DGO

I will admit those mounts are very nice, if I do what I intend though I'll need custom mounts because rack rail points are so much more complicated ... did I mention I may be mad ? ....

Hi Neil the WAB is likely to keep at least some of the trains for a while yet, last time I was there 2 years ago there was still one of the old green coffee grinder engines down at Lauterbrunnen and that's over a hundred years old, much of the old WAB stock ended up on the SPB because of the same size, the JB got rid of a lot of it's old stock when they did something with the power supply, apparently cheaper to replace with new than upgrade the old, the WAB will likely keep at least some of the older trains for when it needs extra capacity . Over the years much of the rolling stock has been repeatedly upgraded or altered to suit the needs of the line

OK so I've decided to come back to model railways after a short 40 year gap, I've also decided I'm going to switch my turnouts with servos though I've yet to decide on exactly how. But then I come to controlling the polarity of the frog. So as I see it I can either switch the polarity using a relay at the same time as I send the command to the servo (or use sensors to tell the system the servo is moving and change) or I can stick one or two micro switches on the other end of the servo arm to the turnout and use that to switch the polarity, Are there any clear advantages or disadvantages to either method ? Currently my thinking is that I'd use a pair of microswitches to control the feed, that way whilst the turnout is actually moving the frog will be isolated completely

Also the large modern Youth Hostel next to Interlaken Ost Station, still a nice walk down the Hoewegg to Interlaken West though :-)

Sure it was cut from nominally 0.5mm thick brass that they had in their scrap pile the squares on the green cutting mat are 1cm, module of the teeth is 0.4 to match NEM rack rail standards for H0 scale we decided 0.5 is a bit thin but it was just a test done for free, going to go for slightly thicker material probably 0.7 - 0.9mm and we might look at stainless steel, or nickel silver final cuts to probably be meter lengths and I'm going to draw up some entry and exit curves for transitions between horizontal and whatever angle I decide is appropriate but probably a 10% gradient Yes surprising me no end the teeth are pretty much perfect on the rack, the hole is slightly out of circular on the spur gear but the teeth are spot on. The biggest issue was the thin brass being so flexible that the gas jet at the laser end was distorting the material. These are engineering correct profile teeth by the way not just a pretty zigzag pattern they will work with any module 0.4 pinion

You will almost certainly have to do a few things differently, plastic can be injection moulded in thinner section than resin can be printed for example. Whilst you could easily 3d print a full dash with center console as a single piece by printing in multiple parts you can potentially get a better finish on detail parts, hell if you want really fine detail you may want to look at etched brass bits to add to the 3d printed part In the end there is only one certainty the more detail you add the more it's going to cost LOL

Maybe if you could get through the deep snowdrifts that are often up against it in winter, but it's more usual at Fallboden to get off the train and ski straight off down the hill, you can also walk or sledge down from there to Kleine Scheidegg, it's not far

It's an old transformer station, the plan was to convert it to a small museum and be part of the "Eiger Trail" a walk that takes in the North Face of the Eiger Maybe I'll add it to the list of buildings I'm, modelling, currently Wengen Station, Allmend Station and Wengwald halt are on my list, but the old transformer station would make a worthy addition, it is an unusual building Purely as an aside went to see the industrial laser people yesterday, came home with this

Actually I should rephrase compound curves are not a problem for me but I've been working with 3d Cad for over 30 years, however dashboards are not at the top end of difficult problems to solve at 1/72 scale you don't have to be perfect merely close and then just get out some fine sandpaper for a final smoothing. My other advice is to make it in 2 parts, keep the actual dashboard with its instruments as a separate part so that you don't remove any tiny printed detail by accident

This is not a problem, you take the photos in the way I described and once you have the basic shape of the dash you add the dials etc. though many of them will have to be oversized,a typical speedo for example at 1/72 scale will be just 1.4mm in diameter with a bezel of under 0.1mm across whilst it's easy to draw it in cad anything under .1 mm is unlikely to show up on a 3d print but it might, many resin printers will give you some detail down to 0.015 - 0.028 mm but the human eye has difficulty seeing things that small. You need to do what the toy car makers do and just make them a little bigger than real life with deeper recesses and heavier bezels

This is compared to many I've done a very simple task and you can do it using free software Start by taking out the dashboard carefully, you want to take some orthographic pictures of the dash, this is best done with a tripod to hold the camera parallel to the face you are taking a picture of, so start with one looking at the dash, one from each side and one from top and bottom, ideally you also want one looking from the windscreen side towards the steering wheel, you also need a set of vernier calipers to take some measurements, you don't need many, just enough for reference that can go to easily identified points. You bring the pictures into CAD and apply them to workplanes, scale them all so they match and are the right size (using those measurements you took earlier) then you start drawing over distinct areas, extruding and revolving shapes and using boolean operations to form the solid, few hours work and you are done ... ;-) Print using a resin printer to get a good level of detail. It's unlikely to be perfect, but it should look right and only require a little sanding to fit inside the car. Simple .... Cars tend to have fairly simple interiors, I once had to take a model of a cat and modify it to turn it into something that could be used as a figure on one of those table football games, I'm not sure why I think it was a sponsorship or advertising thing

And there was I looking for a suitable material for slates and I see this post, you may have made my day LOL

You can, I believe, get working illuminated turnout indicators of that style from https://viessmann-modell.com/ at H0 scale Annoyingly the WAB have now switched almost exclusively to digital turnout indicators that are much harder to recreate, especially as whilst much of Switzerland seem to use two illuminated indicators one over the other the WAB use a single changing indicator, not possible to recreate at anything approaching scale at H0 even with the absolutely tiny 0201 type nano LED's that are each just 0.65mm x 0.35mm in size, at least not possible digitally but I think it might be possible mechanically

The one I saw had flowers attached to the front of the boiler, garlands and ribbons down the sides and more decoration both inside and out for the carriages, must have taken hours to set up, the loco itself had been shined and polished until it gleamed, maybe the wedding party had some link to the railway for that extra effort or maybe they had thrown a lot more money at the railway company, either way fabulous to see, I think my dear old mum took a pic, but I have no idea where it might be

Yup they keep one of the original wooden trains for special events at the Jungfrau

Many years ago one summer I went up the Schynige Platte, when we came back down they had the steam train out ready to go up with a wedding party, the whole train had been beautifully prepared with flowers attached inside and out, I suspect they were going up to the top restaurant for a fabulous meal

Wish I was going up to Wengen right now :-(

On a technical item I found this interesting Here is a typical Strub point at Wengen station it pretty much follows Stubs patent where the rack splits and covers the rail not in use, now I could model this but quite honestly it would fail at ho scale because there'd be about 0.1mm of material holding it together However it's not the only strub track on the mountain, up at Kleine Scheidegg the Jungfraubahn and it's meter gauge track uses a completely different design, here both the rail and the rack are split on the blade section of the point, now it would be a pain to build one, but I think it's actually possible at H0 scale unlike the traditional version, I can't help wonder why they have two designs on the same mountain though

I forget that was either Banwald or Wasserstation once upon a time in the winter you got off there to start the sledge run, I think Wasserstation is the next one just before Wengeneralp, that was a throwback to the days of steam when there was a watering point there (before my time) And you found some more of the old track, Riggenbach on the passing loop with Von Roll on the through line and probably Strub points Speaking of rack work I'm getting a sample length cut on the laser so we shall see if it works, this will be fully compatible with the standards for Strub / Von Roll & Richenback in H0e or H0m scale (If it works)

I may be better off just buying the bare rails if I end up 3d printing the sleepers with chairs, I will admit I'm going to stick with my re imagined WAB in meter gauge if only for the fact that it's a little easier to fit things in the available space, for instance I'm probably going to have to mount the gears off center if I want to have both axels on a bogie being driven with only one driving the rack, 2 rack cogs in one 2.6m bogie would be asking for trouble I think, but one at each end of the carriage should be fine, need a minimum 2 per train or it will slip on the points if they are more than a few percent gradient :-( I also had a look at how the strub points work, very clever but in HO scale they would require some very tiny pivots to work and result in a thickness of just 0.1mm where the rack passes over the rails which is probably pushing things beyond sensible, by having my own rack I can however leave just a tiny gap in the rack I should also be able to make custom shapes for the fed from horizontal to gradient and gradient to horizontal

Certainly interested in the trader but I was looking at the prices and availability, in excess of 20 euros per meter seems excessive, and availability is dreadful, Bemo only produce it once a year and not until Q4. Even paying expensive prices I can get enough pro photo etched to do at least 25M of track for £200, if I can find a laser cutter who can do the fine detail I should be able to do a similar amount for about £100 lets say I buy Peco H0m track I can buy 25 yards for again about £100 so thats potentially 25 yards of track for £200 and no worse than £300 or at least half price LOL also I can only see Bemo doing ABT track on their site (the tiny offset tooth stuff) though the locos are convertible to the Strub/Von Roll I don't think they supply that track. All the proper tracks use a module of 0.4 for H0 it's part of the NEM standards (121) and is applied to Strub, Von Roll, Riggenbach and Abt I'm aware of one bit of Riggenbach left at Grund on the diamond crossing (I'm sure theres more somewhere) Most of the WAB is Von Roll which by fortunate coincidence is actually the easiest to replicate, Doing my own rack would also let me adjust the teeth correctly for change in angle of incline ;-) If I can get it laser cut then I might go for stainless steel, it's cheaper than brass but more importantly I could use brass cogs on my locos and not be worried about wear on the track, I can alternately use brass for the rack and plastic for the gears but I'd prefer metal gears I guess I need to get a length of Peco H0m and check sleeper spacing, of course everywhere locally has sold out and no where wants to send a single length in the post because damage ... <sigh> Not sure I'd do working rack points but I could at least get close enough that with two rack cogs per loco I'd not loose traction This has a second advantage I should be able to use smaller diameter cogs and wheels the old trains wheels were just 673mm diameter or just under 8mm to scale Panier do ABT as well, though they work out cheaper than Bemo Ferro Suisse are not doing H0m track any more concentrating on 0m instead Gerard (Austria). apparently has passed away I don't have a spare kidney to sell to be able to afford HRF prices sadly :-( So it looks like unless I want ABT I have no choice but to build my own...

Looking at the specifications for H0 scale rack railway I'm becoming increasingly convinced that it might be cheaper to build my own ! the rack uses a 0.4 module with the top sitting exactly 1mm above the top of the rails, the rack itself is 0.4 module which means gears can be easily obtained and the rack itself probably needs to be between 0.6 and 0.9mm thick, that's certainly etchable in brass and I'm going to make some calls monday to see if it can be laser cut, at that point one traditionally would I guess solder rails and rack to pcb, but I wonder if it might be possible to 3d print the sleepers with mounting points to hold everything as an alternative.

I've always rather liked Murren station it's the only one where you are completely protected from the elements whilst waiting for the train, the only disadvantage is if you have to climb down the stairs in ice coated ski boots ;-)

I think you must be right, it's the only thing that makes any kind of sense . I think the second track used to run all the way through but now it stops under the crane with a buffer, so it wouldn't need the overhead power under it for this track, makes it a little easier for running with one less overhead line to pull out of the way

Theres another thing that bothers me... how do you use an overhead crane to load trains under a catenary ?