European N scale modelling of
the SBB and ÖBB
Using my pictures
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Visitors since 02.03.07:
4. Older plans
My discovery of Google SketchUp 6 has enabled 3-D and to scale realisations of my wildest layout ideas to test feasibility and whether they be fun and rewarding to operate etc. Here for example the bounding walls of the room are visible and the layout is moulded to fit, I have started to add scenery close to where the terminus station would be but this turned out to be boring so I gave up and had another idea...
...this! A gigantic bridge like the Pfaffenberg-Zwenbergbrücke (see also: the one featured on Jernhesten) which will make use of the fact that most layouts are not built on the floor but on tables or bench work etc and so vertical drops are very easy to do. Austria is rather a mountainous country, esp. at the left end (towards Switzerland!) and this sort of bridge is oft to be found supporting the permanent way as it crosses the many steep valleys of the Alps. Like everything else it is only half finished...I haven't decided on steel or concrete but it will probably be concrete...
The latest layout plan for your enjoyment - I have decided that an out-of-sight storage yard is not only a pain to access but will require a huge number of points...so why not integrate this into the visible part of the layout because in real life the trains hardly get stuffed into a gigantic underground complex when not it use - they get put into sidings, marshalling yards, etc. so I can do the same, and all those points will be visible and less of an extravagance, especially if the yard is accessed from both ends...click for full size!
Inspired mainly the picture below (© ÖBB) I decided to incorporate such a crane and container terminal into my layout design, to replace the long narrow station directly below the main station on the diagram in section 2 below. The idea of a huge red Künz crane whizzing back and forth, loading and unloading the many brightly coloured containers as if with a mind of its own sounds rather fun but will undoubtedly be a lot of work!
The crane will be scratch built and will cannibalise a Vollmer kit for the lifting apparatus. As yet I have no idea of how to motorise it to move back and forth but the crane will run on parallel rails and so could be pulled along the terminal by under-floor wires. Actual container movement however will be very tricky...so I will probably settle for motion in one dimension and focus more on scratch building and painting the dozens of containers needed to fill the terminal!
The plan is to extend the layout with a bulge that will accommodate the terminal with connections at each end to the mainline which will travel around the outside thus (click for a huge version):
I thought it would be fun and helpful to visualise the terminal in 3-D and so after making a crude real Lego model first, I remade it in virtual Lego on my computer in MLCad. After a few hours of work it looked like this when rendered with POV-Ray:
Yes, that blue container really is hovering in mid air under the gantry...and there are two wagon types visible.
LATEST:
Progress continues with the recent arrivals of these specimen 1:160 lorries from Herpa being used to model the trucks in the scene. Modern terminal cranes have very sophisticated 'grabbers' that can cope with trailers in addition to the obligatory containers so I thought I'd add some! Since one of the original wagon designs was an ÖBB Sdkmmss which handles containers and trailers it seemed sensible to milk the design for it's full worth...
The 'Berger', 'DHL' and 'Zorzi' designs were downloaded from Norbtach's pages (well worth a visit for N scale nets of containers and trailers) and slapped onto the truck model in POV-Ray and involved a lot of fiddling with coordinates to position the designs correctly on the trailers. Further progress will involve more containers done to a proper design, enlarging the gantry crane, adding a 'pflatsch' to the wagons, the tractors will be coloured (away from lime-green default!) and the tracks terminating abruptly in the future need fixing. I might start playing around with a floodlit night version just to give my computer some serious work! Most importantly the terminal is slowly coming to life (at least on the computer!), very necessary since they are such busy places in reality!
You can click for a 1280 x 1024 version...enjoy!
Further progress has been made with the design of a Saadkms wagon for the Rollende Landstraße (Rolling Highway) - a terminal for which is being added to the container area so that there is more interest and I can make fewer containers! The flat sides of the wagon are actually featureless and have detail wallpapered on, as will happen to the ones in the above picture (then I can get rid of the huge silly brake pressure dials etc.)...please don't point out that the buffers should be square!
^ ÖBB Saadkms ('Rolala' end wagon) ^
Fleischmann produce the Saadkms in N scale and complete Herpa trucks should fit nicely. Further 3D design is on hold because I've just discovered Google SketchUp 6 (available free, see links page) which is so much more powerful...
Here is the latest version (v6.0) of my very ambitious layout plan. Click below to see a giant version. Designed using CorelDraw. After getting this far and realising that I'm working with unknown room dimensions and geometry then a modular design of layout may be better than just random U shaped plans - then I can not only vary the layout for added interest but also move it to a new house/room/planet etc. at a future date...
The general idea and location
Same as the older design below, but bigger and better! The polarity reversal loops (orange) will have Lenz 'black box' automatic polarity switchers fitted so that trains can be run through them without any action having to be taken by the operator other than setting the points. The loops need to be at least as long as the longest train with metal wheels on the coaches - so rather long then since I like full length EuroCity trains! (This means that the Hauptbahnhof platforms will be about 1.5 m long!)
Inspired by Erlangen station in Bavaria, Germany. Erlangen is a thriving town of population 100,000 with a large university and half of Siemens headquartered there (on Werner von Siemens Straße no less!) that lies on the mainline route between Nürnberg (Nuremberg) to the North and München (Munich) to the South and so has a double ICE 3 service stopping there every hour and a plentiful supply of double-decker regional commuter trains and also a wide freight train selection. My design is only loosely based on Erlangen, and is shown below (a computer-coloured ink drawing), with the station length compressed:
The major difference from reality is the river, which in real life is a large commuter car park. (There is however a river not too far away and some very large canals used for bulk freight transport with impressive engineering achievements such as a ship lift and several locks.) My river allows a 'promenade' to be modelled with water-side cafes etc. In real life the town centre begins behind the station and on both sides where I've put the sidings/freight yard and the repositioned commuter car park.
As already mentioned the real Erlangen has 400m double ICE 3 visitors, but a 2.5 metre long station is pushing it a bit, even in N scale! I'll have to settle for being able to accommodate a single ICE 3...the class 406 version of course, because this station is being transplanted into an Austrian valley near the Swiss border (and simultaneously a Swiss valley near the Austrian border!) and normal traffic will be a mix of Rh 1016/1116 'Taurus' and Rh 1044/1144 classes or the Re 460 in various liveries, and the occasional lost TGV (it's the single one owned by the SBB!).
The platforms are connected by a subway that also links to the street opposite the river. The alpha and beta symbols denote the platform preference - i.e. 1 and 4 are used predominantly with the inner tracks allowing freight trains to pass through or for terminating local trains etc. This behaviour I observed for real at Erlangen.
Here is a previous version of my layout plan, so early that it doesn't have real curves. The only progress made as yet is the accumulation of rolling stock to run when it eventually does exist! Designed using CorelDraw.
The general idea and location
The idea is to combine a busy mainline station with a freight area to add interest and open mainline through pristine alpine scenery. This allows very large radius sweeping curves with necessary tight curves hidden in tunnels (how original) to show off long IC/EC/IR trains and heavy freight. The layout is somewhere near the Austrian/Swiss border, and perhaps close to the German or Italian border too (I haven't decided which yet; perhaps it will be be both!) and I envisage running lots of SBB and ÖBB trains with occasional DB and FS appearances. I'm not a modeller paranoid about realism and will readily compromise reality of location if the layout is more fun to look at and operate! Although still expensive, DCC is my goal for operation because it makes wiring simpler and I hate wiring! In seems to be the future for model railways.
Concrete vs. wooden sleeper track
Europe currently has a mix of concrete and wood sleepers almost everywhere, often lying side-by-side. However Peco whose track I intend to use only make wooden sleeper points and so all the main station area tracks will have wooden sleepers. In order to get a prototypical mix and have concrete sleepers out on the open mainline (where I have avoided putting any points) necessitates a change from one type to the other - to be hidden in the tunnels!