St. Gervais

Second Thoughts

Return to layout page

This follows on from "Swiss Layouts with a Difference" an article from the September 2018 Newsletter. As I wrote "People visualise Swiss railways as super clean alpine electric railways. While this is largely true my interest has been with minor lines that operated into the mid 1960's with small steam locos, short often mixed trains, had a tinge of Colonel Stephens, and were modelable in a small space."

A Nyon bound passenger train at Borex-Arnex 1958

History    in 1905 the Chemin de fer Nyon - Crassier {NC} extended the Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée branch to Divonne-les-Bains across the Swiss boarder to Nyon on the Lausanne - Geneva mainline. Intermediate stations at Crassier-La Rib, Borex-Arnex, and Eysins were basic with a combined station, goods shed and loading dock served by a loop (double ended) siding. Crassier the border station also had a dead end siding. The NC had 7 points. Till its 1921 bankruptcy the NC operated cross-border steam trains. The NC was taken over by Canton Vaud and operated by the Swiss Federal Railway with steam locos augmented by a BFm 2/4 50 seat diesel electric railcar 1952-62. On 29/9/62 passenger services were replaced by buses. 1963 bought closure Divonne to Eysins to make way for a motorway. The remaining diesel worked section serves more than a dozen industrial connections and occasionally sees heritage trains. At its peak a combination of passenger and mixed trains made six round trips daily taking 33-40 minutes for the 9.1 Km run. Trains comprised a steam loco, coach, forgon (parcels/break van) and for mixed trains goods wagons. Operation was one train in motion Divonne-Nyon.

A passenger train crosses the A1 Motorway

St. Gervais    is inspired by the NC and is named St. Gervais after a school in Crassier. I use inspired as usual I wanted to make best use of existing boards. The Plan is to use the Bete1 fiddle yard and throat boards and add a new station board. An advantage is the Bete1 fiddle yard board has just had its track rearranged to give more capacity with the siding to France able to hold a train at the buffer end while the station end is used for shunting.

 
Crassier-La Rippe in the first years of operation The front building is the Swiss Customs

Station Board    as the photo below shows the NC's stations follow the classic continental approach to minor stations a combination of small station building and larger goods shed on a loading dock. The other facility at the station is hard standing to allow horse and motor vehicles to back up to wagons.

The BFm 2/4 at Crassier Station

Operation    the major change is trains between France and Switzerland will have to reveres at St. Gervais a pain for the real railways but more fun for modellers if the stock runs well. Given its international status there may be visits by SNCF possibly a railcar.

Track Plan

The problem is when I build a layout with an unusual prototype, scale, and/or gauge it normally ends up being rebuilt to exhibit at the Good Shepherd and the track plan is unprototypical for a UK station!

Second Thoughts

After further thought I realised that if the station buildings were reversed the track plan would be viable for a UK layout. Train length would be twenty six inches and comprise a loco, forgon (break & parcels van), and either 2 coaches, coach & two wagons, or 4 wagons. The goods siding, top right, is twenty inches long and will hold four wagons one next to the goods shed, one next to the loading dock and two next to the hardstanding. The bay (bottom) will be used by the French railcar and a wagon or two left at the buffers.

Revised Track Plan