Indholdsfortegnelse for No. 101 i Voie Libre international

In the local Friesian vernacular, Lutgeoog means “small island”. This diminutive place was born of Helmut Heinert’s imagination; modelled in 1/35 scale, it offers us an idyllic vision of what this German architect dreams of. To supply the lighthouse and the small community of tourists who spend their holidays there, the island features a small railway built in 528mm gauge, a highly uncommon one outside Rear-Friesland! Herbert Fackeldey: Helmut, let’s board the Lutgeoog-bound ferry! Helmut Heinert: From the harbour of Katharinensiel, on the continent, the ferry Lüt 1, a former fishing cutter, zigzags to the island between the mud banks – at high tide only. This means that there are no more than two crossings per day, depending on the tidal schedule. Passengers must not be impatient! The railway terminus…

Some time ago, I realized that one cause of malfunctioning on my garden railway wasn’t the (relative) oxidization of the rail head, which causes unexpected stalling or irregular running, but rather the build-up of an amount of grime and debris, following rain, a gale or a longish period with no trains running. The LGB track-cleaning diesel locomotive does the job, but almost too well. What I needed to design was a system that cleaned the rail head without really attacking it. A friend of mine built a wagon fitted with a horizontal disk driven by a motor. A piece of Scotch-Brite is glued under the disk and rubs on both rails; this system is fairly efficient. Picking up on the idea, I thought of replacing the Scotch-Brite by a brush;…

Obtaining a simple and affordable variable regulator for a small layout is fairly straightforward if you start from an integrated circuit, the LM317. This is a very widespread electronic component. It’s an adjustable linear voltage regulator, able therefore to deliver an accurate voltage depending on the resistors with which it is combined. This component is perfectly suited to our requirements. It can accommodate an intensity of up to 1.5 Amps. It features internal protection against short circuits as well as an automatic cut-off in the event of over-heating, but a small radiator can easily be added to it. Many combinations based on an LM317 are available. The one I describe here calls on juts a handful of components: a resistor, a potentiometer and two capacitators. AN ELECTRONIC CIRCUIT BOARD, TWO…

As “temporary” was the keyword when building the railway networks in the liberated regions, my whole layout revolves around this idea, in particular when it comes to making wooden structures inspired by the removable ones that were extensively used during that period. To remain consistent, I extended this approach to all the scenic items I built. This is particularly true for the bridge, or rather the trestle, which spans the marsh. To make it, I was inspired by a British Army model illustrated in Roy Link’s excellent “WDLR Album”. This type of construction calls on standardized trestles that carry an ultra-simple deck consisting of two parallel girders (figure 1). Mass-producing these small trestles is highly compatible with the use of polystyrene strips. The Evergreen range is sufficiently large to easily…

At first sight, new releases are few and far between, but all are worthy of interest. Let’s take a closer look. RACK RAILWAYS For LGB, Hobbytrain and N-tram, this is the year of the rack! In IIm scale, LGB has released a magnificent DCC locomotive from the Furka line, featuring sound and a smoke system. An unpainted prototype, displaying cast metal and injected plastic parts, shuttled up and down a short gradient. At an advertised price of 3599 euros, this will be an engine for deep-pocketed modellers. Hobbytrain has released the small electric steeple-cab engine from the Zugspitzbahn, in two liveries and three gauges: 9, 12 and 16.5mm. For N-tram, this year’s engine is an Austrian rack-and-pinion 0-4-0 T from the Achenseebahn. Quite splendid! Tiny, sharply detailed and running beautifully.…

Polystyrene is my favourite material for building model locomotives. My models are designed with drawing software; this enables me to generate cutting templates for the various parts. Once printed, these templates are glued to the polystyrene sheets, and are used as a cutting guide. The driving chassis is designed in the same way. This article will show you, step-by-step, the various construction stages of a plastic sheet model. Transferring the drawings onto the plastic sheet I use the Canvas X drawing software. The various parts are printed on paper. The outside body panels are cut out of 0.3mm thick plastic sheet. The 0.5mm thick sheet is mainly used to reinforce the outside panels from the inside of the models. The 1mm sheet is used for the chassis and infrastructure parts.…

It was the release of the Bachmann 4-6-0 in 00-9 that triggered an alarm. On the Voie Libre forum, a few crestfallen enthusiasts reported that the electronics on their engines had burnt-out after just a short run on their respective layouts. During the summer of 2018, Bachmann Europe issued a press release warning against the use of feedback power sources with its models. The cause of all this trouble? On the one hand, using coreless motors paired with an electronic board designed for DCC. On the other hand, power sources providing DC current, no doubt, but in the form of an elaborate electronic signal. Taking these observations into account, I gathered a few power sources to proceed with a range of tests. The idea was to determine, for each of…

THE PRODUCT AT A GLANCE Manufacturer: Bachmann Spectrum (ref. 29503) Scale: 0n30 (1/48) Control: DCC WOWSound Locomotive: 60cm gauge Baldwin Pershing 10-12D1/4 Public price: 459 $ Lee Riley had had this 0n30 project up his sleeve for quite a long time. His successors brought it to fruition in record time, as it took just six months from the announcement to the release of the model. A LARGE BOX Comfortably enclosed in its transparent box, this 0 scale engine looks almost small at first sight. Remember: it is a 60cm gauge locomotive with a European loading gauge. Once out of the box, the model displays a superstructure that is fully prototypical. The model combines injected plastic and metal. The rods and pipes are cast in black flexible plastic. The only liberty…

The Leopold Halling company produces delightful H0 scale ready-to-run tramways. One model is available in non-motorized kit form for less than 40 euros, with a choice of three gauges. A perfect opportunity for me, as I was short of stock for my metre gauge tram line. On the Ferro Train Leopold Halling stand, I fell for a fine tramway and its trailer in H0 scale. For ca. one hundred euros, I found myself with a tram kit, a type B vintage mode fitted with a bow collector, in 12mm gauge. This was my first rolling kit: a real treat! THE MODEL AT A GLANCE Manufacturer: Leopold Halling Modelle Scale: H0 (1/87) Gauge: 16.5 – 12 – 9mm Driving chassis: 23mm Halling Vario-drive Pantograph: IDPAN-SMU lozenge Price: Kit ca. 40€, driving…

How many modellers have to be content with the drawings of the Decauville catalogue to build their 0-4-0 T or Progrès type 0-6-0 T? The same applies to the famous 1870 Schneider locomotive preserved by the Pithiviers Transport Museum, which celebrates this year the 150th anniversary of the engine, a record! Although this loco is familiar to many, no drawings were available, and its history remained clouded in mystery. We decided to meet the challenge head-on. A BIT OF HISTORY… STARTING AT LE CREUSOT It is often forgotten that Le Creusot started by being a coal mining basin, geologically associated to that of Montchanin and to the main mining basin in the area, namely Blanzy-Montceau-les-Mines. Schneider worked the deposit at Le Creusot until 1943, in parallel with its highly varied…

The electric motors fitted to our models don’t all operate on the same principle. The standard armature motor is well known: it features a copper-wound iron mass, electrically fed, which is pushed away successively by the poles of a magnet, setting it rotating (figure 1). For many years, coreless motors have become widespread. In this latter case, the copper winding isn’t carried by an iron core, but is a self-supporting cage that rotates around the magnet (figure 2). While more efficient than armature motors, in particular at low voltages, coreless motors are fragile and cannot withstand high frequency pulsating currents.…

The constraints are strict, what is needed is a bogie fitted with a loop coupling whose shank is long enough to extend beyond the front buffer beam, with the pivot under the carriage body. Furthermore, the bogie must also feature a certain number of details. No bogie in H0-9 meets such requirements. So I looked at older N scale stock and recalled that the Lima Micromodel passenger stock, when first released, was fitted with loop couplings. The bogies on British passenger carriages were best suited to what I wanted; what’s more, their chassis fits in neatly, once cut-outs have been made in the floor of the MinitrainS carriage. These models, which no longer meet current modelling standards, can be found for next to nothing in swap-meets and online. Start by…

Thomas Schmid: Hello Dirk, your layout doesn’t follow a specific prototype, but it’s highly typical. Where exactly are we? Dirk Kuhlmann: We are in Germany between 1968 and 1974, on the North Sea coast. The layout depicts various scenes found in the islands of North Frisia, Amrum and Sylt. I imagined a railway line, drew its route and created the scenery around it. On the double-track wharf, the Borgward LT4 railcar is waiting to depart. The fishing boat has just landed its catch of crabs. The seagull in the foreground isn’t in the same scale! But this trick contributes to giving such the impressive depth to the scene. TS: The layout is Z, meaning 1/220 scale; how is it designed? DK: The layout is built on a framework of 10mm…