British N Gauge Modular Groups

[scotsoft]

Very well done scenery, thank you for posting the pictures 

cheers John.

[Greybeema]

Excellent wprk. 

It should be held up as an example of a railway cut into the landscape - rather than the landscape built up around the railway...   It is what we should all be modelling...

[MacRat]

Great modelling Matthias, thank you for posting. I'm looking forward to seeing your modules in about two weeks time.
For anyone visiting the Oktoberfest "Wiesn" in Munich this year, how about a side-trip to Lohr on September 22 ?

Regarding the English version of the guidelines for Great-britN modules, the translation and work on the document is almost done. It just awaits "approval".

[haeckmaen]

Thanks for your kind comments and for your 'thanks'. 

It should be held up as an example of a railway cut into the landscape - rather than the landscape built up around the railway...   It is what we should all be modelling...

I'd suggest to grab/cut a pair of 'slope' (or 'cutting' or 'embankment') profiles and give it a try then

Looking forward to the next meeting as well

Matthias

[haeckmaen]

Having spent the weekend on this small project I'd like to keep on advertising and encouraging to have a go on modular constructed layouts. Whilst the tin mine module presented above is a very heavy and solid item, the work-in-progress module featured here is almost its opposite consisting of pre-manufactured, laser cut endplates and rather lightweight 10mm plywood. It is however a surprisingly rigid construction.

I am aware the 40 cm of straight track this section is going to feature may not be the most interesting part of a modular railway system. Nevertheless the section will form an essential part of our modular groups' arrangement, making it possible to directly attach my Penzance project to all modules with a standard 'slope' endplate without a scenic break, including the previously mentioned 'tin mine' module.

Instead of more lengthy description, here are the photos.















Progress ceased at the point where it would have come to tracklaying and wiring due to unforeseen accident I had run out of code 55 track and to my disbelief one local dealer had just dropped Peco from his product range while the other has shut down his business completely about two months ago, both of them previously having been Peco stockists.

I may continue posting some modular progress here some time, and if you're interested all questions are of course more than welcome.

Regards, Matthias

[Newportnobby]

That's extremely neat work, Matthias, and it looks very strongly constructed

[McRuss]

Hello,

I will join these thread.
At the moment I build a junction module.



Here are some pictures from our Great-britN meeting.














Here you could see a my module Wuerzburg Road, which is a N-RE module, but could easily be incooperated in a Great-britN modular arrangement










In these picture you could see another N-RE module incooperated in our Great-britN arrangement

http://www.ios-railway.de/pix/Great-britN2012V01e.pdf
The modular arrangement.
As soon as MacRat has finished the redoing of the Great-britN norm, I will make it available online.

Markus

[MacRat]

For anyone interested, the new completely rewritten English version of the Great-britN Module Guidelines are now available. I've posted the PDF to the media section of the forum: [smg id=2343 type=av] .

I 'm looking forward to hearing from you.

[McRuss]

The rewritten Great-britN and N-RE Module Guideline are now alsow available on the IoS Website.
http://www.ios-railway.de/normen.html

Markus

[MacRat]

I got feedback that the numbers in the drawings for the Great-britN end profiles are not legible in the PDF guideline, so I tried to add better quality pictures. An updated version of the Great-britN guidelines is in the media section.

[smg id=8539 type=av]

[PostModN66]

Delightful!

Cheers  Jon

[haeckmaen]

As mentioned in my Penzance layout thread, one of the causes for the increased modelling efforts was an small exhibition in the greater Berlin area I was invited to attend the previous weekend. This however was not meant to be an exhibition of Penzance only but of all modular sections built to FREMO GreatBritN-standards available in the Berlin area.

The modules we were able to get together were:
- Penzance station
- Uig station, originally built by McRuss, now owned by a Berlin fellow modeller
- Cornish disused tin mine module
- Scottish castle ruin module
- several British freelance stretch-of-line modules

Thanks to the modular concept, despite the different topics anything went well together creating a consistent exhibition layout with about 11 metres of running track between two fully working stations. Usually, we would have attached a fiddle yard at either end of the arrangement, but in this case, just for fun and for exhibition purposes, we created a direct nonstop L-shaped link between Cornwall and Scotland

The track plan (fiddle yard in the middle was then replaced by modules featuring landscape)

http://www.zwei-m.de/temp/20131130.klause_elstal.pdf

This is how the arrangement was looking like:







As the exhibition itself was quite busy (and proved a success with the public most of them never having seen UK outline before) I didn't manage to take any pictures during the opening hours myself. Lucky though, two fellow modellers attending as visitors have uploaded their pics on the net so you may follow the links if you like.

http://www.thwoditsch.de/fotos/301113/

http://www.zwei-m.de/modelle/Weihnachtsmarkt-Elstal13/


Any questions regarding this kind of modular concept are still most welcome.

Best regards,
Matthias

[McRuss]

From today the Great-britN homepage is online.
There is still work to do, but a start is made.

http://www.great-britn.de/

Markus

[Longmoor]

Richard,

Thank you for your reply and invite. Unfortunately, being in Staffordshire/Derbyshire, Berkshire is a bit far me. However, I am interested to learn more about the NMod standard, which I have not heard of before.

After some browsing/searching I have found and read the Berks standard (http://bagladdies.weebly.com/layouts.html), the West Sussex standard (http://www.wsng.co.uk/Module%20Design.htm) and the Yorkshire standard (http://www.yorkshirengauge.org.uk/page17.html). There appear to be some variations between these and differences in the level of detail.

Has the NGS published the NMod standard at all, as I am unable to find any reference to this on the NGS website?

Regards,
Michael

Hi Micheal,

I wonder if you have made any progress in your search for a British standard for N gauge modules. I'm asking the same questions and don't seem to be getting any answers. I don't much like the German standard, it's too big and heavy. I have come to N gauge because I want to get more railway into less space and the German system does not seem to be designed with that in mind.

However I do like the bit that says 

Through this we have come to value:
Individuals and interaction over processes and tools
Working modules over comprehensive landscape modelling and detailing
Coherent reflection of prototype operation over fine scale modelling
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

I'm in Northeast Hampshire, anyone else around here asking these questions?

David

[Michael Fearn]

Hi David,

I have not found any substantial new information.

Although not started yet, I'll probably go for something based around the Great BritN standard because of the flexibility it offers. In my view, it is only the ends of the module or group of modules that need to match the dimensions and profile of this standard and the modules do not need to have set dimensions and geometry so can be sized and shaped to fit my needs, providing there is no electrical interference with the through running line(s).

The Berkshire Area Group now has a bit of NMod module info on http://bagladdies.weebly.com/module-construction.html and there is a list of NGS area group contacts that may be of use if you have not yet tried them http://www.ngaugesociety.com/index.php?page=Area-Group-contacts

Michael