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Club member Jeff Koellmer has been working on his home layout for several years now and his progress is shared in recent pictures. The above photo was taken over the central railroad station, looking towards the busy main road that runs through his layout. Jeff’s layout is Swiss-themed and you can see the Swiss Postal bus that travels the main road. He used the Faller Car System for implementation so that the bus travels throughout the layout. If you are an ETE member, you can read more about this feature in the current issue of the ETE EXPRESS (Number 129 – First Quarter 2011). You can also read the article by navigating to the “Member Articles” page.
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A work crew is busy changing out a faulty fire hydrant along the main road just behind the base lodge for the mountain tramway (shown in the lower picture).
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Alongside Jeff’s electric locomotive maintenance shed, a work crew uses a heavy-duty rail crane and torches to dismantle aging ore cars for transport to the scrap dealer. A Catenary Maintenance car patiently awaits its’ next assignment in the background. In the lower picture, A snowplow takes a well-deserved summer rest as a high speed German Inter-City Express (ICE) train races to its next destination on the overhead viaduct.
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A shot of the aerial tramway leading to its mountain-top station is pictured above. A man plays the Swiss alpine horn in the foreground as mountain bikers travel the pathway leading back to the base lodge. We imagine that the pathways are busy with skier’s in the wintertime!
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Passenger’s await departure of a special excursion aboard the German BR 491 “Glass Train” at the main station. The real glass train, built in the 1930’s, was damaged in the mid-1990’s at a Swiss village during a similar outing, but has since been repaired and again plies the tracks on Jeff’s modern-day layout.
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A Swiss family tends to its’ small garden plot alongside the main line as the ICE train from Zurich speeds by. Credit for this highly detailed scene goes to Jeff’s wife, Christine, who builds many of the structures for the layout.
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In the above series of pictures, construction workers are busy pouring concrete for one of the new pylons that support an older steel bridge girder bridge. Fresh cement and supporting beams are hoisted to the site by a huge crane. A worker scales the arm of the crane to guide the operator. Over the completed pylon, painters are applying primer and finish coats of paint, all while trains pass overhead.
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While work proceeds on the new bridge, rock climbers are enjoying the thrill of scaling the rock face of the adjacent mountain that also leads to the finicular’s observatory… a very risky proposition, but care is taken to use the necessary safety gear.
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For those less energetic, a trip to the mountain top via the finicular leads to a refreshment break at the observatory.
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Typical Swiss farms, fields and homes are shown above. A stone mason completes a stone wall in one picture, while vegetables are picked from the garden and wash is hung out to dry in the clean, mountain air.