December 21, 2009
December 20, 2009
December 17, 2009
track in gurtnellen is done
after i have rebuild the complete section between amsteg and gurtnellen twice due to slight height inaccuracies, i could finally put the track down in gurtnellen itself.
December 15, 2009
track reaches gurtnellen
and do you know what is being manufactured in the tiny remote village of gurtnellen?
this is...
no really, some parts of the rocket engines are being made there by the small company schmelzmetall ag.
as you'd expect from rocket scientists, they are based in an old and abandoned looking building and can't even be reached by truck. so the rocket engines (well, parts of them) leave gurtnellen on the gotthard railway!
December 11, 2009
the 26 o/oo climb to gurtnellen is under way
but over two hours were spent for just 4 kilometers of plain track, even though i'm following the real line with the help of aerial images!
November 27, 2009
track laid out in erstfeld
with the traverser figured out i could finish the trackwork at erstfeld. at least thats what i thought until i found out the hard way that traversers can, as of yet, only have 6 parallel tracks connected to them.
the erstfeld traverser however allows access to 12 tracks which, to make it even more complicated, are oddly spaced so i would need a traverser with around 23 connection points to realistically recreate the depot.
i decided to built it anyway and have the traverser only connect to 6 of the tracks and put the others in the right place to connect them if it ever becomes possible.
erstfeld depot is fairly important since its here that the steep climb up the north ramp begins, for which additional engines are put in front or behind the heavier freight trains.
therefor a lot of staff and engines are based here, even some foreign ones.
the steep track from here on is probably one of the few places in europe where you can observe up to 4 working engines in front of a train.
in this case the two re 6/6 and two re 4/4 develop 34.000 horsepower together, thats as much as around seven huge american dash 9 diesel engines.
although they can't use all their power in this configuration or otherwise they would just rip apart the couplers. therefore even today trains have to be split up in erstfeld or get help from an engine pushing from behind.
bruno lämmli who created the website lokifahrer.ch is a driver who was based in erstfeld a long time and has written a lot about his experiences driving over the gotthard. be sure to check his site out if you can read german.
erstfeld is also home to many historic engines like the ae 6/6 prototype "uri" with the number 11402, named after the kanton which is home to the north ramp.
the first prototype with the engine number 11401 was called "ticino" after the kanton in which the south ramp of the gotthard railway is located.
November 25, 2009
links restructured
the list grew ever longer so i decided
to restructure the link list,
for which i've created two placeholder posts.
the most recent posts can be found here.
RailWorks Links
Official Sites
railsimulator.com
Site
railsimulator.blogspot.com
Blog
twitter.com/railsimulator
Tweet
youtube.com/RailSimulator
Tube
railsimdownloads.com/wiki
Wiki
Helpful Tools
rwdecal.co.uk
Route building on a new level
rstools.info
Mike Simpsons RWTool
Valuable Information
the-art-of-rws.blogspot.com
Artworks for RailWorks
andistechnicalities.blogspot.com
Cow on Signals
railworks.banal.net
Rolling Stock Catalogue
RailWorks Around The World
rail-sim.de
Germany
uktrainsim.com
UK
railworksamerica.com
US
trainsim.com
US
railsim-fr.com
France
amicitreni.net
Italy
trensim.com
Spain
tsnz.co.nz
New Zealand
railworks.cz
Czechia
trainsimchina.com
China
e-buzz.se
Sweden
Personal Blogs
dereksiddle.blogspot.com
Dereks Wear Valley Route
railsimilarity.blogspot.com
WeirdWorks
repo-stgo-valpo.blogspot.com
Wonderful project from Chile
donkey-works.blogspot.com
Fine Creations
klemund.de/RailSimulator
NewS Developments
sad-railworks.blogspot.com
SADs Models
railsim-cro.blogspot.com
Creations from Croatia
oovee.blogspot.com
Oovee Insider
Gotthardbahn Links
gotthardbahn.ch
great page by carl waldis, lots of historical information
gotthardbahn.de
great page by jan keckstein, lots of contemporary information
lokifahrer.ch
tales from the rails, tackling the real thing
gotthardmodell.ch
tales from the basement, tackling it in 1:160
wikipedia.org/Gotthardbahn
very nice article in english, comprehensive overview
zeno.org/Gotthardbahn
old encyclopedic text with drawings
flickr.com/gotthardbahn
phantastic photographs
alpentunnel.de
construction of the gotthardtunnel in 1872
alptransit.ch
follow the progress of the new 57km base tunnel
gottardo-wanderweg.ch
hike along the rails
sbb-historic.ch
keeping history alive
