Work has been progressing on both layouts, with test fitting of track for the new 00 layout being carried out and the new fiddleyard underway for 'Inspired by Friedrichstrasse'.
Here are the newly laid tracks along the return board to the fiddleyard on Friedrichstrasse. This is the left-hand side when viewing from the front - the 'river end' (the opposite being the 'Church end'). This is very much a team effort, as can be seen the the picture below (also answering the age-old question of how many modellers does it take to solder a joint?)...
Electrical droppers are to be added, as well as ballasting and the overhead catenary, before handing the board over to the scenery gang. The scenic design is currently being deliberated - perhaps an over-bridge to mask the join between the scenic and fiddleyard sections? One member has a hankering for trolley buses, so perhaps something along those lines may make an appearance!
Testing the new board joints was carried out with some new toys brought along by a member. These are Austrian Eurofima carriages, introduced in 1976 in their striking orange and grey livery. Your author first encountered these on a holiday to Austria in 1984. What an impression these made - especially considering the blue/grey livery prevalent in the south east of England at the time. It was an itch that took 39 years (!!) to scratch, but these Roco carriages are excellent models, despite being nearly 20 years old themselves.
A couple of examples of these carriages can be seen in this image taken at Innsbruck in 1984 (to the right of the picture).
The 00 layout is starting to take shape now, with test fitting of the track starting to take place. The design allows for gentle sweeping curves, which will hopefully add extra realism to the layout.
Forgive the GWR mug, not sure what that is doing there! The 00 layout will have a scenic section of 16', with 8' fiddleyards at either end, so plenty of operational scope. There was plenty of discussion around the merits of end-to-end vs roundy-roundy. Whilst the latter was preferred the valid counter-argument against roundy-roundy was the necessity to crouch-down to access the operating well...something some of our member's backs may not forgive them for!
Comentários