Gordonwis

As someone who travelled frequently to family in Ferney Voltaire for 60 years by various means, the inception of the even just the first bit of Paris - Lyon HS line and thus the creation of Paris - Geneva TGV services in 1981 (when I was living in Peterborough) made it possible for one to travel from not just London but a few places north of London to Geneva in one day for the first time. The fact that this 'high speed bonanza' was not taken to advantage by Britain is an indictment of this country's transport ( and other) policy over decades and decades. Sadly the Thatcher government's security and safety paranoia put paid to any sensible train services (nightstar and cross channel locals included...) being introduced , because of the ridiculous rolling stock technical requirements and refusal to make border / customs arrangements simple. Put bluntly, it is absolutely ludicrous - and has been since the inception of the Channel Tunnel, that there is no direct train service from London to Geneva. It was the most blatantly obvious opportunity when the Channel tunnel was built given that: Geneva already had a ready made platform with customs hall and facilities into which a train from London could have been run. Geneva is crammed full of English speakers and expat Brits There are about 10 flights a day just from London - every one almost always full The erstwhile London - Bourg St Maurice Eurostar proved that a similar train to Geneva could easily have been created with the right political will. For the last few years I have been dealing with the legacy of my uncle's vast railway photo etc collection, such that I am still taking items from my house back to Geneva (to the AGMT tramway museum ) - I did two trips in 2023 and have one trip coming up where I will be forced to do my now usual thing - a 5am taxi from home to Gatwick, fester at Gatwick then plod along the taxiway in the giant queue of morning flight departures; Easyjet to Geneva. On both my trips in 2023 I left my office near Euston thinking how nice it would be to be able to amble after work over to St Pancras and arrive in Cornavin the following morning. .

Here are the Busch cheapies on my layout Chamossaire at ESNG last September

The other problem with Mafen signals is that the 'nicest' aka most 'imposing' ones (ie the multi aspect and combined 'home and distant' versions) are between 30 and 60 quid a pop. One reason why I went with the dummy Busch ones (pack of 12 for £15 from a discount retailer)

I did in fact mention the Kyodo Lemaco signals in my post on Tuesday. I prefer them to Mafen because you can actually see them (!) but getting hold of them now is very hard, hence my decision to use cheapy plastic German signals modified

Yes, the red end was added for visibility in the latter days of the all green livery on RBe 4/4 . If your layout is set in the mid 1908s to mid 1990s, a red end version is fine .

I agree to a certain extent. Even a blast furnace needs a certain level of tidiness around it, not just grime, for the sake of efficiency

I had a Mafen N SBB signal but found it too delicate for my layouts that need constant moving to a storage shelf. I also felt it was too small (in some cases overscale in N can help the brain to compute what it is seeing) so I use more of the old Lemaco Kyodo version. However, to save money, I have gone the cheap way recently by using the German dummy signal pack (Busch 5850) and cutting a tiny pieces off each signal face and adding a white surround to make them the 'Swiss style'. In the most basic scenario, a few main signals, main and distant signals and distants planted at the key locations will make the layout look OK. In the meantime, some of my [too] many Swiss phots with signals visible signal on three-track Lausanne - Geneve at Chambesy The 'home' main plus distant signal for Twann station, June 2022

I highly recommend not skimping on the cost and getting the pukka Mafen N-Train SNCF 25kV masts .

Had not so far been tempted with this 'at today's high prices' having owned a whole range of artisan efforts at the Picasso in N gauge over the years, but seeing one close up on Lionel Barbier's (Trains 160) stand at Wemfal Lille on Saturday (9 March) and having the opportunity to buy it on site was too hard to resist.

All in the title. There was a new Arnold 14100 in the vicinity of this layout (unsurprisingly) but last seen in bits on Trains 160's table (hmmm...)

Since you appear to have removed the 1500 dc electrification I don't suppose the 'voltage' is wrong anyway for the two locos pictured! ...🤣 My 14100 is on the way but did see a few at the Wemfal show in Lille on Saturday.

No, I just got rid of most of mine where possible! I favour Minitrix and even old Lima and Atlas Rivarossi for DB style UICs.

A perhaps somewhat simpler 'at a glance' view of the changes in land use can be obtained by going to Swissgeo ( https://map.geo.admin.ch ) and selecting 'journey through time' An interesting area to compare (try 1864 versus today) is the Dietikon - Spreitenbach area For railways at ground level , you can search in SBB Historic for a station name and in many cases get some nice archive shots.

Monsiur Haydock has 'retired' to western France There are a number of keen French enthusiasts / photographers around the Hazebrouck area one of whom appears on N gauge model forums as well as full size railway French forums

I suspect you will find this helpful: https://www.viia.com/en/the-network/viia-in-europe/

I well remember your expertise on the filming locations for the film, but I hadn't seen it for a while, and I always feel that the high shots around the area with the tunnel scene does look remarkably like the Verdun area - so they did a great job. The old 030C that was used latterly in the film alongside the 230Bs was not an Est loco AFAIR

Indeed it didn't matter that locos got smashed up either as they were about to be withdrawn.

Thoroughly enjoyed watching 'Le Train' (1964 Burt Lancaster film) again on terrestrial british TV today (Sat 2 March) Spotted two of the most famous 'goofs' - post war American 141Rs at 'Vaires' shed, and a glimpse of some overhead catenary which did not exist East of Paris at that time.

1:150 RhB Za tanker Comes from a German artisan as a bare body, so this is my painting (grey primer for the moment as I intend to make this one have 'workstain brown' over the light grey) . Added transfers from RhB Modellbahn - originally intended for the latter's 3D printed Za which is not nearly as good as these new ones.

It's taken me a while to notice that the terminus is now called Broc Chocolaterie ! (presumably 'fabrique' as a suffix is nowadays deemed to be too old fashioned ...

"Marktplasse" threw me for a moment - but I went back to the picture and assume you meant the RIC coach crossing "Marktgasse" (Market Street) in Interlaken. The roof shape is the same on all 480 RIC coaches, just the photo angle might make it look different. And in the picture showing the international train the ABm RIC is marshalled next to a Swiss internal 'EW1' standard coach, all (EWI, EWII, EWIII) of which of course are famously low height, thus accentuating the dome of the RIC. For the record all EWI and EWII coaches are 3700mm tall above rail, RIC UIC are 4100mm tall ( ie over 1 foot taller)

The answer goes back to your post of 18 November 2022 (!). The coach in question is what (from the 1970s onwards) SBB tended to call the 'RIC' type (which is confusing as some earlier types were dubbed 'RIC' as well). Nevertheless from the period depicted in the photo until the present day these standard 'UIC'-norm SBB international coaches were dubbed RIC . In SBB's own literature this type of coach is officially designated "Bm RIC type UIC" I think I may be repeating myself from ages ago, but these coaches were SBB's standard coach for international long distance trains. Altogether 480 were built. The first batch (Bm 2nd class) were built from 1966. The second coach in this train is specifically an ABm (1st 2nd composite) officially designated "ABm RIC typ UIC" from the batch 51 85 70000-70039, built 1971-72.

Hi Jim - when you get to M.R.S. raise a glass to my late Mum and Dad, despite not being active railway modellers they used to visit the show. :-)

My go to photo site is Bahnbilder.de I tend to find that containers (deep sea type) run in block trains of containers, separately from other intermodal type - ie lorry semi trailers (HUPAC - style- and other 'swap body' type containers

The best way to buy from Pierre Dominique is to go to a French swapmeet ...