Cats and Dogs Railway (austrian narrow gauge)
Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2017 2:59 pm
Well, let me introduce my little steam railway. I nicknamed it the "Cats and Dogs railway" because when I built it, our dogs and the cats from nextdoors where debatting their problems mostly on my layoutspace. Since, it has been more quit, but the name still excists sort of.
Officially my theme is Austrian Narrowgauge, a bit like the Bregenzerwald bahn. This is a 760mm narrowgauge railway which was built mostly on the banks of a mountain river called the "Bregenzer Ache" and started at the Bodenlake in Bregenz. From there the line climbed up to the city of Bezau, about 45km's further on and a few hundred metres higher.
The line was a real mountain railway, with steep rockfaces, bridges and wild water rivers. Eventually the river took the track away several times and landslides cuased the railway to stop operations a lot of times, finally this was the reason to cease operation. Nowadays there is only a small section in use as museum railway.
Though 760mm I use the 45mm track from LGB. I sort of grew into the hobby of live steam when I bought a Beck "Anna" for 45mm gauge, since then I sold the LGB stuff mostly and steam took over..
So, whats it like? Its very basic, a dented oval and a station area on a 3,5 x 3 metre area in the garden. Lifted off the ground by about 2ft, set on a stone and concrete roadbed, apart from the station area, which is a board covered with roofing felt.
It has no trackpower, live steam and battery operation only.
In use for traction are the "Anna" made by Beck, a predecessor of the Merlin Mayflower. One recoughnises the cylinders and valvegear, only this one as a slip excentric for direction.
I did some tinkering on the burner to give it more breath, but its a fairly good running locomotive with power enough to run a decent train of 3 to 4 LGB cars or 6-7 homemade freightcars.
The other live steamer I have is a Roundhouse "William" which is used as the powerbase of a HF110C with the name "Bielefeld". It is a small series from a german firm and bought in need of restauration by one of my steamcolleagues. He hadn't the time to get it running well, so I bought it from him and finished restauration. Now it runs great and looks like the real thing.
Lets follow the Bielefeld, which later became "Franscesca S" in the real world, across the layout..
I named the bridge "Alpsteinbrücke" because a lot of rocks are from that mountainrange in Switserland.
Crossing the small bridge (has no name yet)
Rounding the bend at "Kristallhang" since it's known to be rich in mountain crystals. You can see them in the rocks if you look closely enough.
Just behind the bend there is a short tunnel which leads to a short straight into a nice valley.
The small plants are growing and flowering nicely here..
Then it's around another curve, onto the station area.
And onto the bridge again, which completes the tour around the layout.
the last locomotive running at this moment is the homemade "little one", a battery locomotive running on 24volts (16 penlite batteries) with a huge Bosch motor in it. It has chaindrive on both axles and is used to retrieve stalled locomotives and push the snowplow..
Because real mountain railways don't stop operations in winter..
I hope you don't mind the amount of fotos added. Have a happy easter and enjoy the trains!
Cheers Daan.
Officially my theme is Austrian Narrowgauge, a bit like the Bregenzerwald bahn. This is a 760mm narrowgauge railway which was built mostly on the banks of a mountain river called the "Bregenzer Ache" and started at the Bodenlake in Bregenz. From there the line climbed up to the city of Bezau, about 45km's further on and a few hundred metres higher.
The line was a real mountain railway, with steep rockfaces, bridges and wild water rivers. Eventually the river took the track away several times and landslides cuased the railway to stop operations a lot of times, finally this was the reason to cease operation. Nowadays there is only a small section in use as museum railway.
Though 760mm I use the 45mm track from LGB. I sort of grew into the hobby of live steam when I bought a Beck "Anna" for 45mm gauge, since then I sold the LGB stuff mostly and steam took over..
So, whats it like? Its very basic, a dented oval and a station area on a 3,5 x 3 metre area in the garden. Lifted off the ground by about 2ft, set on a stone and concrete roadbed, apart from the station area, which is a board covered with roofing felt.
It has no trackpower, live steam and battery operation only.
In use for traction are the "Anna" made by Beck, a predecessor of the Merlin Mayflower. One recoughnises the cylinders and valvegear, only this one as a slip excentric for direction.
I did some tinkering on the burner to give it more breath, but its a fairly good running locomotive with power enough to run a decent train of 3 to 4 LGB cars or 6-7 homemade freightcars.
The other live steamer I have is a Roundhouse "William" which is used as the powerbase of a HF110C with the name "Bielefeld". It is a small series from a german firm and bought in need of restauration by one of my steamcolleagues. He hadn't the time to get it running well, so I bought it from him and finished restauration. Now it runs great and looks like the real thing.
Lets follow the Bielefeld, which later became "Franscesca S" in the real world, across the layout..
I named the bridge "Alpsteinbrücke" because a lot of rocks are from that mountainrange in Switserland.
Crossing the small bridge (has no name yet)
Rounding the bend at "Kristallhang" since it's known to be rich in mountain crystals. You can see them in the rocks if you look closely enough.
Just behind the bend there is a short tunnel which leads to a short straight into a nice valley.
The small plants are growing and flowering nicely here..
Then it's around another curve, onto the station area.
And onto the bridge again, which completes the tour around the layout.
the last locomotive running at this moment is the homemade "little one", a battery locomotive running on 24volts (16 penlite batteries) with a huge Bosch motor in it. It has chaindrive on both axles and is used to retrieve stalled locomotives and push the snowplow..
Because real mountain railways don't stop operations in winter..
I hope you don't mind the amount of fotos added. Have a happy easter and enjoy the trains!
Cheers Daan.