Obermatt Swiss N gauge layout

[Frutigen]

EDIT January 2024. There's been almost 4 years of development since I posted these first videos, so here's a recent update in case you don't have time to work your way through the entire thread.

 

 

ORIGINAL POST 

 

I thought it was about time I shared progress on my N gauge layout set somewhere in Switzerland. It's single track standard gauge intended to evoke a general Swiss feel but somehow it can't help being a bit RhB in character. Oh well. Here are a couple of trips round the track.

 

Keith

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 4 by Frutigen
To include updated material

[JimFin]

Very nice, smooth running and lots of potential - got the feel of it alright, going to need to change your footer now you have admitted to having a layout!

 

[Frutigen]

Thank you for the kind words, Jim. Footer duly amended.

[duff man]

Nice piece of model making, very well balanced flow of the landscape, best of all trains on the move.

Keep the updates coming please.

Craig.

[Satan's Goldfish]

Very nice! You've definitely caught the atmosphere there and it all runs very smoothly. Good work, yet another one to make me wish I'd already built something in Swiss N 

[Frutigen]

 

 

Thank you all for your encouragement, I've greatly enjoyed seeing people's work here and recognising many of the locations from my visits to Switzerland. I went swiss around 15 years ago when the Kato RhB stuff wasn't around, otherwise I might well have joined the fun there. For a long time I didn't have anywhere to build a layout and I was away from home a lot with work, so I spent about 10 years building up my rolling stock, mainly from eBay, and trying out layout ideas on the table using Kato Unitrack, which is great for setting up and taking down repeatedly.

 

When I eventually retired about 5 years ago I found I had a small Railway/Guitar Room (formerly The Office), far too much stock and almost enough Unitrack to make a layout.

 

I might have dumped the Kato track in favour of flexitrack and lovely curved points except that I had managed to collect a dozen Kato points and it seemed a shame to waste them. As you may know, it's not ideal track for fixed use, but the integral point motors are a great advantage and the ballast base is ok with a bit of makeup. Track joints are imprecise and floaty, requiring a lot of adjustment and filing of edges once I had soldered them all for electrical reliability. I realise now the joints would have been more precise if I'd used Peco track joiners instead of the integral ones, although that would have left holes in the ballast around the joints to be disguised scenically.

 

Anyway, by then, I had learned how to choose and combine the bits of Unitrack to at least soften some of the jerky changes of direction, (hint: it only really works if you run trains at or below a scale 50-60 mph, but that's just fine on this layout). I did the final track plan (above) using AnyRail software. The aim is to be able to watch reasonable length trains go by in a landscape, with as long a run as possible in the space, and to be able to do a little light shunting when I fancy. It's a looped 8 arrangement with 2% gradients and a total height difference of 70mm.

 

Thanks for your interest

 

Keith

Edited May 1, 2022 by Frutigen
Restoring lost photos

[MrTea]

Hi Keith,

 

Nice layout. I like how you’ve got the sweeping curves on different levels at the back. 
 

I don’t know about you but I found a kind of perverse pleasure in figuring out how to get the various radii of Unitrack to work together to make a circuit where the curves flowed nicely visually and didn’t interfere too much with my baseboard joints. It was quite a taxing puzzle in 3D!
 

Look forward to seeing more as it progresses. 
 

Ian

[Frutigen]

12 hours ago, MrTea said:

I don’t know about you but I found a kind of perverse pleasure in figuring out how to get the various radii of Unitrack to work together to make a circuit where the curves flowed nicely visually and didn’t interfere too much with my baseboard joints. It was quite a taxing puzzle in 3D!

 

Yup, I was at it for weeks before I settled on this version of the plan.

[Frutigen]

Here's a sequence of photos showing how the baseboard, trackbed and landscape came together over time. The lowest track is 50mm above the surface of the baseboard so as to allow the scenery to have depth as well as height.

 

 

 

 

 

 

More to follow

 

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Frutigen
Restoring lost photos

[Frutigen]

 

 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Frutigen
Restoring lost photos

[Frutigen]

The central section (houses, meadow and village square in the last photo above) is removable as the central wiring hub and the point decoders live under there.

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Frutigen
Restoring lost photos

[cornish trains jez]

Good evening,

 

Very nice layout and echoing the thoughts of others, you capture the atmosphere of Swiss railways and those sweeping curves at the back of the layout really look good.

Keep the updates coming.

 

Best regards and stay safe,

 

Jeremy

 

 

[Frutigen]

I've been working on the scenery at the uphill end of the station - grass and trees, ballast on the main line and outer siding, general wash of my home brew track colour on the track, ballast and bridge. Still more detail to tinker with, and that river will need sorting some time, but I'm going to have to lean over the front scenery while I'm doing the village and goods yard in the centre, so I'll leave well alone for now. The bridge does come out easily, so I can put it safely aside when I need to.

 

Before

 

 

After

 

 

Next job is to sort out the surface of Bahnhofplatz and build the station. I'm using the Kibri model of Schönried with some adaptations. Not sure what other buildings to use yet, I've got a few second hand off eBay that I'll try out for starters. 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Frutigen
Restoring lost photos

[cornish trains jez]

Hi,

 

Coming along nicely. I used the Kibri station on my first Swiss layout and its a great kit. I didn't modify mine so I'll be interested to see how you do yours. The bridge in your two photos above, who makes this or is it scratch built?

 

Best regards and stay safe,

 

Jeremy

 

[Frutigen]

I managed to get to Schönried in 2012 and took a few photos of the station for reference (yes, this layout has been a long time a-coming). It has changed in some ways compared to the kit and I'm going to incorporate some of them - shortened canopy, solid black canopy roof instead of glass, road level flush with the platform so no steps up. I won't incorporate the rather fetching balcony that now sits over the canopy - too detailed and difficult to match to the rest of the woodwork -  and I'm going to pretend the attached shed covers the stairs down to the passenger underpass (leading to the island platform) so I might need to disguise the external doors on that part of the kit.

 

The bridge is the centre span out of the Faller kit N2583. 

[cornish trains jez]

6 minutes ago, Frutigen said:

I managed to get to Schönried in 2012 and took a few photos of the station for reference (yes, this layout has been a long time a-coming). It has changed in some ways compared to the kit and I'm going to incorporate some of them - shortened canopy, solid black canopy roof instead of glass, road level flush with the platform so no steps up. I won't incorporate the rather fetching balcony that now sits over the canopy - too detailed and difficult to match to the rest of the woodwork -  and I'm going to pretend the attached shed covers the stairs down to the passenger underpass (leading to the island platform) so I might need to disguise the external doors on that part of the kit.

 

The bridge is the centre span out of the Faller kit N2583. 

 

Thanks. I'll need to look into the Faller kit. Sounds like the station building will keep you busy and looking forward to seeing it.

 

Best regards and stay safe,

 

Jeremy

 

[MichaelE]

Fantastic N scale layout. I love the land contours.

[Frutigen]

Thank you, I’m looking forward to seeing the Allegra on yours too. 

[MichaelE]

Me too!

[Frutigen]

Well I've spent the last week or so working on the station building for Obermatt. The setting incorporates some classic Swiss characteristics that I wanted to include. So, the road surface of the station square flows straight onto platform 1 and stops at the platform edge. The station building simply sits on this surface and passengers flow freely around it, only going in if they need to speak to the ticket clerk or on some other errand. As with many small Swiss stations, the track at platform 1 serves the sidings and has no function with passenger trains, so passengers have to use a pedestrian underpass to get to the island platform. 

 

I liked the look of the Kibri kit for Schönried, which is actually on the MOB metre gauge network but looks the part.

 

 

I removed the base plate, which represented a pretty tatty platform surface and also involved steps up from the street. This also allowed me to remove the loading dock and convert the small goods shed into the entrance for the pedestrian underpass. The last major alteration was to shift the awning along a bit to provide a rain free route from the ticket office to the underpass.

 

 

I had never really liked the glazed awning on the kit but the real station now has a solid black top to the awning, which I liked better, so black it is. I had already downloaded the SBB corporate identity manual, which includes details on size and layout of pretty well any sign you'd find at a station, along with original artwork for all the little info signs - dozens of them. Strangely, the only thing it didn't specify was the background colour for the name signs, but someone on here (PaulRHB?) had suggested the formula back in about 2015, and it was spot on.

 

 

Advertising posters are a mix of examples copied from the web and some photographs I had taken on trips over the years.  I plan to put a Selecta machine in front of that door that hangs in space (anybody know where I can get one in N?) and I've got a place in mind for the automatic ticket machine.

 

 

The building still needs to be bedded down properly into the surface (Hobbycraft 2mm Fab Foam) and the black wash on the white walls has turned out a bit patchy so that needs attention, too.

 

Next job is to rehabilitate a number of buildings I got 2nd hand on eBay to finish off Bahnhofplatz.

 

Stay safe

 

Keith  

[cornish trains jez]

Look really good Keith. I like the additional bits you've added, really adds to the overall look.

 

Best regards and stay safe,

 

Jeremy

 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2020 by cornish trains jez

[Frutigen]

4 hours ago, cornish trains jez said:

Look really good Keith. I like the additional bits you've added, really adds to the overall look.

 

Best regards and stay safe,

 

Jeremy

 

 

 

Thank you. Looking at the photos again, I think it needs just a little something more - geraniums! Window boxes and maybe some hanging baskets too. In fact, every building on Bahnhofplatz should have them, along with planters on the pavement. This could get out of hand.

[MrTea]

Hi Keith,

 

Have you made any more progress on Obermatt?

 

Ian

[Frutigen]

On 04/10/2020 at 09:26, MrTea said:

Hi Keith,

 

Have you made any more progress on Obermatt?

 

Ian

Well, that’s a good question and thank you for asking. I think I ran out of momentum around the time lockdown was eased and I found myself catching up with stuff that had been put on hold.
 

I was struggling with a way to have the surface of Bahnhofplatz lie flat while being easily lifted along with the rest of the removable section of scenery. In the end I had to resort to low tack glue that I hope will be peelable if I ever need to get at the wiring below. It’s 3M Spray Mount, so I live in hopes. Following that minor triumph I decided on the final placement of the buildings and cut out their shapes so I could set them into the surface. I also built the Kibri kit of Sertig Church and found what I think is the right place for it. that all needs bedding in scenically now. 

 

 

Finally, I spilled my brush washing water over the meadow, so that needs some attention, I might even turn it into a residential part of town instead.

 

 

 

But first, I want to complete the surfacing of the roads around the goods yard, install a loading dock and shed, Ballast the track in the yard, then clean all the rails on the layout and start running again. 
 

Keith

Edited February 6, 2023 by Frutigen
Restoring lost photos.

[Frutigen]

Yesterday I finally got back to work on Obermatt. I started with some ground work to make a couple of buildings sit better on their sites, then launched into a fairly complicated road surfacing thing.
 

Some time ago I had prepared a template for cutting the foam sheet that will become the road surface on Güterstrasse and around the end of the goods yard. This is scary enough in its scope for waste if I cut it wrong. But I had also decided to put a loading dock in alongside the first siding and I wanted a ramp up to it, so why not just run the road surface up the ramp and over the loading dock in one seamless piece? Well, as it turned out, it went just fine and I’m pleased with the result, even if the dock does need to be blended into the goods shed plinth a bit more than I had expected. 

 

 

 

 

 

So far I’ve just laid as much road surface as I can get out of a single piece, so next up is a more complicated piece that goes round a corner and fits around the ends of sidings. The template is already made so watch this space. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Frutigen
Restoring lost photos.