Indholdsfortegnelse for JANUARY 2015 - 80 i Voie Libre international

When I was a child, the reproducing machine invented by Hergé in Tintin and the Shark Lake fed my dreams! Well, such a machine now exists. But as can be expected, it is generating controversy between supporters of technical progress and those more attached to tradition. How to choose between such different opinions? We carried out our own experiences, and asked a few modellers for their point of view. Outlined below are the conclusions of this process, not the line toed by 3D professionals, but lessons drawn by ordinary users. And although these lessons are surprising, one thing appears certain: 3D is here, and here to stay. And we had better get used to it, as we are in for some surprises! The first step consists in ordering The first…

The layout at a glance • Scale: 1/87 • Gauge: 9mm, Peco track • Control: Roco digital • Inspiration: Nemours sand pits • Dimensions: 140 x 100cm without fiddleyard Faithful readers, remember, we had described the saga of the construction of this layout in Issues 63 to 66 of Voie Libre. Inspired by many period pictures and a few visits to the former industrial site, François Gilbert and Matthieu Jacquemart had built a layout that illustrated some specific areas of this railway, located south-west of Paris. They had opted for 0 scale and 14mm gauge, to be as prototypical as possible. However, interested by the recent releases of stock in 009/H09, they got hooked on what was for them a new scale. The possibility of reducing the footprint of the layout to two modules only,…

Bibliography De la construction et de l’exploitation des chemins de fer d’intérêt local (“Building and operating secondary railways”) by Émile Level, Paris, published by Dunod, 1870. By 1860, railway engineers were very much engaged in a hectic race to speed and power. However, at the same time, the budding concept of local light railways had a totally different focus. Seeking first and foremost to be economical, such railways implied somewhat drastic choices. To limit earthworks to the greatest extent possible, curves were often very sharp. The tracks called on lightweight rail, seldom heavier than 20kg per meter. Finally, designed as “feeders” to the main line network, these secondary railways were often single-track branch lines ending in cul-de-sacs and usually poor in turning facilities. In actual fact, the equation faced by…

On a layout, the track is the focal point of the scenery. As trains run along it, they will draw the eye to the ballast. This is why careful thought must be given to the materials that will be used, depending on what the layout builder wants to represent. There is a wide variety of commercial products available for representing standard ballast. I will review some in this article. And if you feel like wandering off the beaten track, or rather away from well-tamped ballast, you’ll see that many other products can do the job... Ballast for our layouts Going through the catalogues and websites of the various manufacturers, I identified something like 9 ranges of ballast, from industrial or artisan producers. For different reasons, I was unable to obtain…

1 Trackbed A coarse wooden template is used to check how the viaduct will be installed on site. 2 Reinforcement On the station side, the viaduct is fixed to the trackbed by a round metal rod, 11m in diameter, with a depth of 30cm. On the opposite side, the trackbed will be built later. The reinforcements located in the middle of the viaduct will be embedded in the concrete filling, while the round rod will extend into the trackebd beyond. Note the flat metal rods that hold the form-work in place during construction. 3 Pouring the concrete The casing is made watertight with silicone putty. The concrete, loaded at 320 kg/m3, is poured in three phases. I start by the piles and the abutments; the liquid concrete is tamped with…

Born in 1932 in Nyon, a small town of 5,000 inhabitants at the time (17,000 today), located between Geneva and Lausanne, I was very familiar with the “red train”, as the Nyon-Saint-Cergue-Morez railway was known. Until the autumn of 1944, Switzerland was entirely surrounded by Nazi Germany and Fascist, then German-occupied, Italy. The train could seldom cross the border into France, and if so only with German permission or following action by the French Resistance. The borders being closed, the inhabitants of Geneva could no longer go skiing in French Haute-Savoie, and flocked to the Swiss Jura instead. The little train was packed with passengers every winter weekend. Extra carriages were added to the busy trains. As children, we enjoyed travelling on the ski wagons. These were low-sided flat wagons,…