Glorious NSE

https://www.fahrplanfelder.ch/fileadmin/fap_pdf_graphic_tt/2022/GMGBS.pdf - have a look at the top section - the brown lines on this graph are the freight paths, the red ones the GEX workings, the blue the regular units - I suspect your early AM Zermatt bound and evening Visp bound freight runs will use that days GEX loco's. Usual disclaimer: Booked paths does not mean the train definately will run, especially true for non-passenger stuff! 😉 So looking at this to get it straight in my head, the current timetable has a Zermatt-Chur, two pair of Zermatt-St Moritz, all those as standalone trains throughout, and also a St Moritz-Brig which is a standalone train between Brig and Chur, but piggybacks on the Albula services between Chur and St Moritz.

Nice find - you might want to add some bits to the "piggy packers" as the RhB boxes are bottom lift. This is the Schnaus Strada one for reference, they are folded up here:

I think your take on this looks fab Jim

Interestingly i've been seeing combined GEX / Albula rakes again this summer on the webcams, after a few years where that didn't usually happen - a 4 car rake seems to be tagged to the back of an early AM Chur bound service and late PM return, GE4/4III power on them is back in some form! It seems to run in addition to the two pairs of separate trains. https://www.schmalspurbahn.ch/filisur/webcam/a220807080123721 Sad but unsurprising ref the Valser vans.

Feels like the Kato has a bit too much chassis, don't know if that's due to the "broad gauge" compromise moving the fishbelly frames outboard of the real one or not? - But overall that comparison is like night and day really, as you'd expect!

Freight stock seems to be showing up on JP Ebay

Just looking at the map, the freeway jcn in the distance is the one over Tower 55. Modellers might want to go to streetview and take a look at the building this is shot from, it's got a really interestingly new line routed through the basement of an old warehouse: https://goo.gl/maps/WFfKu8kstWtzpeq46

To pop this back on topic, here's a few shots from Fort Myers over the weekend :) The evening sun gave some nice reflection shots on the creek... View from the yard... Visitor from Kansas... Support your local industry!

Ah sorry didn't realise you weren't in the UK - our one(s) differ in quite a few ways from the earlier US standard, which itself differs in major ways from the even earlier European Fremo standards they were developed from.

https://www.nmrabr.org.uk/ho-freemo-module-specs/ is the NMRA-BR version of the same, for completeness. Just for clarity, the RS Tower version is 3.5" to 4.5" deep on the end plate, the NMRA-BR version is slightly different at 3.7" to 4.5" deep there, so please don't do them 6" deep. 😉 Those are also only the depths of the end plates to ensure they are within a near range so can be clamped to each other without any issues - the depth doesn't apply to the sides of a module, or even any intermediate board joints inside a module - as long as the ends are compatible that's the important bit. If you built it with 2" sides and internal board ends, but 4" deep modular ends, that is still compliant. I think the majority of the community, (including all the folk currently organising meets i'm aware of,) are also pretty accepting of reasonable compromises - in this case making reasonable adjustments to a great layout that existed long before our standards were a thing which they've worked hard to bring as close as they can. What nobody can do though is guarantee what everyone running an event in future may think, so complying with the specs is a good way to future proof if building new, as well as make events as hassle free (for all!) as possible.

As Mike says, 2 to 4 characters reporting mark of the railroad, 1 to 4 digits numbering, (eg AA 1 to AAAA 1111) up to the railroad how they arrange it within those confines. If you are freelancing, then I think your reporting marks you choose for your shortline shouldn't end in a U (containers), Z (trailers) or X (leasing/private owner) - worth searching them to make sure they aren't already in use too! :) If you look through shortlines, there's a few methods of numbering that come up regularly though: * Shortline loco's are often purchased used, so some railroads may keep their loco's previous number and just add new reporting marks * They give loco's a sequential number as they are added to the fleet (1, 2, 3...) Those two can result in some quite chaotic fleet lists! Most seem to try and come up with something a bit more logical as they grow, ISTR the following being used by different shortlines/regionals. * Type and number, so if the railroad owns GP38s, they will be in the 38xx series, or SD40 in the 40xx series * Alternatively horsepower ranges, so GP38s would be in the 20xx series, an SD40 in the 30xx series The most random one i've seen I think is the Minneapolis & St Louis, who at one point numbered based on month and year of the delivery of the loco - that meant successive new loco deliveries of the same type might go something like 866, 966, 1066, 1166, 1266, 167, 267 - that results in a fleet list which is utterly incomprehensible! 🤣

Yep, picked up some info about it elsewhere and threw a quick post up earlier in the month - bonkers stuff, love it.

Just as i've not seen it mentioned yet, from the webcam Capricorn's now seem to be the default type on the Chur-centric commuter runs, the 4 car Allegra's which used to run those now seem to be showing up on some of the Scuol-Pontresina diagrams, with a bike coach and push pull trailer for company.

https://www.suedostschweiz.ch/rhb-rekord?utm_campaign=so-auto&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social_page

Interesting little snippet, compare the Google train pics from April 2014 with the streetview from Aug 2014 and yes I think that must be the early phases of that project. Compare the tiny gap between buildings by the Dalvazza crossing in April, with what looks like a part demolished/part relocated property being rebuilt slightly further away to allow for the double track section in August for a good benchmark.

A dig on their website threw up this doc that suggests the resignalling for the new layout came into effect in Oct 2016, if i'm understanding it correctly - i'd presume that marked the end of that project? https://www.rhb.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/redaktion/Ueber_die_RhB/Unternehmen/Dokumente/Vorschriften/Ganzes_Netz/Landquart_-_Davos_Platz/BV_510.021_Kueblis_Sicherungsanlage_.pdf

Wow didn't that look different back then! I can't help much with the original q, but I have a feeling that one has just been changed again to extend the platforms for 16 car Capricorn's.

>>>1. It’s been explained that the Panorama coaches originated on the MOB, appearing on the FO / BVZ from the 1990s. As I understand it, the first BVZ and FO Panorama coaches were built by Breda in 1993? I think I’ve read they weren’t just used on the Glacier Express, and would appear in other consists too, but I’ve not come across photos / online video yet? I’m wondering what other coaches they appeared with - and might they even have appeared in the mixed trains / passenger trains with tail traffic? My impression (happy to be corrected) is that the GEX didn't run as a discrete panoramic service back then, but there were through trains, with a mix of normal and panoramic coaches. There's some vid on YouTube from very early MGB days showing trains with a mix of stock from the constituents, plus RhB all running through together - have a look through the vids from: https://www.youtube.com/user/REOSRailway 2. If I’ve got the dates right, the RhB didn’t have their own Panorama coaches until later, but I don’t know if they were different (Stadler 2006?). Looking at the haribu.ch website, I think it tells me EW 4 coaches on the RhB date from 1993 so was that their new stock then? (Please note, I don’t know the difference between generations of EW coaches, and do please correct the mistakes I’m making: there will be many). The Stadler and Breda builds are different. The best spotting feature personally is if you look at the ends of the roof, the modern Stadler stock is flat, the Breda cars slope down slightly - Breda car here with a Stadler on the right and left. I don't believe RhB owned any Breda cars originally, but aquired some later (now the 525xx series) - the Innotren car is also a Breda. 4. I think I’ve read here on RMWeb that the white / flag livery for the GEX dates from around 2005? Logic - which is not always reliable - suggests to me that fixed rake consists would have been part of this development (from a branding point of view), and I’d also suspect that the transition period for the repaint was shorter than the wholesale green - red transition period for regular coaches and locomotives, which I believe was spread over many years (decades?). That's logical to me - the large build of Stadler cars allowed them to move the long distance tourist traffic towards through panoramic trains, and split the rest of the traffic up into manageable chunks, the new livery was part of the branding of that. Even then the through blocks of panoramic cars seem to have been added to RhB trains on the Albula at least, them running as completely separate services right through seems to have been post 2015 or so. I would also presume the existing Breda cars were reliveried and some of them moved to RhB as part of the same project.

For that end of Thusis you might as well just paint your whole wall.

Yes totally agree, a reasonable trade-off to make it work.

From memory you got potentially a few spares per wagon, so possibly there are folk with half a sprue here and there in their parts boxes?

Not quite sure of where you were going with this so apologies if i'm misunderstanding? I wasn't intending a criticism of Kato's models, I think the models are done well, and appear to scale well individually and to each other - but the loco is taller than the coach in both real life and so (correctly) taller in model form. The body slopes back up from the cab front, so the loco is a fair bit taller than the cab face, which is what I think you were comparing to? Crop of side-on shot: Crop into 3/4 shot - this is an EWII so different roof ends (didn't have a good enough similar one with an EW1) but EW1/EWII are a similar overall "bulk" at least - the more modern coaches have a larger profile which is closer to the 4/4III. And so back to my point as I think I made it a bit clumsily - the tank *should be* taller than the coach, as that is the reality - it's just a reality that looks wierd to us because in the UK tank wagons are never noticeably taller than coaches!

Not sure they have quite got the Za walkway right, which probably isn't helping the look, but I think from a UK perspective we're used to coaching stock which is consistently as high as the top of the loading gauge allows - and that just isn't the case here. EW1's are a long way below the modern RhB loading gauge!

I've wondered if you can kitbash a pair of the BB AB's using a Kato A + B.... I know that's not the usual EWII AB used on the Regio's but from what I can tell stand-ins aren't uncommon. I don't think converting Kato EW1s to an EWII version is likely to work sadly (I did look!) - I think you can get an EWII on Shapeways tho?

Bit of info - this one got a priority upgrade as it was the railhead for connecting buses to Scuol for several months due to a tunnel rebuild project a little while back. Quite impressive really!