Modelling European Railways E-Book

Peter Marriott

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

European railways are characterized by a huge and contrasting range of locomotives, liveries, rolling stock, stations and infrastructure. In addition, the network incorporates standard, narrow and broad gauges, private and nationalized railways, high-speed corridors, single-track branch lines and rack systems. If that was not appealing enough for the railway modeller, these fascinating railways are also located in dramatically diverse landscapes ranging from the industrial Ruhr to the majestic Alps. If you wish to explore the new and exciting railway modelling opportunities that Europe has to offer, if you need a helping hand and information about where to go, what to read and what to buy, then this is the book for you.It considers how to carry out research across the Channel, and is written by an enthusiastic railway modeller who has been modelling European railways for twenty-five years and who passionately believes that railway modelling should be fun. It contains information about the modelling tools required, the products that are available and the companies that manufacture them and demonstrates in detail how to install catenary. It also describes, step-by-step, many of the techniques that can be used to create different types of scenery in several European locations. With top tips and advice throughout and including many interesting 'modelling interludes' describing and illustrating models of various railway subjects, this lavishly illustrated book, with over 440 beautiful colour photographs, will appeal to anyone plannning to model European railways.

Leseprobe

MODELLING

European Railways

Peter Marriott

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2016 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2016

© Peter Marriott 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 127 7

Disclaimer

The author and the publisher do not accept any responsibility in any manner whatsoever for any error or omission, or any loss, damage, injury, adverse outcome, or liability of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any of the information contained in this book, or reliance upon it. If in doubt about any aspect of railway modelling readers are advised to seek professional advice.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER ONE: WHY MODEL EUROPEAN RAILWAYS?

CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCHING EUROPEAN RAILWAYS EURO-MODELLING INTERLUDE – WOLPERTINGER HBF

CHAPTER THREE: LOCOMOTIVES AND ROLLING STOCK

CHAPTER FOUR: VALUE FOR MONEY EUROPEAN RAILWAY MODELLING EURO-MODELLING INTERLUDE – HOLZHOF

CHAPTER FIVE: CATENARY SYSTEMS

CHAPTER SIX: TRACK EURO-MODELLING INTERLUDE – KAPRUN AND MORE

CHAPTER SEVEN: MAKING THE EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE

CHAPTER EIGHT: ROCKS

CHAPTER NINE: TREES FOR EUROPEAN LAYOUTS

CHAPTER TEN: BUILDINGS EURO-MODELLING INTERLUDE – CAVALATA

CHAPTER ELEVEN: DETAILING THE LAYOUT

CHAPTER TWELVE: ROAD VEHICLES EURO-MODELLING INTERLUDE – BAHNLAND BAYERN

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: MODELLING EUROPEAN RAIL TIMBER OPERATIONS

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: MODELLING EUROPE’S HIGH-SPEED TRAINS EURO-MODELLING INTERLUDE – INSPIRATION FROM THE ONTRAXS SHOW

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: A CASE STUDY – MODELLING AUSTRIA’S RAILWAYS EURO-MODELLING INTERLUDE – ST BLASIEN HBF

APPENDICES

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks go to numerous folk who have made modelling European railways a lot of fun for me, including David Aldis, Hansueli Kunz, Ian Futers, Stewart Gorman and Pelle Søeborg.

For those who have contributed to this book I must add my profuse gratitude, because their contributions have added to the scope of the book. These include John Atkinson, who knows so much more about operating railways to a timetable than I had imagined was possible. Paul Smith, who shares with us in these pages his excellent N-, HO-and O-scale layouts and expertise. Peter Brett of Winco kindly read the chapters on models and high-speed trains so that I could ensure that I was as up to date as possible regarding availability of models. Stephan Kraus allowed me to take pictures of his various layouts, which has enhanced the narrow-gauge aspects of this book. Chris Nevard positioned some of my rolling stock on his superb layouts and then ably took marvellous pictures of them. Norman Lamb and other members of the Austrian Railway Group gave very helpful comments on the Case Study chapter.

Thanks also to Stewart Gorman for lending me his SNCF rolling stock on occasions and to David Aldis for letting me work on his N-scale Swiss-based layout.

For those who have accompanied me on various European railway jaunts I thank John Atkinson, Geoff Crossland, David Brown and Les Heath. All those trips were a lot of fun!

Thanks go to my wife Mary who has to put up with living with little bits of Europe dotted around our house. I really do appreciate her patience and long suffering!

As soon as this book is published, I am sure I will immediately recall the names of many others who have helped me and I say thank you to those too.

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

My thanks go to the photographers and model-makers who agreed that I could use some of their pictures and layouts in this book:

Stephan Kraus, who is a professional layout builder in Germany offering diorama and layoutbuilding services plus modelling seminars at

www.modellbau-smk.de

Chris Nevard,

Model Rail’s

ace photographer, who always brings the best out in my layouts through his photographic expertise

Busch and its agents in the UK, Golden Valley Hobbies, for the pictures of its products

Noch and its agents in the UK, Gaugemaster, for the pictures of its scenery products.

In addition, I say thank you to model railway editors who have published words and pictures about my layouts over the past decades and who have agreed that snippets of some of those layouts can be portrayed within this book:

Andrew Burnham of

Continental Modeller

Stephen Ford of

Austrian Railway Group Journal

Malcolm Bulpitt of

Swiss Express

Bruno Kalbrerer and Martin Meyenburg of the Swiss

LOKI

magazine.

Dennis Lovett of

Bachmann Times

David Brown, late of

International Railway Modelling

, for his support in my early years of model railway journalism

Ben Jones, now of

British Railway Modelling

, who has published numerous articles of my European layouts during his spell at

Model Rail International

magazine

Richard Foster, as editor of

Model Rail

magazine, who continues to pore over my words and pictures each month and turns them into something that looks better in the magazine than in reality.

CHAPTER ONE

WHY MODEL EUROPEAN RAILWAYS?

What attracts modellers to build a European-inspired layout?

For many people, European railways have an attraction that the railways of the United Kingdom cannot match – they prefer to model the railways of countries that they visit on holiday, or that they want to visit, or they may be looking for a new challenge after years of modelling UK layouts. In this first chapter, we will identify some of the features of European railways that modellers find appealing.

Shunting wagons in timber loading yard in HO scale using SNCF Fret motive power.

The Gotthard route is very popular with modellers and railway enthusiasts, though from the end of 2016 most of the traffic on the Gotthard line will use the base AlpTransit Tunnel. Here is a model of part of the line using scenery products by Heki displayed at the Nuremberg Toy Fair.

WHAT MAKES EUROPEAN RAILWAYS ATTRACTIVE FOR MODELLERS?

The European railway network includes standard, narrow and broad gauges operated by private and nationally owned railway companies. Its railway routes range from recently built high-speed corridors to rural single-track branches climbing mountain slopes with the assistance of rack systems. It is true that the UK has a similar variety of railway systems (apart from broad gauge), but it cannot arguably compete with the sheer volume of different European railway systems.

Standard- and narrow-gauge railway networks frequently operate side by side and for example at Jenbach in Austria standard-gauge 0BB (Austrian State Railways) and two different narrow-gauge railways operate from the same station. Another example from Switzerland is Interlaken Ost, where standard-gauge SBB locomotives share platforms with the privately owned BLS. Cross-platform connections take passengers to the metre-gauge Zentralbahn line over the Brünig Pass to Lucerne and the Bernese Oberland Bahn (BOB) network of lines, culminating in the highest railway station in Europe at Jungfraujoch. In addition, within half a kilometre of Interlaken Ost station there is a funicular railway to Harder Kulm.

Border stations have a special excitement of their own, with motive power and rolling stock of more than one country arriving and departing. Prestige EuroCity passenger services thread across the rail networks of Europe and cross national borders frequently, with trains often composed of carriages from several countries and sometimes involving changes of locomotives at border stations.

The departure boards at major European stations list domestic and cross-European destinations that conjure appealing ideas of rail travel. The names Orient Express and Glacier Express carry with them images of luxury carriages, superb food and wine, glamorous passengers and legendary destinations. Train names such as the EuroCity Transalpin, City Night Line Andromeda, Thalys Soleil and Trenhotel Sud Expresso maybe have more appeal than the 17.27 from London Waterloo to Alton.

European locomotive liveries are certainly more varied than the familiar English, Welsh & Scottish (EWS) red and gold livery that is seen in the UK, because as open-access private companies continue to enter railway operation the range of colourful liveries increases still further. In addition, many national railway companies permit locos to carry full advertising liveries. For example, many Swiss railways (SBB) Class 460 main-line locos feature a wide variety of colour schemes from Kambly biscuits to Western Union, while in Austria Taurus locos carry numerous colours. Often Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs) and Electric Multiple Units (EMUs) such as the French X72500 units and Austrian Talent units carry regional colours.

Busch offers great potential for narrow-gauge modelling with its mining railway system and Feldbahn (Field Railway). The HOf scale system uses a track system of 6.5mm rail gauge with a central magnetic strip that runs centrally between the rails and can be disguised by ballast. There are starter sets, plus a number of different wagons.BUSCH

HOm-gauge layouts are very popular for those who like the Swiss metre-gauge lines. Bemo caters well for this market sector along with Peco, which manufactures HOm track. Here, a Bemo RhB Ge 4/4 I number 601 clings to the side of a narrow ledge.

A French country station modelled in HO scale, with an X73500 ‘Whale’ diesel singlecar unit by Jouef offering the local passenger service.

The romance of Europe’s classic long-distance expresses is captured in this detail on an HO-scale Orient Express carriage by Rivarossi. Maybe Hercule Poirot is on board?

A DB V160 Bo-Bo locomotive on the Brawa demonstration layout at the 2009 Nuremberg Toy Fair.

Carriage destination notices such as this convey the excitement of a European railway journey.

Various European rail companies still use mixed trains and some narrow-gauge networks ‘piggy-back’ standard-gauge wagons on narrow-gauge wagons. Shunting of rolling stock in the UK is becoming increasingly limited to freight operations, but in mainland Europe motorail trains, sleeper carriages, mixed trains, the adding and subtracting of carriages and the division of trains en route leads to frequent shunting operations. Sadly, the sleeper train network in Europe seems to be reducing year on year, although there are still some notable exceptions, including the Moscow to Nice sleeper and Thello services operating between France and Italy. There are also overnight services from Spain using Talgo rolling stock.

Privately operated freight and passenger services are now increasingly seen across Europe. This HO-scale Vossloh G1206 loco by Mehano carries the Veolia livery.

Operating between Hamburg and Copenhagen on a daily basis are various EuroCity trains that use the train ferry from Puttgärden. Diesel DB (Deutsche Bahn – German Railways) Inter-City Express (ICE) and DSB (Danske Statsbaner – Danish Railways) Inter-City (IC) train sets drive on to the ferry for a 45-minute sea crossing between Germany and Denmark.

Multiple-unit trains are becoming the mainstay of Europe’s passenger services, but there are still many regular locomotive-hauled passenger services. There are also still plenty of locomotive movements at many of the larger stations in Europe.

Many cities, including Innsbruck in Austria, Bordeaux in France and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, operate extensive tram networks. Trams, the track, road inserts, tram stops and catenary are all available in model form in various scales.

To the right the conifer tree by Busch has cones added for even more realism. The ferns are plastic leaves also by Busch. The signal is by Schneider, the ÖBB Class 1044 locomotive by Roco, the catenary by Viessmann and the lineside plants by miniNatur.

Modern and classic tram networks are dotted across Europe. This one is in the French city of Montpellier.

AVAILABILITY OF MODELS

There is a huge selection of good quality ready-to-run European railway models to tempt our credit cards. The detail on the models and their running qualities are generally of very high standards and these railway models are supported by an enormous scenic and accessory industry.

European model railway manufacturers are keen to lead the trends within the hobby; for example, laser-cut technology is being expanded by European kit manufacturers. Big brands are encouraging children to take up railway modelling – Faller’s Basic and Roco’s New Generation are just two of the current initiatives.

Nothing attracts attention at a model railway exhibition quite like a large-scale steam locomotive fitted with DCC sound.

A seated passenger awaiting the next service to Lyon. He has parked his Jeep in the station car park.

Roco and other companies are trying to be forwardlooking in the hobby to attract new younger members into the hobby. Here, Roco’s Z21 digital control system is being promoted along with a New Generation theme of basic train sets.

Some European manufacturers are trying very hard to attract new members into the hobby, including children. Faller has its Basic brand to appeal to younger people.

THE CHANNEL ADDS FURTHER VARIETY

Eurostar has sparked interest in European railways among the general public that is continuing to grow. Europe is now accessible by rail, rather than only by ferry, hovercraft or air. One only has to visit the splendid London St Pancras International station to feel the excitement of trans-European rail travel. From May 2015, Eurostar is running direct trains to destinations in the south of France from London in addition to its regular services to Brussels, Lille and Paris.

The building and operation of the Channel Tunnel brought together the operation of British and European passenger rolling stock. Eurostar trains operate on designated lines in the UK, Belgium and France and in the near future new Eurostar trains are to enter service that are anticipated to work directly between the UK and the Netherlands and Switzerland. DB has future plans to use some of its ICE sets for direct services between the UK and Germany through the Tunnel.

During the Channel Tunnel construction project BR Class 08 and 20 locos worked alongside French and German locos and for the first few months of Tunnel freight operations French Class 222xxx locos worked freight trains into the UK. Since the building of the Channel Tunnel, UK Class 20, 37, 56, 58 and 66 locomotives have worked in Europe on the building of various new high-speed lines, including those in France and Spain.

UK motive power meets French motive power at Annemasse, France, on 11 November 2008. Some of the EWS Class 66 locomotives have seen service in mainland Europe and in addition various UK-based Class 20, 37, 56 and 58 locomotives have seen action on Europe’s new high-speed line projects.

After the successful test run through the Channel Tunnel on the previous weekend, DB presented an ICE 406 in London for the first time on 19 October 2010. ICE services are planned between London and Frankfurt via Cologne, Brussels and Lille. This will include connections from London to Amsterdam via Rotterdam. The journey time from London to Cologne should take less than four hours and from London to Frankfurt just over five hours. Journeys from London to Amsterdam should be possible in less than four hours.

CONCLUSIONS

Any who have modelled UK railways for some years may be a looking for a new project and a challenge to rekindle their modelling enthusiasm. For inspiration, there is no need to look further than across the English Channel, because most countries are within reasonable travelling time and the so-called budget airlines make research opportunities fairly cheap. Reproducing part of the railway delights of a rural branch line in Italy or the Alpine lines of Austria or Slovenia may make a refreshing change from modelling a 1980s suburban line or a GWR branch line in the UK.

One problem the modeller might have is that unless he has a favourite country or line, the choice of railways and countries in Europe to model is huge. However, there are a good number of UK-based enthusiast societies covering most European countries and these provide an excellent way to learn more about the railways of the country of your choice. Their magazines, forums, model railway shows and ability to be in touch with like-minded enthusiasts are all fun ways to learn about the prototype railway and what is available for the modeller.

In Europe, many modellers choose to build welldetailed dioramas and modules rather than huge layouts. These modules then form part of an integrated modular layout instead of having a full personal layout. These modellers have concluded that building something is better than dreaming of an extensive layout that will not get built and of course any experience gained while building a diorama will provide sufficient confidence to tackle something more ambitious in the future.

Roco ÖBB Class 2045 crosses a viaduct built from a Kibri plastic kit.

Leaflets of just four of the UK-based European railway modelling societies.

Cameo scenes can be made, such as this permanent-way team working from a BLS Tm 235 Robel vehicle with a crane. The unmotorized fully assembled vehicle is by Kibri, though motorized versions are available in N and HO scale from Hobbytrade and Viessmann.

The words and pictures in this book will hopefully encourage modellers to commence work on a European railway modelling project. It may remind you of a past holiday, or maybe it will be a taster of a future holiday to come. Whatever it is, enjoy modelling European railways.

Close-up of the HO-scale permanent-way workers by Preiser. I dribbled a little weathering dye over the figures to create the illusion of dirty work gear.

A Traxx locomotive in Zebra livery No. 666 by Piko in HO scale. The catenary is by Hornby International and the tunnel mouth and the retaining wall by Noch. There is now a huge range of scenic materials for every season that are available to represent grasses, weeds and vegetation for every European location.

O scale is becoming very popular with modellers across Europe. Here is a scene on the Lenz exhibition layout seen at a recent toy fair in Nuremberg.

CHAPTER TWO

RESEARCHING EUROPEAN RAILWAYS

How does one start to learn about European railways?

Some delay beginning to model European railways because they think it is essential to know at least one European language, but this is not so. Many who model European railways do not speak European languages and there is an excellent choice of avenues of research that do not require fluent German or French, for example.