I already have a french layout in H0 scale, named Saint-Hilaire-La-Mine. I described step by step how I built it in 21 days in a special issue of the french magazine Loco-Revue (if some of you read in french and are interested).
This layout mix narrow gauge and standard gauge. It offers the possibility to extend the standard gauge on the left and the narrow gauge on the right.
Some days ago I took down from the attic a layout that I started prior to Saint-Hilaire-La-Mine, paused because of the project for the magazine, and had the idea to connect the two layout together.
This second layout is circular, and inspired by a demo layout used by Jouef firm on exposition and convention, a long time ago, before Jouef became part of the Horny group. But it's bigger than the original, and have a spur (is it correct in british english ?).
Anyway here is the plan and the photo of the two connected layouts :
For some time, I wish to build an english layout. And I think the time is arrived, even if the project is a bit crazy ^^
Crazy because of course I plan to let run english locomotive and rolling stock on the french part, and vice-versa on the english part. I began to invent a fantasy story where an english and a french village could have been connected in secret by a previous attempt of the tunnel we all know of
In France, such a project will probably looked with contempt by some (a lot of ?) modelist. As in England and other country I suppose. But I don't feel concerned by this kind of narrow mind
For me, model railway is about curiosity, imagination, and atmosphere. Build a small part of a world where I would love to walk and travel is all I seek for.That's being said, to complete my project successfully, I will need your help. I will probably have a lot of questions about a various sort of things, as rolling stock or railway particularities.
For the time being, what I know is what I put on the track plan : a double locomotive shed (remise deux voies), a train station (gare), a goods shed (halle marchandise) and a castle (château). You can add some shops and houses in the middle. For the most of the buildings, even I love to scratch build, I'll use some kits from Metcalfe, that I already like a lot to assemble. I used one of them on Saint-Hilaire-La-Mine :
and some others on a previous layout which was more of an experiment :
That's all for the moment. I will work on this project when I will have spare time, it's not my main project, because I will soon begin to build an other layout for one of the magazine I work for. So, it probably won't be fast !
