Voie Libre international No. 103

With an upsetting end to the summer, the cancellation of a great many events, significantly reduced exchanges, modellers might with good reason feel lonely at the workbench or when operating a layout. Fortunately, the world of communications in which we are now immersed helps us build or maintain links. And the purpose of your magazine is to create such links, enhance them, keep them alive. This autumn issue focusses on modelling practice, on swapping techniques and ideas. Because we are increasingly convinced that railway modelling, with all its strong points, is a great way to remain in touch and experience true solidarity! Follow us on Keep in touch all the year round with on blog.voielibre.com…

H0-12 FERRO-TRAIN : A STLB DIESEL Six of theses engines, VL 11 to 16, were built between 1965 and 1967 for the Steiermärkische Landesbahnen StLB, an Austrian private railway, by ÖMAG and Brown-Boveri to replace the last surviving steam locomotives. They weigh 31 metric tons, have a length of 9.80m and can run at 50 kp/h. Originally fitted with a 265kW MAN diesel motor, some (such as VL 12, 13 and 16) were re-motorized with a 390kW MTU unit in the 2000s. These engines are of the diesel-electric type, and as buit they featured a boiler for steam-heating the passenger trains. They are fitted with automatic air brakes for both the engine and the trains. Originally, they sported a bright orange livery, then an StLB monogram was added to the cab sides…

The station buildings on the CFD secondary networks were very largely standardized. Small, with a semi-detached goods shed and a little garden featuring a well, these structures, sometimes prettily decorated with flowers, contributed to the charm of narrow gauge railways. Régions & Compagnies helps you bring this charm back to life on your layouts with a CFD station building, featuring the goods shed on the left-hand side and the garden on the right-hand side. Except for the figures, the railcars and the track, everything shown in the photo is included in the laser-cut printed kit: base, complete platform, fencing, telegraph poles, well, garden tools, creeper… The inside furnishings are lit. Two CFD level crossing gates are included as a bonus. RÉGIONS & COMPAGNIES REF. MET 008 BV CFD WITH SEMI-DETACHED GOODS SHED ON THE…

There has been plenty to celebrate lately in the Somme! Many happy returns to the APPEVA association, 50 years old and as strong as ever just as issue 300 of the Voie Étroite magazine was published. An excellent opportunity for a fine article on the very early years of the “P’Tit Train de la Haute Somme”, where we learn that a Billard tractor can be hauled by a twin-engined (!) Citroën 2CV car to get it started… Rail & Industrie has already published 80 issues. It studies in detail the genesis and career of the impressive metre-gauge 4-8-2 + 2-8-4 Beyer-Garrats built by the Franco-Belge company for French West Africa. Here is real challenge for scratch-builders! Again for those keen on unusual machines, Narrow Gauge Downunder describes in its two…

This is a kind of bookazine, 64 A4 pages in colour, stapled together, and containing a great many documents and photographs, as well as a few plans from Jean-Paul Bascoul’s collection. The densely documented text by Jean-Claude Volpi tells the story of this rack-and-pinion railway that carried passengers from Monte-Carlo to La Turbie, serving the Riviera Palace and Righi d’Hiver hotels. Clearly, this railway was not created to shuttle workmen to and from the factory! The end of the story was tragic, as plans to replace the steam train by a road service or by a funicular never took shape. The end of the book takes a look at the Riviera-Palace electric rack railway whose route partly followed that of steam railway with inlaid track. Jean-Claude Volpi takes advantage of this…

This new range is called “REE Les secondaires” [“REE secondary railways”]. Sold by two in a thermoformed blister pack and a simple grey cardboard box with green lining, the wagons are supplied with a pouch of detailing parts and a small sheet of instructions. DETAILS The wagons are supplied with tiny parts that modellers must fit into the chassis and buffer beam housings. This will make the wagons even more realistic. Use tweezers, the parts are so small that fitting them is a tricky job. If you are afraid of losing them, add a micro-drop of wood glue to the tabs. This will form a joint that will hold these parts, made of POM (polyoxymethylene, a plastic that is virtually ungluable) in the wagon bodies, made of injected plastic or in the chassis,…