Cypriot Railways

Links:
Wikipedia: Cyprus Government Railway
The Cyprus Government Railway
Pictures from narrow gauge heaven
Don’t Miss The Fine Pink Steam Engine…
Narrow Gauge Wiki

Books:

The Story of the Cyprus Government Railway - Lt. Col. B.S. Turner (1979)
Cyprus Narrow Gauge - Hugh Ballantyne (2007)

After finding a Cyprus Government Railway Troodos 2-6-0 body kit on the Locomotives International Online Shop I decided to do some research into this railway. The kit was made by Roxey who also make two other CGR locos. The CGR was a 76 mile 2'6" gauge railway network which operated from 1905 to 1951. Like many ambitious narrow gauge railways it was never a financial success. Extending the network was recommended to increase revenue but didn't help and cutbacks started in 1931. Most of the locomotives were scrapped though No 1 is on a plinth outside the site of Famagusta Station. Evrykhou station is being restored and will house a Cyprus Government Railway museum.

On New Railway Modellers "Curious Orange" is building a GCR 2-6-0 for his Moel Eilio layout. It is first mentioned here. I'd quite like a large tender locomotive to pull steam tourist trains in my modern narrow gauge scheme, however after seeing how large these locos look are compared with 2" gauge stock I think I'll probably go for something with a smaller loading gauge. I also like the CGR Wickham railbus so maybe I'll say that in my alternative reality the Snowdonian narrow gauge lines had something similar which got preserved.

Originally uploaded by pat & nige

Cyprus Mines Corporation also operated 2'6" gauge railways in Cyprus. These railways have lain abandoned since the CMC pulled out of Cyprus after the Turkish invasion of 1974. Many of the locomotives and wagons are still where they were left when the railway closed. The pink steam locomotive (right) at Guzelyurt is the CMC number 3.

There was also a narrow gauge line which ran from a mine at Kalavasos to a harbour four miles away at Zygi on the south coast. It ran diesels and closed in 1976.

The Plan

I was inspired by the fictional history which John de Frayssinet created for County Gate and his railcar experiment to come up with a plan based on an alternative history. Though I'm thinking of Snowdonia rather than Austria, the Johannesdorf Tirolerbahnen, which featured in the November Continental Modeller, has something of the feel of what I'd like to achieve.

Pannned Lines

The North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways obtained an Act of Parliament 1872 to build lines running from Portmadoc to Bettws-y-Coed via Beddgelert and Capel Curig^[1]. They were also considering building lines from Bettws-y-Coed to Corwen and Penmachno and from Portmadoc to Porthdynlleyn via Pwllheli alongside the Cambrian Coast line^[1]. They did build a line from Dinas to Rhyd-Ddu and a branch to Bryngwyn^[2] (later to become part of the WHR).

The Welsh Highland Railway

The WHR originally ran from Dinas to Portmadoc. An extension to Caernarfon was planned but never built by the original company but was built by the WHR(C). There is a possibility that the WHR might get extended to Bangor at some point in the future (phase 5). In an alternative world both these extensions might have been built when the standard gauge lines over those routes closed.

The Plan

So how might these line look if they had been built? I'm thinking mostly about those parts which would be in the Snowdonia National Park. I've drawn a map rather than try further explanation. I might add further lines and stations as my ideas progress.

Passenger operations
The line now runs steam trains for the heritage railway market and diesel services for locals and tourists who just want to get from A to B. The diesel services will probably a mixture of DMU, railcar and loco hauled. There'd be lots of walkers, mountain bikers (using special bike trucks) travelling on the diesel hauled trains.

Freight
I'll assume that the government is encouraging freight off roads and onto rail in the national park and have stuff like freight to the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel. I'm also thinking about a bike hire company that hires bikes at various stations on the network and the bikes can be brought back to any station. The bikes are the re-distributed by train. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with some more reasons for freight trains too. Maybe timber?

1. ^ ^{a b} WHR(P): Forerunners to WHR
2. ^ Wikipedia: North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways

Diesel Plan

Here's a quick mockup of the Bo-Bo diesel Drewry kitbash that I'm planning. My version of the kit has an extra bonnet side piece in so I should be able to make this with only the parts in the kit, styrene sheet and some other bits. I want to give it Lyd2 style lights - hopefully working. One thing I've not worked out yet is how to fix it to the chassis.

Inspiration (from April)

I started writing a post back in April about some of the layouts that had inspired me to get back into modelling and design a Gum Stump & Snowshoe based module. The post never got published but I've decided to update it slightly and post it now. I've tried to keep to the ideas I had at the time.

Whilst browsing the web I discovered the website of Brian Fayle. Underneath the Arches is one of many layouts on the site. It is 7mm scale with trains running on 16.5mm and 9mm gauge track. The layout has a road viaduct which splits breaks it up and makes it seem a lot bigger than it is. There's loads of detail and guessing what the people on the layout are up to is fun. Brian's website also has some good articles on modelling. I was particularly interested in his Directing Traffic about directing where the viewer looks.

Another modeller with a similar style to Brian is Anthony Goff. His Hilvermouth layout also has lots of scenes with interesting people. The layout is in OO9 terminus set in the 30's on the outskirts of a fictional town. He has a nice varied fleet of locomotives, some of which are based on real prototypes and some are freelance. They include a Double Fairlie and a Mallet. There's plenty going on around the railway too so in most of the pictures it's not the trains which draw the eye first.

Sometime in the spring I began reading the Fairlight Works blog. Back in April he only had one layout (Fairlight Works) but since then there have been a few side projects. He's also been scratch building a prototype PL class for Invercloy Loco Works and a Hunslet-style loco. He has a couple of large diesels in progress too: a Lxd2 kit and a drewey bash to make an Indian Railways ZDM5. The ZDM5 inspired me to think about a Bo-Bo diesel drewy bash too.

Another influence for the idea of a large diesel was my discovery of the Welsh Highland Railway. Both ends of the line have some massive narrow gauge locos - Castell Caernarfon and the Garratts at the Caernarfon end and the Lyd2s at Porthmadog. The Festiniog Railway Heritage Group Wiki is a great place to find information about both ends of the Welsh Highland Railway and the Ffestiniog Railway. It has great pictures of the lines, including photos of locomotives, wagons, coaches, engineering stock. It also has some great pictures of the WHR's number 143 SAR Class NGG16 Garratt. We visited the WHR(C) in June - we took some pictures but still haven't got the film processed.

Lastly for something standard gauge. Nigel Burkin's Platform 4a & 4b - is a superb model of part of Reading station set in the recent past. I love the Network SouthEast third rail EMUs but what caught my eye and made me want to do some modelling was the Buddleia (hopefully my 1:76 scale botany is up to scratch). I'm planning on trying to make some myself for my OO9 module. Once I get round to making it I'll let you know how I get on.

ExpoNG 2007

I didn't go but instead spent Saturday painting the living room. However due to the wonders of modern technology I spent some time yesterday evening looking at pictures taken by people who did. Michael Campbell has written a ExpoNG 2007 blog entry and posted some photos. Stephan Fulljames has also taken some photos. He doesn't have doesn't have a blog entry about them (yet) but they are well described on flikr. Edit: Stephan posted his ExpoNG blog entry at around the same time I posted this. There are also some photos by Simon King (MTA) in this NRM thread.

There were a couple of layouts that I remember reading about years ago. Benfield Hall (which I knew was going to be there) I remember from Railway Modeller and it is part of the reason I'd been thinking about pizza layouts. There was also Eitomo which is featured in a book I own "Scenic Railway Modelling" which was a plesent suprise. Another highlight was Stephan's photos was the Nn3 layout - the detail and the way the backsceen and model blend togther is amazing.

The pizza competition will be judged by Carl Arendt - Edit - the results can be found here.

Hopefully next year I'll be blogging about being there rather than other people's photos!

Rhyd Ddu: Woodland scenics vs IKEA

Colin Lea of "Rhyd Ddu" also saw the suggestion in Model Rail magazine of using 'Florera' from IKEA as ballast. He carried out an experiment 99p IKEA against £5.75 Woodland Scenics. His conclusion - Woodland Scenics is better. However I think the IKEA stuff could be useful in a yard where the ballast was going to be weathered anyway. See for yourself:

Rhyd Ddu: Woodland scenics 1 - IKEA 0 (AET)

Bo-Bo diesel

With the Life Like GP38 I recently bought and some bits from an Airfix/Dapol Drewry shunter I'm planning on building an Eastern European influenced loco. I'm planning on an off centre cab design.

To make sure I have a sensible loading gauge I'm planning on using using the height and width of the Lyd2 as a guide. Working from the measurements of the Lyd2 here gives me a maximum of 28.9mm wide and 42.7mm high.