Ashi Valkoinen

Hello William, thank you for your kind words! And for your questions and thoughts, just in order: GySEV/ROeEE is quite small operator compared to MÁV-START (Hungarian State Railway) and ÖBB (Austrian State Railway). GySEV works mostly with motor units - diesel ones on branch lines and electric ones on mainlines. They own some Jenbacher single and double DMU's (bought from ÖBB), FLIRT, FLIRT3 and Desiro ML electric motor units, and these serve all the local passanger train needs in general. In the rush hours some additional trains are required - these are served with traditional locomotive + passanger cars setup. Since all time schedules are set up for motor units (quick reverse at end stations), the loco + cars formations need to be reversed quick - that's why they use these driver cars. The InterCity service between Sopron/Szombathely (western Hungary cities) and Budapest (capital of Hungary) are served by loco + passanger car trains, but these have enough time to reverse, so if they contain this driver car, this is only for bicycle transport, because former ÖBB cars don't have compartment for bikes. Basically in Hungary there were many driver cars, but since we were unfortunately part of the Soviet Union for a long while, no western european standards were used here when driver cars were produced. The wiring, the remote control setup is unique on these, old BDt cars could remote control diesel, electric, even steam engines, but if a car was able to remote control the electric loc, it wasn't able to do this with the diesel one, so each locomotive series had their own driver cars, without the interoperability. After russians went off, we never really reached "west", and while we bought these Inlandswagen driver cars for MÁV-START, too, they never used them as driver car. It took a decade to use the "Halberstadter" driver cars in pushed formations - we didn't have any locomotives compatible with the remote control system of those (later some old electric was upgraded to work with them, but they lost their ability to work with old BDt driver cars). GySEV was forced to make the "Inlandswagen" work due to the discussed operational needs above. Budapest owns yellow trams quite a long while, their look is quite coherent, and only Siemens Combinos got a really small green and blue pattern, but this had nothing to do with GySEV railway operator.

This evening I'd like to share my first train MOC of year 2024 with you - seems building and rebuilding the big station took all the time and money I can spend on this wonderful hobby! Full consist by Donát Raáb, on Flickr The biggest change in the train station project was switching to terminus design - and as my Stadler FLIRT and KISS units can reverse quickly, with traditional locomotive + passanger cars consists it takes more time to reverse, especially with the lack of a second locomotive for short reverse. So I decided to build a GySEV/Raaberbahn car again (there are two big railway companies in Hungary, the State Railway operator, MÁV-START and the Austrian-Hungarian GySEV/Raaberbahn). There are only three of the 8076 series driver cars in the green/yellow livery of GySEV, these cars were former ÖBB units, but some of them were sold to both MÁV-START and GySEV. The green/yellow company uses this driver cars in pulled and pushed trains to serve some local trains, but they also appear strictly in pulled formations on the Sopron-Budapest InterCity line, in these trains they serve the need of bicycle transportation. GySEV 8076-102 "Inlandswagen" driver car by Donát Raáb, on Flickr Full consist with various GySEV cars by Donát Raáb, on Flickr However this car in the yellow/green livery is really rare (GySEV owns three of them), the LEGO-parts I used for this MOC are even more rare! The 1×4×3 train windows, the 1×2 hinges with 2/3 teeth, the 1×1 plates with clip (both horizontal and vertical) were officially never produced, they are not listed on Bricklink by colour green, but small amount of them were made for LEGOland builds. I was fortunate enough that a German builder, Thomas owned some of these windows (18 were used in total), and sold me his Q-elements at a decent price! Train windows 1×4×3 in green! by Donát Raáb, on Flickr Plate 1×1 with clip parts by Donát Raáb, on Flickr Beyond the rare parts the design itself was quite challanging, too. These type of cars (known as Schlieren, Inlandswagen) are lower than standard UIC-X and UIC-Z cars, which requires a lowered bogie profile, too. As I was doing the math for the window setup, I realised that it won't be enough to build a simple tower of 1×1 bricks between windows, but a quite unusual offset, 1 stud + 2 plates will be need (=1,8 studs). This was quite hard to carry over keeping structure. The doors are 3 studs wide with 0,5-0,5 plates wide black frame, lot of bracket were spent on them! I'm quite happy with the front, too, unfortunately GySEV has many cars and motor units with green sides but full yellow fronts - the corners are not LEGO-friendly at all! Front details by Donát Raáb, on Flickr I hope you like it, I guess this passanger car will be my only train build this year - and 15th anniversary of this topic getting closer. :) Full consist with interior lights by Donát Raáb, on Flickr A video of the full consist in pushed train, Bdfmpz 8076-102 + Bp 20-33 000 + Bmz 21-90 000 + ABmz 31-90 000 + Taurus 470-502: Full speed in pushed train formation by Donát Raáb, on Flickr

Honestly, i think it will happen, sooner than later. Thank you for all of the nice comments - I completely forgot to include a video showing the station during train movements. But now, here it is:

Hello, I am not sure I can do it for since the digital design is on my older computer. I'll try to look up for it, but will take some time 'til I get back to my homeplace where it is stored. You may find some photos at my Flick-gallery to get started - looking back at this tram it is quite easy design compared to my recent stuff. :) https://www.flickr.com/photos/150200265@N08/albums/72157700704620731/with/44498911334

The photos below shows my 10th iteration of a LEGO train station. The first version was made back in 2010, with only two short tracks and two switches, with a 6-wide platform beetwen the tracks. As the number of my trains increased the more tracks I'd built during the years - but all iterations were organic developement from the previous version. Two years passed only after 2010 and my station was the biggest in our LUG and was a great junction on our double track mainline and this type of through station was developed until the 9th iteration. I was really happy with the 9th version, with freshly installed FX Bricks P40 (R104-ish) 9V switches, but the setup time before each show went up crazy - took 14 hours to put it up and 5 hours to dismantle. There were a lot of frustrating, time consuming and boring setup progresses due to the irregular track geometry and the cables I ran through almost all baseplates. I also started to find a through station boring, no shuntings were performed during shows, and as being part of a through line with two tracks, our LUG always put up a double track oval, which resulted in trains going around circles and there were no point-to-point traffic. So, for this time, the 10th main version, for the first time, I completely erased the full previous station and started fresh. It took 4 months to do, and half of this time was digital planning - I wanted to have a terminus, where all train should reverse, but with good reversing capacity, a geometry, which support arriving and departing trains, shunting, and also easier to install compared to the previous one. The ballast under tracks were increased to 4 plates (I started with 3 plates back in 2010), so now I have a comfortable space under the tracks for electronics and could plan better the cable connections. All switches of the station are motorised and controlled via Bluetooth on my computer. I started to enjoy managing the traffic done by others, who like driving their trains, but I also really like to run my modern EMUs on it. Fortunately my girlfriend, Tünde, take turn being the traffic controller, so I can drive, do the shunting, going around with locs, pull out some cars, etc. Switching to a terminus design instead of supporting the double track oval also had good influence on our LUG, more trains were running during the last show and everyone enjoyed the traffic we made - trains started somewhere and then went somewhere else, not just going around again and again. This gallery features some photos of the full layout we set up for a show at the end of September. The station has seven tracks for arriving and departing trains, can handle a single track branchline and a double track mainline, has four very long storage tracks and three shorter dead ends for storing the shunting/waiting locomotives. Train station and me. by Donát Raáb, on Flickr Morning hour. by Donát Raáb, on Flickr Station and computer for switch control. by Donát Raáb, on Flickr The full layout. by Donát Raáb, on Flickr Storage yard with wooden sleepers by Donát Raáb, on Flickr

Actually, the six tracks seem to be not enough anymore, a seventh track is under construction...

Fortunately @Vilhelm22's Instagram comment reminded me to post the photo of full assembly here, so there it is: IMG_8025_sm by Donát Raáb, on Flickr One step closer to complete the layout I dreamt about since 2010. This is my LEGO train station, an average Hungarian mainline station somewhere in the suburbs of the capital, Budapest. This is not the replica of an existing station, but a station built in the mood of Hungarian renovated mainline station and a LEGO-creation, which supports my needs when it comes to play with my trains. The station has six long tracks, each one has a platform and a storage yard (not shown on image, bottom left corner) and a branchline track is attached to the double track mainline. I have this station for a long time by now, but since December of 2023 I replaced all TLC's R40 points and curves to FX Bricks R104 switches and curves for better and more aesthetic operation - and all of the switches are now motorised and controlled by the software I created to manage the train routes and corresponding signals at my layout.

So, on the 23th of December, 2023. this topic became 14 years old, and as time is going on, finally I'm getting closer to the dream I kept dreaming of since I started the LEGO Train hobby. Some years ago I started a new topic called "Waiting for 9V R104 switch - a case study of station geometry" about the developement of my LEGO train station with 9V R104 turnouts, as @michaelgale and his team made FX Tracks P40 switches available for everyone to buy, I started the last big rebuild of my LEGO train station. My goal was always a nicely renovated, Hungarian mainline station, with useful track connections and keeping it available for drivers who arrived with track powered trains. I drive no more 9V trains at all, but for me it was an important issue to grant backward compatibility to those, who owned many train at the times I started this hobby. And since no 9V switches were to buy until last autumn, my station had always genuie LEGO tracks, the R40 points (note: LEGO R40 refers to 40 studs radius, FX P40 refers to 40 studs length of the straight direction, but FX P40s' radius is close to R104). The first photo shows the current, final layout of my station, inclusing two (left and right) switching yards. The upper layout is the new one, the bottom one is the last version of R40, which also featured some prototype FX P40 switches and one TrixBrix R104R on the left switching yard. MLVK_RaabDonat_ACTUAL_FUTURE_2024-01-30_v2 by Donát Raáb, on Flickr The last month was busy at my workplace and at home with the train station, I started the rebuild process on the 31st of December, ignoring some Happy New Year parties I was invited. :) I finished with the renovated modules on the 30th of January, so it took one month to complete. I started with the "right" switching yard for first - the following photo shows the part close to the platforms. The building wasn't easy, since I needed to leave space for cables leading to the motors switching the points and enlighting the signals, and everything should kept modular so I can fit the whole 11 meters long stuff and the train to a single car I'm using to participate events. wip_01_sm by Donát Raáb, on Flickr And this is the "right" switching yard in full length - 8 motorised switches, which make connection between the two tracks mainline and the branch line connecting at my station to the main loop. wip_02_sm by Donát Raáb, on Flickr Left part of the "left" switching yard - this yard features 10 points and it is quite larger - I had no space to build it all together, but in two major parts. This following photo shows the easier part - switches' straight directions are paralel with stud grid so easier to motorise. wip_08_sm by Donát Raáb, on Flickr And this is the hard to build part of the "left" switching yard - the two switches placed in an angle compared to stud grid needed a big table to put together for ballasting. For this part I rented a place from a friend, because I have neither the tables not the space (and patience from girlfriend) here at home to house this. wip_05_sm by Donát Raáb, on Flickr And for the six tracks, the platform modules, starting with track 1 & 2: wip_07_sm by Donát Raáb, on Flickr track 3 & 4 (two, 72 studs long ÖBB cars for size reference): wip_03_sm by Donát Raáb, on Flickr and track 5 & 6: wip_06_sm by Donát Raáb, on Flickr And next Friday I'll see if I planned well, because there will be an event in Hungary and I can see, how all the modules fit to each other I've built last month! All of the switches are now motorised and included in the software I created in SBrick Pro to make a fully working signalling and train detection for my station, it will be so easy now that we don't need to take care of switching the points to the right direction but the software will do it also making sure, no trains can collide if drivers play according to the appearing signal aspects!

Finally I made a single R104 turnout using FX P40left switch and two pieces of FX R104 track. As peviously told, the incorrect alignment for this setup is so small, that the full R104 turnout can work and it is not necessary to use the tight R64P return curves. Of course, the track joints are little stressed, as they are not fully connected, but since tracks built in Holger-curves survived over a decade, I don't think it may damage the joints on long term. 20240204_115858 by Donát Raáb, on Flickr

I'll share it soon as I'm progressing with the building of my station. There is a topik linked in my signature which I use to share all my MOCs, I'll post it there mid-February, based on the experiences collected at the event held 10th-11th of February.

I motorised the switches back in 2023 at Bausipebahn Treffen - I designed the motorisation without having any switches, just the photos of them and Michael lend me 4 switches for the show. Ties' wonderful video shows them at work, too: https://youtu.be/ih4UUo-5cOE?si=G_w3Y_btvb5-joaT&t=456

I would like to add my 50 cents to this conversation, too. I got yesterday part of my order, including two pairs of switches (I ordered a really big batch and to four different adresses to avoid the hungarian post completely losing the order) and I inspected the tiebar on my switches, too. Unfortunately I got them from the latest batch, which have the wrong tiebar. I found it really pleasing, that a dozen hours after the problem was revealed, @michaelgale (and his team) wrote a tutorial, how to inspect your switches and made a refund/repair process to let people know what will be next. As many products we use daily in our lives, when we discover a minor issue, we just go on and don't even expect the manufacturer simply taking care of it. So for me it was really nice feel to read the post "We are sorry", because this team has respect for the costumers. The other part of the story is how we can access the tiebar itself and how we can pull the moving parts apart. This tiebar issue also highlighted that the P40s are a good products for the customers - we can disassemle, repair, rework (with 3D printers at home?) and inspect the product, and I'm pretty sure that later we can order replacement parts for our switches, too. If you loose a switching rail, the pin breaks off, a tiebar spring break off, later these can be replaced instead of buying a full new switch. There is also space for FX's first 3rd party manufacturers - a tiebar with stronger/weaker springs, ballast plates, etc, may be available in the future. So this issue (however it is issue for both the manufacturer and the customer) also has shown us how problems like this shoud be discussed.

That was a long time before planning and building. Do you consider to revise you old plans according to better parts available by now?

I totally forgot about my second Stadler KISS unit - after finishing the Stadler Citylink for Stadler Trains Hungary I started to build and deliver the static KISS unit for the company. I mage minor changes on Stadler's unit - and later, when I was building the interior lights to my KISS I applied the changes to my unit, too.

Thanks, already forwarded your comment to her. :) There was a double track loop this time. Point-to-point traffic is the best I prefer, but turning around the trains requires some time, and the visitors - mostly the kids - may get quickly bored with realistic frequency of trains. So the last year we turned for the double track mainline, which forms a big oval, hosting two mainline stations (mine with the signalling and Máté Dömel's one), and there is always a single track branch line with two or three additional station, splitting from the mainline at my part or Máté's part. The branch line is a nice place forthe point-to-point and shunting traffic, and the mainline has a nice capacity to feature trains for the visitors. We are also thinking about leaving the big oval and use return loops at the "end" of the mainline, like traditional model railroaders - this option might giving a better use of space at different locations where we are used to display our layout. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q27JYEC3Po This video shows most of our trains and the parts of the layout as well. :)