Some members layouts –
Litziruti By Gerald Burnett.
I have wanted to have a model railway ever since my father dismantled a Tri-ang set that was in my bedroom in about 1958. I finally got around to doing something about it in 2019 with a ‘proof of concept’ build using OO Scale Peco track and a couple of Bachman tanks.
That went well so the next stage was to build an end-to-end diorama of a country station which could be 1960 Southern or Eastern depending upon the rolling stock deployed.
Early into that build my head was turned by travelling on the Rhaetian Bahn (RhB) in South Eastern Switzerland and seeing the operational Neuberg 1913 and the under construction Neuberg 2013.
During the 2020 lockdown the diorama idea was shelved and Litziruti was constructed. Litziruti is an RhB station on the Chur to Arosa route so I used a Faller model of that. The track layout is based upon another RhB location, Ospizio Bernina, which is the highest adhesion station in Europe at 7403 feet.
There is a 3 road fiddle yard behind the backscene and I can run modern electric trains, including the Bernina Express, as well as heritage
formations such as that which runs in summer months between Davos and Filisur behind a Krokodil.
Scale is HO but the track is HOm metre gauge. Train control is digital using a very simple Gaugemaster Prodigy Express system. Points are analogue controlled by a Gaugemaster PC01 which is capable of controlling 18 points from a single console. Rolling stock is Bemo who make beautifully detailed and increasingly sophisticated models.
I would like to source a steam loco in the near future so that my heritage trains can be steam hauled.
Cavaglia. By Gerald Burnett
This N Scale railway was built as just a bit of fun. Like
Litziruti it is based on a location on the Rhaetian Bahn (RhB), this time Cavaglia which is a passing station on the South side of the Bernina Pass in the Val Poschiavo.
Cavaglia is pure Analogue using a basic Gaugemaster controller, Kato track and 2-wire points. The latter are really very good for a fun model with point motors built invisibly into the base of each point. Rolling stock is all modern RhB, also by Kato. It is remarkably well built and detailed for N Scale only the standard couplings giving cause for some frustration. It is also very well priced, especially if bought direct from Japan.
There are no plans to develop this railway. It is just the job when all that is needed is to sit and watch the trains go by.