“BEYOND DOVER”

[pete_mcfarlane]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

i don't much care for that lumping big Pacific, though, for all that the top brass are milling around it...

It looks like a scaled up version of the sort of thing that Henry Greenly would design for your miniature railway.  

[Northroader]

I’m hoping to develop the OUEST loco theme a bit more, as it’s quite interesting. I don’t have full detail on the loco chiefs, but the first one was John Buddicom, an Englishman, and strictly the “Allan” or “Crewe” type of the Caledonian and LNWR Railways could be just as well be called the “Buddicom” type.

The next engineer came up with a very “OUEST” style, probably the “pot au moutarde” dome was the most noticeable feature, but his express engines of 1857 were the first French built ones with two coupled wheelsets, and the “Bicyclettes” were part of this family. 

In 1888, M. Clerault decided to introduce “English” styling, particularly the 4-4-0s of which Johnson himself would have been proud, but the OUEST also had a Webb compound on trial, and went for De Glehn compound 4-4-0s, followed by the first French express 460s in 1901. The two Pacifics you’re looking at appeared concurrently with some Pacifics on the MIDI in 1908, and were the first Pacifics in Europe.

(Loco 2901 built in 1908 by the OUEST, isn’t very far removed in appearance from loco 6201 built in 1933 by the LMS, the namesake for which we’re currently celebrating)

Edited May 29, 2022 by Northroader

[Andy Hayter]

Actually the PO (Paris Orleans) beat them both with a pair of working Pacifics in 1907.

 

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_(locomotive)

 

[Mikkel]

11 hours ago, Northroader said:

“Bicyclette” 2-4-0T of the Chemin de Fer de l’OUEST,

 

Lots of charm there. The text for the drawing seems to suggest an olive livery, which would have been even nicer I think.

 

There are a couple of H0 models here: https://loco-ho.com/compagnies/france-etat-administration-des-chemins-de-fer-de-letat-1878-1937/

 

 

11 hours ago, Northroader said:

There’s a very nice selection of pictures of the old OUEST loco. fleet here:

https://www.cparama.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=113&t=21239&sid=b9d717405f4c3340671a393603426f1a

 

Quite a collection, thanks for pointing to that. One or two tricky valve gears there for the modeller or manufacturer, not to mention boiler fittings.

 

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

i don't much care for that lumping big Pacific, though, for all that the top brass are milling around it...

 

Agree, but I would like to listen in on their conversations.

 

 

[Northroader]

OUEST “BOER” 0-6-0T

 

One way in which the OUEST was Modeller friendly, was in the number of tank engines they had, seemingly more in proportion to all the fleet than most of the other big French lines. There were 25 2-2-2T, in the 0101-0138 range, converted from old Buddicom engines, and 104 0-6-0T, no’s. 1011-1114,  enough to appear on country branches besides city yards. The only drawback to me was the double eccentrics dangling outside off the main crankpins, which I would find rather a daunting job. Then there were the 134  2-4-0T Bicyclettes, 1-150 and 329-363, originally suburban locos, but then put out to grass. They were followed by a series of 0-6-0T, the full story for which you can find on the Roland Arzul link. They started to appear in 1883, no’s. 3001-3031, then 3501-3530, lastly 3531-3602, so 133 in all. After the first batch the wheels were larger and the wheel base longer, and there were differences in boilers, smokeboxes and cabs. Most of the later engines superseded the Bicyclettes on Paris suburban workings, and had a very “English” appearance, but the classes could make an appearance on secondary country lines. In 1899 the NORD built 15 copies to work the Ceinture line,  the “belt” railway around Paris, with NORD touches such as Belpaire fireboxes, but still very English looking, so with the French aptitude for stirring the pot, as the South African War was raging, they were nicknamed “Boers”,and it would appear this came to be applied generally to the earlier OUEST engines.

So, prepare a drawing, and you’ll see I found a nice block in an old copy of the “Locomotive” magazine. This was for the last batch, and I fancied something looking a bit more obviously French, so I mangled this up on my old computer to hint at an earlier version with smaller wheels and shorter wheelbase. (Comparing these two drawings right here, right now, I got an uneasy feeling Ive gone wrong somewhere near the back end of the firebox, should the rear overhang be shorter?)

Then it was buy in wheels, motor/ gearbox, dome, buffers, safety valve, and air pump, and do some brass bashing:

Edited October 24, 2022 by Northroader

[Mikkel]

Merveilleux! 

 

Boers, eh? Cheeky!

[Vecchio]

Interesting thread. For me especially the part about the Viennese Kaiser Ferdinand Nordbahnhof. When I grew up this railway station was almost dead, as it was a line to nowhere. The line finished at the station of Gmuend on the border to Czechoslovakia, as, after the second world war,  the iron curtain came down and any traffic over the border stopped. The whole part of Austria close to the eastern borders suffered economically. The Nordbahn was also one of the last lines in Austria to see electrification, and I remember going on holiday with steam powered trains in the mid/end sixties. 

 

Should there be any need for translation of any German text into English please send me note. 

 

Vecchio, 40 years in Austria, 11 years in Italy and so far 12 years in the UK.

[Northroader]

NORTHERN VIENNA TERMINI

 

Thank you, Mr. Vecchio, I’m glad you’ve found us, and hope you put in some posts on here, with your knowledge. So, Return to Vienna, and I’m putting in a map of the North side of the city:

We’ve had a look at the KFNB terminus at Nordbahnhof, and you’ll see there’s a Nordwestbahnhof close by, belonging to the ONWB, the Osterreichische Nordwestbahn. It was built with private finance following difficulties with government finance following the Prussian/ Austrian war, and so wasn’t graced by being called after one of the nobs. Here’s an old picture of a train arrival in the glory days, and you’ll see it’s another terminus with imposing architecture and quite a simple layout:

Youll see both these lines headed roughly north, which would take them into what is now modern Slovakia. Very good for when it was all part of the Hapsburg empire, but with the creation of Czechoslovakia and Poland after WW1, traffic dried up, so what was left was all concentrated on the Nordbahnhof, and Nordwestbahnhof was abandoned.

Theres a further station on that side of town, Franz -Josefs -Bahnhof, belonging to the Kaiser Franz Josefs Bahn (KFJB) This ran roughly NorthWest from Vienna, heading up the bank of the Danube, and serving popular summer resorts for the Viennese. Eventually it crossed the river, and headed cross country to reach across Bohemia (Czech republic) to Prague.

I cant find a suitable old picture for this station, another with big buildings and simple tracks, so here’s one towards the end of steam, with a 2-6-2 setting off, and a 4-6-4T ready to leave, both with a fair complement of old coaches:

So to Gmund, (these days Ceske Velenice) and following WW2, the Iron Curtain came down here. It was a very interesting situation, as there was very limited cross border traffic, and the trains reflected this:

i feel justified in putting this in a ‘pregroup’ thread, the loco is a CSD class 524 compound 0-10-0, inherited from kkStB, class 80.900 built from 1911, with even older four wheeler coaches from the kkStB, and quite a suitable length for a minimum space layout. To travel on it you and your papers and your luggage would have been done over by a granite faced Russian with an AK47, perhaps an interesting prototype, perhaps not? In present times we can only hope Russian domination is pushed right back more.

 

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Northroader

[Vecchio]

@Northroader

Small correction. When I said KFNB went to Gmuend I was wrong. It was the Franz Josephs Bahn, which went out along the river Danube until Tulln, where it crossed the river, and from there to Gmuend. The town of Gmuend is still there and in Austria, but the original railway station is on the other side of the border, as you mentioned in  Ceske Velenice. The border runs through the town. The time after the second world war was not a nice one, Everybody speaking German or had Austrian or German origin was thrown out of Czecholovakia in a kind of ethnical cleanout. And these were families who lived and worked there for generations, and had nothing to do with the Nazi occupation in the years of the war. Thanks god the other side didn't do the same, as my surname is Novak, which is Czech (and means new man in translation to English). 

 

Back to the subject. I found a picture of the Nordbahnhof 1890 which I think is not in the thread yet.

Nordbahnhof 2 

This station was heavily damaged during the second world war and the ruins have been demolished in 1965

 

and one of the Nordwestbahnhof around 1880

nordwestbahnhof 2 

 

The Franz Josephs Bahnhof is still there, but a complete newbuild showing a concrete and glass facade, finished in 1978. 

 

About the pre-grouping situation: I think Ing. Karl Goelsdorf gave a good description in the book Lokomotivbau in Alt-Oesterreich (page 9 to 14).

 

 

[Northroader]

OUEST - GOODS WAGONS

 

Needing some wagons for my OUEST 0-6-0T to pull, I found the best place to go is here:

http://roland.arzul.pagesperso-orange.fr/materiel/wagons/index.htm

and if you trawl round the web you can come up with treats like this lowside and a standard open:

 

For the head end I needed a fourgon, and this was done from old photos. You’ll see that the OUEST liked to have diagonally planked wagons, similar to NORD practice:

 

Then I did a couvert, complete with a brakemans accommodation, and it was done with all the shutters down, as if ready to carry livestock:

 

You have to dig to find any French private owner wagons beyond wine foudres, and there was a good picture in one of Denis Allendens articles for an insulated van for the transport of ice. (Model Railways 6/72)  I say private owner, but it’s branded as a OUEST wagon, although carrying such French commercial touches as the authorised capital of the private company. Boulogne Billancourt is a large suburb of Paris downstream on the Seine, with a large manufacturing base. My guess is that the OUEST would require manufactured ice to take down to the coastal ports it served to return packed round fish?

 

At the time these were built, I was very uncertain about what colour they were painted (apart from the insulated van in white), and I still not sure, the brakevan has green, but the initial picture in this thread introducing the OUEST shows a brakevan in probably light grey. I went for dark brown for the couvert, mainly because the Reseau Breton ( a narrow gauge version of the OUEST) used it, but then in my bit back on EST wagon colours, a German freight handbook shows dark grey for the OUEST. Heads? Tails? Now there’s a nice little train, but quite how right it is, could be questionable:

 

Test running in progress, I find the loco needs a bit more work. (It was built for a very tight radius layout, and some modifications are now necessary)

Edited October 24, 2022 by Northroader

[kitpw]

They're wonderful models - makes me want to run down to Victoria and take the 'Night Ferry' (except it would be about 30 years too late for "1:43 Beyond Dover").

Kit PW

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/blog/2502-swan-hill/

 

[Northroader]

From Victoria, but use the Brighton side, not the Chatham:

[kitpw]

54 minutes ago, Northroader said:

From Victoria, but use the Brighton side, not the Chatham

I'm very tempted.  I have done Victoria to Rome via Paris by train with a return journey on New Year's Eve.  We arrived at Victoria (after nearly 36 hours of travel) at 3am to find snow 2ft deep and not a taxi anywhere.  I've been following Beyond Dover but I don't think I've commented before - great thread!

Edited June 11, 2022 by kitpw

[Mikkel]

 

20 hours ago, Northroader said:

Then I did a couvert, complete with a brakemans accommodation, and it was done with all the shutters down, as if ready to carry livestock:

 

 

Lovely. Throw in some steamy cattle, smelly dung, steam, soot and wind and the brakeman will have felt very much alive 🙂  

[Northroader]

 

P.S. Before you go, check the shipping forecast:

 

 

Edited June 17, 2022 by Northroader

[Compound2632]

Route pittoresque et économique...

 

Don't say you weren't warned!

 

Gare du Nord for me. (It was rather closer to where I lived in the 19ème.)

Edited June 17, 2022 by Compound2632

[kitpw]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

check the shipping forecast

...I'll do that, but it's always a calm, sunny day at Swan Hill.  I hear the GWR is putting on an air service in 1933 - might give that a try!

 

Kit PW

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/blog/2502-swan-hill

 

[Northroader]

OUEST - COACHES

 

Following on from OUEST wagons, I’ve not got any coaches in progress, but I might as well pursue the topic. The place to go, as ever, is Roland Arzul’s site, so here’s a link to the short bodied four wheelers which provided the services in Victorian times.

http://roland.arzul.pagesperso-orange.fr/materiel/voitures/voitures_ouest_essieux1.htm

The French lines usually ran fourgons, and each of the three classes of passengers in individual carriages, but first /second composites were quite common, and other two class combinations could crop up. Generally I like a fourgon, a first/ second composite, and a third, as the ideal French train for a short layout. The OUEST did have a speciality, fully featured in the preceding link, which doesn’t seem to have been used on the other grandes lignes, a brake tricomposite, so a train in its own right:

 

Here’s a group of the lads with one of these, on a postcard with the engaging French practice of sticking the stamp on the picture side. From L to R, there’s a first class coupe, a second class compartment, a luggage locker with ventilation louvres in a raised roof section (Fish traffic?), two third compartments with the usual one window in the door, and a raised snug all weather brake compartment, for the guard. They were described as being built for lines with light traffic, so one of these and a couple of goods wagons and you have the perfect mixed train for a small layout. (Probably Britons would think of the LSWR tricomposite sixwheelers, a caravan of these leaving Waterloo, and gradually diminishing onwards after Yeovil as far as Padstow, but I don’t think an “Atlantic Coast Express” ran out of St. Lazare In similar fashion, you had to change at whatever branch junction you wanted).

I lifted this picture from another thread on the “forum.e-train.fr” site, called “un petit coup d’Etat”, plenty of items for both the OUEST and its successor, the ETAT.

https://forum.e-train.fr/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=25787

Another link to finish with from the same site, dealing with the carriage colours of the old lines, which I have quoted before on here. I’m linking into the page where there’s two drawings of generic coaches in OUEST livery, demonstrating another foible, in that OUEST first class carriages were painted red, Rouge Bordeaux,(wine colour?) and it was the usual  practice on the other lines to do the same colour on first compartments on a composite coach. OUEST did both the seconds and thirds in green, Vert National,, and this was also applied to the first compartments in a composite:

https://forum.e-train.fr/viewtopic.php?p=1660341#p1660341

Was  “Vert National” the same colour used on the engines? On the pages just there on that link there’s some nice “generic” four wheeler drawings like the example I’ve picked out here. Do you think Hattons will produce a line of these in 0 scale in the different French lines? Me, neither, best order some more Plastikard.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Northroader

[Andy Hayter]

Bordeaux Red is a slightly brown tinged maroon - subtle not heading towards red oxide.

 

AMF87 (www.amf87.fr) have a range of paints but not as far as I can see Bordeaux red.  They do however have the PLM equivalent which is labelled Burgundy red.  I never heard the PLM shade so described before having always thought that it too was labelled Bordeaux red.  

 

I do have access to some Ouest drawings of 4 wheelers if you would like I can sort through and see if any are suitable for the basis of a model.

 

[Northroader]

I’ve been using Humbrol no. 73 for a “wine” red shade. It’s just a bit more red than opening up my tin of Phoenix MR crimson. Generally I think the paints which have been scientifically matched to a true colour sample will make a small model look too dark.

Thank you for the drawings offer, Andy. There’s some useful drawings on the Arzul site, plus there’s some true OUEST engravings on the “Livrees” site I linked into, if you go the bottom of the page. As it all scratchbuilding, I try to limit how many models I need, so the tricomposite is a very tempting prototype, and I usually go for small fourwheeler “bug boxes” for the same reason. Mind, if someone did a 3D print using the “generic” drawings used to demonstrate the OUEST livery on that link, it would be very like the old MMM HO range, and I would buy a 7mm version.

[Northroader]

OUEST - NORMANDY BRANCHLINES LINK

 

Back in the 1950s, the world and their dogs were modelling only one thing, a GWR branch line in Devon or Cornwall, Ashburton or St.Ives for preference. Now in my attempt to get everyone today modelling the OUEST in Normandy or Brittany a bit more information is needed to turn heads. The OUEST linked into some great minor railways, the decauville c.f.du Calvados, the metre gauge c.f.des Cotes-du-Nord, the standard gauge c.f. Caen a la Mer, being good examples. The Roland Arzul site does a section “ vers le plages et l’Ocean” with a selection of secondary routes in old postcards.

Heres a very informative thread giving words and music on selected OUEST branches in Normandy, which I hope you’ll enjoy:

https://forum.e-train.fr/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=76745

 

 

Regneville s Mer for instance is nice and simple, right at the side of the sea, and makes into a good model:

https://www.leportailduzero.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3069

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Northroader

[Northroader]

A musical interlude:

 

[TT-Pete]

7 hours ago, Northroader said:

A musical interlude:

 

@2:12 - Dontcha just hate it when some eedjit walks into your carefully-framed shot?

 

[Compound2632]

11 hours ago, Northroader said:

A musical interlude:

 

That 2-6-4T is a bit of a brute but I do like the 4-6-2 with its classic Lego chimney-bands.

 

The carriages are claret, I note.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Compound2632

[Northroader]