struct

Structures, gadgets and scratchbuilt items

Structures

Silo:

There are only a few structures errected on Belvédère. On the left hand side there is the goods shed which gives protection to all of the hardware delivered for the construction site which is however not used at the moment. This building is constructed from rock and sand obtained from the surrounding area and wood from down the valley. It was originaly built as a shed for the railway material which has to be stored during the winter monthes.

The second structure is the gravel silo which has been errected for the sole purpose of the dam construction site. The gravel is brought in from a nearby quarry via lorries. The lorries dump their load into a receiver where it is lifted by means of a conveyor belt into the silos. A shuttle train with 3 hoppers and the diesel engine commutes from Belvédère to the construction site at Muttbach on a regular bases to supply the site with gravel for the concrete production.

The silo incorporates an actuator which will open and close a discharge mechanism. This allows me to fill the gravel hoppers.

This gravel silo was presented several years ago in a Swiss train magazine (Eisenbahn Zeitschrift 1/89) by Michael Breuer. It is fabricated out of styrene profiles.

Status silo on the 8/11/99:

Silo nearly finished:

Silo on layout (missing is the conveyor belt):

On the underside of the layout one can find the actuator for the silo discharge mechanism:

Crane:

I plan to construct a working gantry crane. A type like the one found a few years ago in Aigle has captured my attention:

Gadgets

Sound System:

Currently a stationary sound system running on a computer is being programmed. It will add a "4th dimension" to the layout. There is the possibility to play background sounds typical for the Alpine enviroment.

Furthermore the system is able to reproduce all train related noises: engine noises, track noises, sounds resulting from specific operations. Check this out: the youngest crew member announces in the local idiom the departure of the Glacier Express.

For more technical information please click here.

Road Crossing:

The road crossing is secured with the typical flashing lights. I use the version from BUSCH with the real sound unit!

On the underside of the layout one can find the electronic box for the sound and light effects of the road crossing:

Uncouplers:

I have installed at 8 locations electro-magnetic uncouplers which allow me to do all necessary shunting without having to manually interfere. This allows me to stay near the fiddle yard and operate the layout from there.

One of the uncouplers installed under the layout::

View from the top. Soon the location of the uncouplers will be hidden under the gravel:

Power supply for the uncouplers controlled by some electronic circuitry can be found in this box:

To improve the reliabe uncoupling of carriages, the original BEMO couplings have been modified. On one side of each rolling stock item the boucle has been removed and substituted by a latch covering the hook. This latch prevents the boucle from falling back behind the hook and reingaging the coupling.

Here is a small animation of the working principle of the modified BEMO-coupling with electromagnetic activation:

Scratchbuilt items

Gravel hopper

For the transport of gravel from Belvédère to the custruction site of the new electro hydraulic dam I needed a few hoppers. I was lucky enough to have kept an article out of "Die Modelleisenbahn" explaining the construction of hopper's as used by several Swiss narrow gauge railways (type: Fad). Over a few weeks I managed to produce three of these hoppers out of styrene: