minor kingdoms, archdukedoms, and the like. Each had distinct languages and national aspirations. The map is overlaid with more recent boundaries and national names, although the Yugoslavian area has changed since this map was made.

The Southern area was part of the old Turkish Ottoman Empire, which was on the wane in the Balkans in the Victorian era. Following a war with Russia, the cross hatched area of Bosnia and Hercegovina was placed under Austrian Hungarian protection, and other Balkan wars followed in places like Bulgaria, retarding the development of railways. Some of the nationalistic tensions are still present today, over one hundred and fifty years later.

The kkStB, subsidiaries, and private lines were very widespread in the dark shaded areas, with the Royal Hungarian State Railway, MAV, in the lighter shaded area, extending right into Siebenburgen (Transylvania) There’s any number of tasty historical prototypes covered by this map.

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Northroader

[Compound2632]

Lemberg: Lviv; Lvov; Lwów. Nearly thirty years ago I spent several months in Kraków - my wife-to-be was at that time training English teachers in a college in Legnica, south-west of Wrocław (a city of at least as many names as Lviv). The Kraków opera put on a production of Verdi's Nabucco, sponsored by an Italian cultural foundation - there being strong historic links between Poland and Italy, going back to the marriage of King Sigismund I to Barbara Sforza in 1518. Now, Verdi's opera is a thinly-veiled critique of the Austrian Tyranny, and hence had quite as much appeal to 19th-century Poles as it did to their Italian brethren. So it was no great surprise to learn, as I gleaned from the Polish of the programme, that following the opera's premiere in Milan in 1842, it received its Polish premiere in Lwów in 1846. 

 

There were, I felt, two difficulties with this statement: on the one hand, Poland did not exist as a political entity in 1846; and on the other, Lwów is not now in Poland*.

 

*Most of Polish Lwów is now in Wrocław.

[burgundy]

2 hours ago, Northroader said:

 

 

The kkStB, subsidiaries, and private lines were very widespread in the dark shaded areas, with the Royal Hungarian State Railway, MAV, in the lighter shaded area, extending right into Siebenburgen (Transylvania) There’s any number of tasty historical prototypes covered by this map.

Transylvania and the Siebenbuergen have tempted me as a subject for a model. Tragic and beautiful, once with a multi-ethnic community. As the map above shows, railways in this part of the current Rumania were built by MAV, the Hungarian Railway  

Best wishes 

Eric 

 

[Northroader]

TRANSYLVIAN TRIP with BURGUNDY.

 

You didn’t put in a link to the other photos you took on your trip, Eric, so as they are very well taken, informative, and fuelling wanderlust:

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Northroader

[burgundy]

10 hours ago, Northroader said:

You didn’t put in a link to the other photos you took on your trip, Eric, so as they are very well taken, informative, and fuelling wanderlust:

 

If Austro-Hungarian locomotives are to your taste, I would recommend a visit to the railway museum in Budapest. 

....or perhaps an Engerth stutztender lok from Bosnia?

As you say, wanderlust - and nostalgia for the far off days when we were able to travel!

Best wishes 

Eric 

[Northroader]

MAV class III (335/ 326) standard goods 0-6-0.

 

Ah yes, I do indeed find the Locomotives to my taste. It’s a pity that it seems a lot of places in the countries covered by the map tend to place their preserved Locomotives outside and forget about them, so they’re just gently rusting away, and then send some nitwit out with a paintpot to “pretty” them up, such as the one with the pale green smokebox. (This is one MAV gained from the oxymoronic “StaatsEisenbahn Gesellschaft” (StEG), an Austrian private line serving Eastern Austria, Western Hungary, Southern Czechoslovakia)

But then you’ve got two shots of No.1026 (my favourite engine number) which is a real beauty, which I really would like to be making a model of sometime. This is one of the MAV nineteenth century standard goods, type III, (Roman numerals, with alphabetic suffixes added for variations and takeovers within the class) They were built from 1869, 152 of classes III a - d, reclassified class 335 in 1911, and 497 of class III e, reclassified 326, identical apart from higher boiler pressure. No.1026 is one of the 326 ones, in what looks like original condition. From 1890 they started to get fitted with “American” smokeboxes, which was a drumhead extension with a horizontal internal partition and mesh screen, rather like the modern “self cleaning” style. Then from 1912 you could find some with Pecz-Rejto feedwater purifier, this was a cylinder mounted on top of the boiler in which feedwater was heated by steam to boil and precipitate out hardwater scale before entering the main boiler, the cylinder being blown down and cleaned out. The other rarer variants were ones fitted with Brotan boilers from 1890, another Hungarian attempt to solve hard water problems. This had a watertube firebox feeding into a steam drum over the boiler. Some of the 326 class lasted into the 1960s, a nearly century old design.

 

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Northroader

[Northroader]

To finish off my Old Austrian passenger train adaptation of ETS models, I need a brake van, ein gepackwagen.  The ETS job has a post 1920 look with flush side panels, and I have an old photo, not too well defined, of a kkStB one with vertical matchboard sides. Digging around I found a drawing of a very similar van, although with outside angle iron framing, and horizontal boarding, which I assume is a newer version. The drawing is on the Stummis forum, in the thread for the Gorschitztalbahn, a 1950s branch in Upper Austria, full of interest, starting with an incredibly intricate girder bridge, but a “branch” running 2-10-0s.

 https://www.stummiforum.de/viewtopic.php?p=1541932#p1541932

I decided to reuse the ETS chassis and roof, remove the bodysides and ends, and replace with a .060” plastikard carcass overlaid with Evergreen sheet 4100. The proportions I took from the drawing, although the ETS model is 210mm over buffers, and the drawing needs 186mm, so it’s overlong. The carcass was done with floor, sides, and ends,  and there was a flat roof panel which slid inside the side channels of the tinplate roof. When I’d done the painting and glazing the body assembly was glued to this panel. Where did I go wrong? Well, the length is the thing, if I’d used the short fourbay third instead, it would have been spot on. Then I stuck with the ETS footboard arrangement, which I moved along to realign with the sliding bodysides door, and the old photo shows a full length footboard, with extra handrails. Anyway, ‘tis done now, with the train standing on the layout, but still needing work to be done to sort the couplings out.

 

 

Edited August 28, 2022 by Northroader

[Mikkel]

A very attractive train.

 

Had a look at the ETS website, there are some nice little locos there, I like the "French Industrial" 0-4-0.  

[Northroader]

I can recommend them for their running qualities, very smooth, controllable and quiet. There’s a problem with the back to back wheel spacing, either you have to “tweak” them out to get some clearance for Peco point checkrails, or make your own tracks. It’s worth bearing in mind that they sell chassis as individual items, so if you find one in the range with near enough wheel diameters and spacing, you can add your own superstructure to make quite an affordable loco.

[Northroader]

Oh dear, six months on from the last post, demonstrating that trying to keep four threads going, with the layouts and matters arising from them, is overly optimistic. You’ll gather not a lot has happened, but I have made an appraisal of where I am. I find the Spanish idea has suffered the most, mainly because of the need to swap the baseboard laid with the alternative gauge track over. It looked a good idea, but I find it’s still too involved to carry out as a quicky, and there’s much more happening on the standard gauge side, so that’s usually left in position. There’s not enough room to keep the broad gauge board set up on its own permanently, so it’s been scrapped, and the loco and rolling stock are being converted to standard gauge.

Sorry about that, I really liked the idea of San Pol as a real place I could visualise and having a simple layout, but the idea can be applied easily to elsewhere in Europe without being out of place, so my standard gauge line is a straight copy.

 The other thing it’s given me is the idea for a name for the layout, as you’ll find endless small towns across Europe carrying the placename as the name of the patron saint of the local church, just slight variations to suit the language being used. The church I went to as a kid was Saint Luke’s, which should do nicely. (You won’t find it now, it’s been demolished, as mammon takes over)

Anyway, that’s enough about worrying what to call it, getting modelling done is far more important. It’s a funny thing, but ballasting and platform surfacing are needed right now on all four lines, including this one, and that’s where you’ll find me.

[Mikkel]

Sounds sensible enough, I'm impressed you manage to keep all these projects going in the first place. 

 

There's a Saint Luke one mile from where I'm sat, and close by it used to look like this:

 

 

Frederiksberg station in Copenhagen. It's all underground now. Fast, postmodern and very dull.

[kitpw]

8 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Frederiksberg station in Copenhagen

I'm puzzled by the pair of parallel lines running nearly horizontally across the photo - it's probably obvious, but I can't fathom out what they are! 

[Northroader]

You would think telegraph lines, except there’s no sag in them. Something on the negative/ glass plate? The train formation looks most interesting, the brake van not next to the loco, coaches(?) in front, is the white vehicle a beer van? Mixed train? Lose all the sidings and it would make a nice layout. Thanks, Mikkel.

edit, then in the sidings there’s a few wagons with very high sheeted loads. Fodder for all the nags in Copenhagen?

Edited September 28, 2021 by Northroader