I second what Kurt said and also...that last pic is brilliant!
J

Without ever have worked on scale railways and laying tracks, my spontaeneous thoughts would be to replace all the tracks. Could be difficult to match up the resin bits with thos you scratch. The resin straight parts could be used on a nother base as detail later??

I think Frank has a point.
The resin tracks are bedded with stone. Small gauge tracks often did go on straight soil. Wobly as a matter of speacking goes with these tracks. Also the prefab tracks along the line make a great detail. it was shown in one of the pictures from early posts. Another argument to make them yourselfs is the distance of the wood the tracks are mounted on. The resin in this case is to basic.
I will search for some usefull links tonight. I have lots of them. Trackbuilding however is a way of art.

Regards,

Robert Jan

https://www.google.nl/search?q=feldbahn+heer&espv=210&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=7a7aUtjwOIGt0QWuoYCIAw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=889

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heeresfeldbahn

Hi, Alan,

In the above links, you may get an impression about the distance between the (steel) sleepers.
Also, you may find confirmed that the use of a stone bed was very rare on the temporary tracks.

Enjoy your modelling weekend

P.

Hi Alan,

For your track, you might consider using HO scale model railroad flex-track, which at 1/35 scale equates to 60 cm narrow gauge. It's quite inexpensive - I recently purchased a 3 ft length of Atlas HO flex-track for five dollars at my local hobby shop. Flex-track is easily bent into undulating curves and you'll be spared the bother of connecting track of different types. The cross-ties (sleepers) are too closely spaced for light railways, but you can snip out the ones you don't want.

Cheers

Dick

Hi Kurt and Jerry,

Thanks for the thoughts.

Hi Frank and Robert,

Thanks for looking in. I had considered building the track from scratch and I take the point about it often being a bit crook . That often seems to be the caee. I've also noticed in the pics I've studied sometimes it's can be on sleepers and sometimes steel plate.

Robert also pointed out track building is a bit of and art, one which I most probably don't have.

The Ford section arrived to-day so I cut a space for it in the base. I don't really have a problem with the raise beds as these would have to be blended into the landscape anyway, their original function was to provide a stand alone base for the Draisine. The Ford base has some nice wonky track detail and depending on where I place the tractor and wagons much of the straight track may disappear or not.

I've taped some rails between the two sections and you can see the bend is not that sharp so that problem has gone. I have some fine stone to use in the track bed mix and the rest will be blending the 4 sections together to look as one and much of that will be done in the landscaping and painting I think.

Interestingly having fitted the 4 sections I got to wondering how the howitzer got up their in the first place so some gentle landscaping required there.

Using the bases as individual stand alone items was one I have considered, it is after all what they were designed for, but part of the challenge was to blend them together. If I take the track sections out I might as well take the howitzer base out and scratch the who thing.

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the links. The stone bed should be fine given the proximity of the stream and much of it will be blended into the landscape so I'm not too concerned there.





Taking 3 separate bases and blending them together was never going to be easy but I think it is doable and could work well.

Thanks for the thoughts folks, always good to have other eyes and ideas.

Cheers

Al

Hi Dick,

Thanks for the heads up. I missed you post in my reply, both typing at the same time no doubt. The flexi track looks like it has good potential but I don't see much of a problem matching things up. If I use rails again, I might well have a go at building my own but as you can see I'm incorporating other elements in the Ford base I wanted in the scene.

Cheers

Al

That part can be cut off and still used? Its your base, its up to you. Im sure it´ll be fine.

Hi Frank,

The narrow gauge track seems to have been laid on both sleepers and steel plates. The Resicast track is on sleepers, I don't have a problem with that. it also matches the tractor and wagons so I don't have to worry about either getting the spacing wrong myself or using alternative track that could be slightly different. When I did the review of the Draisine I noted that the track was about 3 inches wider (in 1/35 scale) according to my ruler than the 24 inches in narrow gauge, so I might well just be building up unnecessary problems by trying to fit the wagons elsewhere. It was one of the main reasons I chose to go this route. This won't be noticeable at this scale but trying to use other track is maybe not a good idea unless you precisely measure the distances between the bogies and make adjustments during the build to suit any track you choose to use.

Hope that makes sense.

Cheers

Al

Here is some footage of the Americans laying track. Much quicker than me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3s01i3aa7w

Steam locomotives were used in the rear areas whilst tractors with combustion engines were used nearer the front for obvious reasons.

Some good footage of track sections at the beginning is anyone would like to go into production?

Cheers

Al

Alan, I will keep a close look on this thread as I don't want to miss your construction of the track! I was inclined to side with the sceptics, but having seen your enthusiasm and your skills, I see things differently now and I am curious to see more...!

Well done so far anyway!!!

Cheers

Romain

Ho Romain,

Thanks for you vote of confidence, we'll see how it goes. Robert is correct in one point, the steel plate track is very attractive as it used wider spacing, but with 8 bolts per join plus the number of bolts overall you'd have to add it would not be a pleasant task making such a long length. If per-fabricated lengths were available then it would be an interesting route to go. Fortunately both styles were employed.

Cheers

Al

Hi Alan. It maybe easier to understand the different gauges.
In trainmodeling they use all sorts of tricks. There is some logic in different scales, it's very easy.
When you work in H0(1/87) and want to build narrow gauge, simply use the N(1/160) TT(1/120) stands for .08 Meter & 1 meter. Bigger scales, I or II use H0 tracks to model a narrow gauge. So working in 1/35, this comes very close to I (Märklin Spur I) gives you 3 options to use a simple flex track. Scale it down to 1 Meter or 0.8 Meter, tramway and 0.6 Meter to build industrial tramways(Feldbahn).
Cut out the sleepers to get the right distance. Saves you a lot of work. Peco is available in a wide range for all kinds of tracks you want to build. Looks great, believe me.
I used to build tramways myself.
Give it a go, I'll be watching this very close.

Regards,

Robert Jan

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the thoughts, but for the reasons I outlined above I'll be going with the kit builds. Maybe next time I'll investigate flexi track.

Cheers

Al

Hi folks,

A bit of a test fit. I need to raise the central Ford section up a couple of mm and then added the top covering for the additional section and embed the sleepers. It occurred to me laying out the pieces that it might be helpful to cut out a small end on each section to be joined so that the new track runs onto the existing bases rather than butt it up against the existing track. I'll have to investigate that.



Cheers

Al

Hi Al,

Most prefabricated light railway track was butt-jointed, as in the following illustrations.





As long as the loads are light, the practice isn't a problem with the Decausville track shown in the first illustration, but heavy loads put great stress on the fish plates (splice bars in US usage) The tracks shown in the second illustration don't have that problem.

Normal railway practice is to offset the rail joints and they always rest atop a tie (sleeper).

Here I'll admit to having spent a lot of time around railroads in my youth and had several railroaders in my family.

Cheers

Dick

Hi Dick,

Thanks for the pics very useful for the future. Talking of which is their a publication worthy of purchase?

Cheers

Al

Hi Al,

I can't think of any offhand, but if you Google Decauville, or light railways, light military railways and the like, you'll find tons of stuff.

Dick

Thanks Dick,

Got some good links there.

Al

Hi folks,

The curved track section is in place. The link on the Mk 1 version was a bit tight so I removed a small piece of track from the Ford base and re-set the bend with slightly longer rails. This flows better I think.

When dry I'll add some detail to the sleepers and rails.



Cheers

Al

Coming along nicely. Great solution.
J

Hi Jerry,

I have a couple of sleepers to add onto the end running off the board but by using this angle I only have to cut a small corner off the original track base.

The British initially utalised French track, their railway operation didn't really get underway until February 1916 when they designed their own per-fubricated track sections so as this is set in the Somme and the British occupied a 14 mile stretch having taken over from Allied troops this so do nicely.

I do think prefabricated track sections would be a nice dio accessory though.

Cheers

Al

Hi folks,

The 3 main bases are now fixed in place. I added some rivets/spikes to the sleepers and gave things a quick coat of paint to get an idea of how the track might look. I also added some paint to the dis guarded helmets. Here's progress so far.









There is still more work to do to blend the track but you'll get the idea.

Looking at the track last night I realised I had my focus on mating the elements. The base is an old re-cycled job I did some water experiments on a few years ago and I had initially thought about keeping and developing the river, but with space a premium a large area given over to landscaping probably isn't a good use of that space, so I've been studying some of the reference pics I have for inspiration and ideas. One possibility is a small road way and the other is soldiers in a range of activities.


So there will be a First aid post with soldiers returning from the battle field, both British and German wounded will be required. That's where the Ford ambulance and aid post fit in. The Draisine arriving with an ammo load and possibly some wounded wagons coming back from the front in the opposite direction. Maybe hand or horse pulled. Fill in the river and maybe leave some water filled shell craters and put in some soldier type activity or a road. I could also mix in some Australians and French troops.

I picked out about 30 reference photo graphs to study and think on. The Australian Military collection has some great references, as does the IWM archive.

Here's a flavor of some ideas for reference only.















Cheers

Al

Hi folks,

I decided I couldn't have the luxury of the river and the space would be better utalised for some vehicles and troops so I filled in the river bed. The road could run curving to the right in line with the track or cross the track by the gun position or both. Got some paint on half the base to get a better idea of how the ground runs.







with some kits on:







Other option make a small wooden bridge crossing the rails and extend the road the other side.



Other options for the road include the Rolls Royce or the Holt and a howitzer when they come along.

Cheers

Al

Personally I would go with the road following the rail line. The other option with it crossing the rail line strikes me as being illogical for some reason? I think the road and rail would go along the back of the gun line and not through it?
J