APRIL / MAY / JUNE 2023 - 113

Voie Libre international

The magazine for the narrow gauge railways enthusiast.

Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Voie Libre international
PUBLISHER: Christian Fournereau - christianf@lrpresse.com/ EDITOR: François Fontana francoisf@lrpresse.com /CONSULTANTS TO THE EDITORIAL TEAM: Éric Fresné (ericf@lrpresse.com), Jean-Paul Quatresous / WITH ASSISTANCE FROM: Yann Baude (yannb@lrpresse.c
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Editorial #113
Just like that famous mouse - Terence Cuneo’s mascot – is somewhere in a corner, but never far from the light, railway modellers work in the shadows on their carefully designed small worlds. And these creations often spring from a variety of inspirat
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Bemo: Schöllennenbahn Motor Units Abfhe 2/4 And Fo Bdeh 2/4
Here is a splendid version in original blue and cream livery of the mixed adhesion-rack motor units of the Swiss Schöllennenbahn and Furka-Oberalp networks. Three such units, N° 41 to 43, were ordered jointly with the FO and delivered in 1941. They c
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Bemo : A IV K 99 597 In The Metal Collection Series
This originally Saxon locomotive for 750mm narrow gauge is available with an ESU V5 sound decoder and working front, rear and cab lights. Based on an all-metal Bemo kit, assembly and painting are performed by a professional workshop and are above rep
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Bachmann : The Quarry Hunslets
We had already reviewed the senior sisters, here are the junior ones: the saddle tank engines from the Dinorwic Quarry and Dorothea Quarry. The least one can say is that they are indeed tiny! Just 47.5mm long, 23.3mm wide and weighing 33g. Two versio
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Tillig : A Bogie Carriage For The Harz
H0-9 /H0-12 This carriage, KB4ip 900-493, has a rather peculiar history… Built by Bautzen in 1930 as a standard carriage for 75cm gauge railways, it came from Oberwiesenthal on the Harz system, in August 1954 and was modified for metre gauge. The mod
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Tillig : A Bogie Box Van
This wagon, NKB GG240, was drawn on the basis of a Harz box van in the style of the Hofmann 1900 designs, for the fictitious Neustädter Kreis Bahn company. A company created by Bemo, for modellers’ sake, so that stock from various systems can cohabit
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Tillig : A Harz 4-wheeler Box Van
This is the reproduction of a service wagon - Gerätewagen - from Gernrode station, built by Görlitz in 1906 for the NordhausenWernigerode Eisenbahn under number Gm 333, and converted into a tooling wagon for the firefighting train in June 1969. The w
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Roco : A Set Of Carriages For The Waldviertelbahn
These carriages, rebuilt on the basis of old Austrian woodbodied units, are fitted with an autonomous Webasto heating system and two of them feature toilet compartments. They are based in Gmünd on the Waldviertelbahn, a network whose lines are fairly
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Bemo : New Liveries For The Lh45
Bemo has released its L45H diesel locomotive in two new liveries. These are contemporary versions from the Romanian Wassertalbahn forestry railway, one in opal green with CFF silver lining, the other in black with red lining. These smoothrunning engi
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Lilliput : A Zillertalbahn Set
H0-9 This set of 3 vehicles, two Bi/s 14 and 16 carriages and a Gwk/s 101 van/box van, reproduces a consist from the well-known Zillertalbahn railway in Austria. The dark brown livery – slightly different on each carriage – that is typical of that ra
Voie Libre international2 min de lecture
Tramfabriek : Discreet Couplings For Your Rolling Stock
Another welcome initiative by Tramfabriek. As is customary, Sven Van Der Hart has imagined and marketed a product he missed as a modeller. We refer to hook couplings designed to replace the large loop couplings that meet NEM standard 355, and which a
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Schnellenkamp : Wagon Axles
After the axles fitted with double-spoke wheels – reviewed in VL 104 -, Schnellenkamp has released axles with single spoke wheels. Designed for 22.2mm gauge, they are fitted to 31mm axles with pointed tips. The 15.5mm diam. nylon wheels have metal ty
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Bachmann : Rnad Wagons
In charge of supplying ammunition to the Royal Navy, the Royal Navy Armaments Depots (R.N.A.D.) managed until 1990 many large storage facilities, some being operated with 2’6» (762 mm) gauge narrow gauge railways. The end of the Cold War led to the c
Voie Libre international2 min de lecture
Tramfabriek : Put A Tiger In Your Minitrains Engines
Tramfabriek has further enlarged its range of coreless motor conversion kits by tackling the MinitrainS models. The kit tested here is designed for references manufactured and sold after 2012. In pratice, this incluides all the models featuring a mot
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Supplies
The market of polystyrene sheets and strips for modellers is largely in the hands of Evergreen in the United States and of Slater’s in the U.K. AK Interactive, which is diversifying its range as every month goes by, has just launched its own range of
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Book
Super-exotic, the new special issue published by our sister-publication Loco-Revue takes us outside France, to discover modelling practices in Spain, Italy and Switzerland. A blend of wonder and discovery of modelling techniques, studying what happen
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Press Review
Issue 90 of Rail & Industrie describes a Swiss narrow gauge line that used to supply a paper mill. An excellent topic for a layout. A 60cm gauge railway and a funicular connected the mill to warehouses and to a standard gauge line located on a lower
Voie Libre international1 min de lecture
Bernard Déluard
Bernard, a gifted modeller and an active contributor to Voie Libre over many years, has passed away. He used to regale us with the construction, in 1/22.5 scale, of his garden layout, as well as of rolling stock items that were true scale models of t
Voie Libre international2 min de lecture
Edgar IS BACK IN THE LAND OF ITS ANCESTORS!
TO TRAVEL EDGAR, TAKE A LOOK AT: HTTP://TACOTDESLACS.FREE.FR And if this engine is in 60cm gauge and has been built on Decauville drawings, the Voie Libre Editorial Team halted the printing presses to herald its arrival and wish EDGAR a warm welcome
Voie Libre international3 min de lecture
Gang of Four
Four mates, living all around the country, all railfans and all having worked in real railways or railway modelling. Let’s take a closer look at this «gang of four» and their impressive creatio François Fontana: Hello Julien, you are tasked with bein
Voie Libre international5 min de lecture
Blajan: BRINGING THE CFSO BACK TO LIFE
Ignoring the Pyrenees, which were already served by mainline railway companies, these metre gauge lines served the Garonne plain for almost half a century, connecting Toulouse with its rural hinterland; the city was already highly industrialized, but
Voie Libre international5 min de lecture
The White Train
Once upon a time, there was the white train, and its elder brother, the black train. Much could be said about the black train… The most ancient among the rolling stock of the metre gauge network operated by the Compagnie du Sud Ouest, which served th
Voie Libre international2 min de lecture
LAYOUT PROJECT Blajan station
This layout project combines the typical features of the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer du Sud-Ouest. Built on three modules each measuring 120 × 50cm, the focal point is a station inspired by that at Blajan with its two-door station building and its s
Voie Libre international4 min de lecture
BUILDING « MAJOR » The Railcar That Came In From The Cold
MY WORD, IT’S ALL MADE OF WOOD! Major is the most recent addition to the motive power roster of Ulvaryd, my Swedish 60cm gauge layout, set in the late 1940s. Its construction is inspired by a steam-powered fourwheeler railcar built for the Dala-Ockel
Voie Libre international3 min de lecture
The BellinzonaMesocco railway
The line originated at Bellinzona, the main city in the canton of Tessin, at an altitude of 244m. It had its own station, located some 500m from the main CFF Gothard line station. Built in metre gauge, entirely on its own right of way, the line was e
Voie Libre international4 min de lecture
Saint-Michel-Saint-Cyran, Lingé And Chaventon: The Smallest Station Buildings On The Blanc-Argent
For those who know the BA, there is a difference between the part of the line located in Berry (from Le Blanc to Chabris) and that located in Sologne (from Gièvres to Argent-sur-Sauldre). The proportions of the station buildings are equivalent or alm
Voie Libre international6 min de lecture
Micros For All
When it comes to micro-layouts, it’s a bit of a hotch-potch in terms of locations, styles and sometimes unusual scales, when compared to what modellers are accustomed to. We questioned a few enthusiasts who shared their urges, the techniques they use
Voie Libre international2 min de lecture
Squarefoot Mine
Scale: 1/45 Guage: 9mm Dimensions: 1 square foot Small, turnout-less, but packed with smart ideas and talent. Such is Squarefoot Mine, a micro-layout for the fun of building! Guenther Kiltz built Squarefoot Mine with a view to displaying, on a tiny s
Voie Libre international4 min de lecture
A wagon-load OF DIAMONDS
100% CARDBOARD If properly scaled down, my wagon should measure 126 × 50mm. I shrank its dimensions to a length of 116mm and a width of 46mm, so that it blends in better with the remainder of my rolling stock. OK, the «diamonds» are actually sheetmet
Voie Libre international2 min de lecture
Integrating buildings INTO THE GROUND
NEATLY EMBEDDED On my latest projects, I wanted my buildings to be integrated into the ground, so that they could be recycled on other projects or, in some cases, sold on. The solution I suggest makes it easy to decorate around the building, the latt
Voie Libre international4 min de lecture
With digital control, MORE FREEDOM FOR YOUR TRACKS!
WIRELESS CONTROL Voie Libre: Hello Éric. We contacted you to help us and our readers make a reasoned choice out of the wide range of DCC units available on the market. The requirements of the Voie Libre readership are probably a bit special. So we dr

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