The Broc Branch in Om scale - an ambitious project that stalled for a decade but is now reawakening

[7mmin7foot]

Sommerfeldt...

One of my many Swiss SBB cargo re-incarnations...

 

Seems like forever ago... ( 8 months actually) I flogged off all my Swiss stuff after my dear old mate passed away and I inherited his big O gauge BR stuff.

Never 100% completed it and tbh,  wasn't totally happy with it.. tho the Swiss loco's were superb models.

Would have loved Swiss O in modern image, but that really is mortgage and new car money! 

 

This was my only experience of Sommerfeldt stuff...  but was HO modern image,  not strictly accurate but gave me the Swiss essence at the time.

The digital traverser was very fickle and sometimes a pain in the wotsits.

Sadly not enough space for  both Swiss HO and a BR  O layout that fills the exact same space.

 

So it was all sold off, funding much of the new BR layout on the 7mm forum now.

Disappointingly, it was then resold and split up  by the buyer...... hey ho.. we moved on and loving the change now 👍

 

Steve

[Mol_PMB]

2 minutes ago, 7mmin7foot said:

Sommerfeldt...

One of my many Swiss SBB cargo re-incarnations...

 

Seems like forever ago... ( 8 months actually) I flogged off all my Swiss stuff after my dear old mate passed away and I inherited his big O gauge BR stuff.

Never 100% completed it and tbh,  wasn't totally happy with it.. tho the Swiss loco's were superb models.

Would have loved Swiss O in modern image, but that really is mortgage and new car money! 

 

This was my only experience of Sommerfeldt stuff...  but was HO modern image,  not strictly accurate but gave me the Swiss essence at the time.

The digital traverser was very fickle and sometimes a pain in the wotsits.

Sadly not enough space for  both Swiss HO and a BR  O layout that fills the exact same space.

 

So it was all sold off, funding much of the new BR layout on the 7mm forum now.

Disappointingly, it was then resold and split up  by the buyer...... hey ho.. we moved on and loving the change now 👍

 

Steve

That looks great, and the catenary is just fine for a Swiss prototype. I really like the way you've captured the contrast between the regimented geometry of the depot tracks contrasting with the unruly strip of nature in the background.

 

I will need exactly that type of overhead gantry (but in O scale) for Bulle station:

 

O gauge is expensive and the argument that 'you need less of it' depends on willpower, which is something I'm sadly lacking!

[7mmin7foot]

9 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

That looks great, and the catenary is just fine for a Swiss prototype. I really like the way you've captured the contrast between the regimented geometry of the depot tracks contrasting with the unruly strip of nature in the background.

 

I will need exactly that type of overhead gantry (but in O scale) for Bulle station:

 

O gauge is expensive and the argument that 'you need less of it' depends on willpower, which is something I'm sadly lacking!

 

Thanks, I enjoyed the contrast and the little bit of greenery / landscaping.

 

Those catenary  gantries will look superb in O !  Look forward to seeing those.

Would have loved the new KISS O Gauge electric loco's... or better still their G1 stuff... but at around £3k+ a pop... that was always a lottery dream win  ;o)

 

Steve

Edited June 10 by 7mmin7foot

[Gordonwis]

Those masts (ie not the Sommerfeldt ones!) are truly superb

[Gordonwis]

GFM 106 at Chatel St Denis with a transporter wagon in 1981

 

Photo by my late uncle Jeremy Wiseman, whose Swiss railway archives are now in the capable hands of my friends at AGMT Geneve (Geneve tramway museum society)

 

[Mol_PMB]

6 hours ago, Gordonwis said:

GFM 106 at Chatel St Denis with a transporter wagon in 1981

 

Photo by my late uncle Jeremy Wiseman, whose Swiss railway archives are now in the capable hands of my friends at AGMT Geneve (Geneve tramway museum society)

 

Many thanks! That’s actually very useful for details of the transporter wagon and coupling bar livery. There aren’t many colour photos that clearly show the smaller transporter wagons. 

 

I think the transporter wagons were only used at Chatel St Denis for about a decade, 1972 to 1983 ish, and it was served from the Bulle direction (which is a long way round from the main line). This was enabled by improvements to the infrastructure (bridges, catenary) associated with the gravel trains, and by the delivery of a batch of 8 new transporter wagons in 1972/3. Previously only metre-gauge wagons had been able to reach Chatel.

In 1982/3 the first rollbocken (transporter bogies) were introduced, along with a gauge transfer station at Palezieux (much closer to Chatel St Denis). These were specifically for the traffic to Chatel St Denis, meanwhile the Broc branch traffic remained on transporter wagons for another two years until the gauge transfer station at Bulle was modified and another batch of rollbocken purchased.

Edited June 12 by Mol_PMB
Last paragraph added

[chb2488]

Please allow me to be a pedant, it‘s ein Rollbock, zwei Rollböcke.  Singular a turns to ä, o to ö and u to ü. If the singular already has an Umlaut, -en is added for the plural (except in loanwords like Funktionnär), e.g. ein Bär -> zwei Bären.
 

https://languagetool.org/insights/de/beitrag/plural/

 

(And yes, I still catch myself reading the thread title as The Brock Branch…!)

[Mol_PMB]

8 minutes ago, chb2488 said:

Please allow me to be a pedant, it‘s ein Rollbock, zwei Rollböcke.  Singular a turns to ä, o to ö and u to ü. If the singular already has an Umlaut, -en is added for the plural (except in loanwords like Funktionnär), e.g. ein Bär -> zwei Bären.
 

https://languagetool.org/insights/de/beitrag/plural/

 

(And yes, I still catch myself reading the thread title as The Brock Branch…!)

 

Many thanks! German isn't my strong point - there's a reason I chose to model a line in the French-speaking part of Switzerland!

 

So strictly speaking I should be calling them 'bogies transporteurs' but I think 'rollböcke' is probably a more familiar term even if I spell it wrongly!

 

Oddly, my GFM book refers to 'bogies transporteurs' and 'trucks porteurs' while my MOB book calls them 'bogies porteurs' and 'trucks transporteurs'.

The MOB book is bilingual and also uses 'rollböcke' and 'rollschemel', though I have also seen the latter called 'rollwagen'.

[chb2488]

Rollschemel is the Swiss name for this type of Rollwagen. In Switzerland, the name Rollwagen is used for flatbed wagons that often aren‘t built to be hauled, e.g. industrial railway systems or this little oddity here:

 

https://eingestellte-bahnen.ch/muerren-tramway-mt/

[Mol_PMB]

I still haven't finished the tensioning mast, but the others are now nearly done, painted and with the insulators added. There are still a few small painting and weathering jobs to do, and tweaking the position of the registration arm once installed, but you get the basic idea from these photos:

 

 

I'm flying off to Switzerland tomorrow and early next week I'll visit the real Broc Branch which has changed beyond all recognition since I was last there!

 

 

[Gordonwis]

On 12/06/2024 at 11:30, Mol_PMB said:

 

Many thanks! German isn't my strong point - there's a reason I chose to model a line in the French-speaking part of Switzerland!

 

'trucks porteurs' while my MOB book calls them 'bogies porteurs' and 'trucks transporteurs'.

 

 

Nous sommes ici en Suisse Romande, on utilise une terme francais...

 

Sorry, joking apart. I am of the opinion that the most correct local Romande term for the type of transporter bogie used on GFM is 'truc(s) porteur(s)'.

 

I was closely connected to the area for 60+years and  frequent interaction with uncle Jeremy on transport matters meant that I got to know the most 'correct' lingo for the area especially on narrow gauge and light railway matters which Jeremy favoured (alongside his close friend Jean Louis Rochaix), and especially given that Jeremy was (a) a simultaneous translator for the UN and (b) had - for 70 years - close and frequent contact with his many transport enthusiast friends in and around Geneva (he was until not long before his passing, an active member of AFAC region Geneve (AFAC being the French national railway enthusiasts society, but the Geneve region membership was mainly Swiss people )

[Gordonwis]

Here's the companion shot of Jeremy's from Chatel St Denis

 

 

 

[Mol_PMB]

Many thanks Gordon, the language clarification and the photos are much appreciated. Sorry for the delayed response, my trip to Switzerland was packed fairly full of activities and I haven't had a chance to keep up to date with the forum for the past week. I'm home now and a lot to catch up with!

My trip to the MBC produced some interesting trains but disappointing weather and some disruption to freight operations on the main day I had allocated for photography. The 2-day railtour on the CEV, MOB and TPF lines exceeded expectations, with traction better than advertised and some excellent beers on board. I was very impressed with the development of the artisanal breweries in Switzerland. I had a nice day paddling on Lac Leman with 3 different vessels, and a morning revisiting the Broc Branch to see some of the changes since it was re-gauged. Photos to follow on the relevant threads in due course once I have sorted and processed them!

[Mol_PMB]

Hopefully the photo above will link to an album of photos that I took on the Broc Branch on Sunday. In almost all cases there is also a link in the caption to one of my older photos in the same location, taken in the 2007-2013 period. In some cases there's not much change apart from the track gauge, elsewhere it's almost unrecognisable!

 

A couple of example pairings:

 

 

 

At the chocolate factory, it seems really odd that the narrow-gauge track and catenary is all still there, but no longer accessible or usable. I'd have thought they would have at least taken the wires down.

[Mol_PMB]

The main reason for my recent trip to Switzerland was to travel on a 2-day railtour over the entire remaining metre gauge network of the CEV, BC, MOB and tpf. This was an excellent event which exceeded expectations.

RhB/Bernina Railcar 35 (now preserved at the Blonay-Chamby) had been planned to haul this railtour along with Bernina loco 81, but 35 had suffered a mechanical failure. This worked out well for me, as the substitute traction was more interesting to me. On the MOB sections 81 was assisted by railcar 11 of 1905, a real veteran in original condition both mechanically and electrically. On the GFM, the beautiful 1940s railcar 131 was assisted by steeplecab loco 14, a very rare appearance in passenger service for this loco!

 

131 would have run on the Broc branch quite frequently in the 1970s to 1990s period, and occasionally in earlier and later eras. I definitely need to do a model of one of this class, though I'll probably choose 133 which was the last to retain its original livery.

The regular shunter at Broc-Fabrique was 13, the similar sister loco to 14. However, 14 sometimes deputised at Broc when 13 needed maintenance. I plan a model of 13.

There are some photos showing MOB railcars of the same series as 11 running on the GFM, particularly in wartime. I would struggle to justify a model of 11 on the Broc branch.

Bernina Bahn 81 is right out - that's never been to Broc and now it never will.

 

A few photos here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mol_PMB]

A final post on the Broc thread from my travels, perhaps a little tangential. When I was doing some ballasting, you may remember that I'd commented on the garish colour of one of my ballast hoppers as shown here:

Both the MOB and GFM/tpf had some of these hoppers, which were painted grey as shown in my repainted model on the right.

But the RhB did paint some yellow as on the left-hand model, and some of those were later bought by the MOB. They were renumbered into the MOB series but only patch-repainted, remaining yellow. Decades later, they are now extremely faded and weathered, but can still be distinguished from the original MOB grey ones. Here's a former RhB hopper at Gstaad last weekend - it was once yellow, honest! A grey one can be seen on the right:

In the meantime, the tpf have decided to brighten up their engineering fleet, and painted their two similar hoppers in ... garish yellow ... as seen here at Planchy:

Although all these little hoppers are still around and at least the tpf ones have a fresh coat of paint, I couldn't help noticing that both the MOB and tpf have been splashing cash on a new fleet of engineers' wagons. These are all modern bogie vehicles.

Here are the tpf's new bogie ballast hoppers at Planchy, also in garish yellow, they are numbered X763 and X764 following on from the 4-wheelers:

The MOB has at least four of the same  type, but in a more traditional grey livery, X794 is seen here at La Tine:

 

The MOB has also acquired a fleet of new general purpose low-sided stake wagons, in the same livery, X781 is seen here at Montbovon:

These complement the MOB's bogie well wagons which have been around for a few years, like X773 seen here at Zweisimmen:

I expect few of the surviving century-old wagons repurposed for engineers' use will be around for much longer!

 

[Mol_PMB]

There has been more progress on the layout too, as I've been gradually working on ballasting, static grass, roads and trees. Also some more details on the catenary masts which are now nearly ready to fit.

This is all work-in-progress though, and it's looking a bit too 'chocolate box' at present - some areas need toning down.

 

Having modelled one meadow with long grass, I decided that the other corner would represent a newly-mown meadow before the hay had been baled.

This was partly inspired by seeing many meadows being mown on my recent trip to Switzerland, and observing the colours, patterns and shapes. In particular the different shades of green seen on the cut and un-cut grass.

So I started by applying very short 2mm static grass, initially patches of a buff colour and then adding some pale green. I deliberately aimed for a patchy pattern with more brown on the higher areas and more green in the lower-lying areas.

Once that was dry and the loose material hoovered off, I applied acrylic 'matte medium' in lines across the field, and pressed pinches of long static grass into it manually. I hope this will work OK.

 

This photo looks rather more garish in colour than the real thing, but gives an idea of the effect achieved:

 

I must confess that standing at ground level, you can't see much of the pattern, but it is at least noticeably different to the unmown meadow!

[Samedan]

I think you’ve done very well with the mown grass, from the photo. It reminded me how iconic that scene still is. With even very small patches of land cultivated in that way by part-time farmers. Eventually, it would make a good cameo to have a farmer in process of stacking the grass on the back of a truck, or even possibly a horse-drawn wagon perhaps? I’ve made a mental note to consider including such a scene on my own layout. 

[Mol_PMB]

I have continued to work on the scenery around the horseshoe curve, adding more layers of static grass and scatter, and more trees and fences. There's a lot to do and I'm not finished yet by a long way. Still, it's enjoyable work and the scenery behind the track is within sight of 'first-fix' completion. Once I get to that stage I can install the overhead wires, and I can work round those for any odd bits of subsequent detailing.

Here's a sequence of photos from left to right around the curve, showing where I've got to so far.

[Mol_PMB]

This end of the layout will be one of the most photogenic sections so I thought I'd pose a couple of toys on it to see how my planned photo locations work out.

I temporarily fitted some of the catenary masts too, though not any wires yet.

Here's a GFM freight:

And from a different angle:

And a visiting MOB Panoramic Express (which needs more carriages, wish me luck on eBay tomorrow...):

This gives an overview of the end of the room and evidence of a serious operating irregularity! It gives the general idea of the view of this end.

There will be (prototypically) a couple of large trees on the high spot in the middle of this picture which will hopefully break up the view of the curve a little bit.

 

Only once I've got the catenary installed and the running tested will I do the road surface and the scenery in front of the road, as that will make it much more difficult to access the rear parts.

[Mol_PMB]

Incidentally, can anyone tell me what this is (other than a hut on wheels)? My best guess is some sort of beehive but there were no bees in evidence on my recent visit.

I need to build a model of it for this scene. I've got plenty of recent photos and some rough measurements, and photos from over 30 years ago confirm that it's been here a long time.

[PaulRhB]

5 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

Incidentally, can anyone tell me what this is (other than a hut on wheels)? My best guess is some sort of beehive but there were no bees in evidence on my recent visit.

I need to build a model of it for this scene. I've got plenty of recent photos and some rough measurements, and photos from over 30 years ago confirm that it's been here a long time.

Bit sophisticated for just a beehive, more like one of the small stockman huts which would also explain the wheels if it’s sometimes moved away in the winter but put out for the summer so they can stay over during lambing/calving season. Having hives too would be possible if there are a lot of hives in the area for commercial production. 

Edited July 1 by PaulRhB

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks Paul. I'm pretty sure that part of the hut includes beehives, the multicoloured hatches are a bit of a giveaway. Most Swiss bees are kept in this way, here's another example:

https://www.agroscope.admin.ch/agroscope/en/home/topics/livestock/bees/bienenhaltung.html

 

But I agree there's more to this hut than just bees, it does look big enough for someone to live in for a short period so perhaps used for that in calving season (this is dairy country). 

 

Whilst it has wheels, it's been in the same place for decades, and the wheels are propped up on timber baulks so that the hut is level(ish) on sloping ground. I think it'll make a nice little cameo poking out of the trees here:

[PaulRhB]

I wonder if the wheels are legal thing that means it’s not technically a permanent structure as it’s capable of being moved, just they don’t as it’s stayed in regularly. 
Makes sense also having the bees as an extra source of income. Seasonal grazing was a common transport for the RhB four wheel vans up to the late 90’s so I wonder if they did the same here and the hut allowed the stockman to stay during calving season or if an animal wasn’t well? 
RhB version at 55:30

 

[swisspeat]

The world of beehives is interesting because my wife is a beekeeper so I hear about them regularly!

 

I have seen sheds like this before in CH with up to 30 plus hives in the one shed. The different coloured panels are so the bees will recognise their home.

 

hives are sometimes moved to follow the  local crops at different times during a year. So for example a bee keeper might move hives to follow a crop of oil seed rape or borage. 
 

I have also seen lots of the traditional types of beehives in the corners of fields on my travels.

 

Peter