construction maison moderne rhone

welcome to aiguillages, this week we're talking about the progress of one of the projects followed by aiguillages : autun vapeur parc's creation. my latest visit was during summer 2012, you will see in this report that things changed a lot since then, that the small oval layout became a lot larger, and that the first concrete building works started. the autun vapeur parc laid its first tracks on a leisure bases' ground, former augustodunum, in saã´ne et loire, in the middle of burgundy.

in 2012, the first trains' tracks were oval-shaped, the temporary layout was dismantled at the end of every operating day, waiting for a lasting installation, more comfortable, on another ground nearby. 2 years have past since this precarious installation, and the least one can say is that the metamorphosis has succeeded. major earthworks were made during spring 2013. tracks were laid, and the first buildings were constructed, including a small store room, 1:3 scaled, to house the rolling stock. nicolas gregulski, president of the association,

tells us about the 2 years that passed since the last visit of aiguillages' camera. we went from a movable layout to a fixed layout. last year we spent our spring, since the beginning of april, levelling the ground to lay the tracks, once this was done we were able to lay the tracks and we also started establishing green areas, by sowing grass for example. we also built the important element that allows us to store our equipment : our small depot, that can house 4 passenger cars and 1 locomotive. what makes it even more remarkable is that the members of the association started from scratch only with an empty field made available by the municipality.

for the association, the most urgent need was to store the rolling stock there, not to have to transport it every working day. actually, the goal of the club is to recreate the atmosphere of a small regional railway from the beginning of the 20th century. the idea was to take inspiration from what exists in the region. there's still heritage in our region, monuments were preserved, that's why we took our inspiration from the history of the tacot that used to link autun to chã¢teau-chinon, if i'm not mistaken. for example, for the store room that's behind you, we went to ã‰tang-sur-arroux,

because there has always been a depot of a locomotive that still exists, we recreated a 1:3 scaled model of it, and we started recreating a water tower, it's not complete yet, there's still work to do, and in the future the idea would be to recreate a station that would be the representation of a regional railway station. as they take their inspiration from railway buildings that exist or have existed in the morvan, the store room was based on one of those operated by the tacot. we want to stay true to the dimensions of ã‰tang-sur-arroux's depot, divided by 3, so our store room is 3 meters long and 2 meters large. as our passenger cars are 2 meters long, we didn't have enough space

so we found a way to pile them on top of each other, and in this depot, we installed an electric hoist mounted on a forklift truck that allows us to get the wagons in one by one and to carry them, to place them on top of each other; and we use the middle track to shunt the locomotive. it's important to know that a wagon weights 120 kg ... there's not enough room for 2 people inside, so it's the best system that we found. the autun vapeur parc is about to start its 2nd full operating season on this new land, with a track that is far from being completed.

we operate 1200 mâ² of land, and our layout is 250 meters long. its particular feature is that the radius of curvature is very small, we have a radius of curvature of 6 meters, so only 2 locomotives with 2 axles can operate on the layout, plus the wagons that are mounted on bogies. locomotives with more than 2 axles, like the 030, can't operate on this layout. was it a requirement related to the ground, or to the circuit diagram ?

actually we reused a part of our movale layout that, because of dimensions, already had a radius of curvature of 6 meters, so as we already had something we didn't want to start all over again, and the standard radius of curvature is more than 10 meters, for example the swiss vapeur parc has a radius of curvature of 14 meters, so if we had to follow this, we would have needed enourmous earthworks, and we didn't have the funding to perform those works. so that's why we started with this small layout and in the future, if we expand it, the project is to follow the real standard with a radius of curvature of 14 meters

to be able to operate all kinds of locomotives. does it mean the current tracks would be redrawn ? it means there would be 2 layouts in 1. it means the small layout would still be this one and that the club's locomotives those with 2 axles, would still operate on this small layout, but starting from this one we could make a bigger one with a radius of curvature of 14 meters where all locomotives could operate without any problem. what makes those options possible is that, for now,

the layout only uses a very small part of the land that was given by autun's mayor. we currently only use 1/10 of the granted surface : we can operate up to 11000 mâ² of land, so according to our plans, the different projections we made before starting the works, we hope to be able to build an about 2 kilometers long layout. according to the drawings we had made, it's possible. as the president, i'm giving myself 10 years to get those 2 kilometers of tracks. so, the goal is not to lay 2 km of tracks just to have 2 km of tracks, it's to create a real network,

and to decorate each part of land. the first considered extension of the layout would allow the trains to get closer to the lake and to a playground that is frequended by many children. but the achievment of this project depends on the results of the operation during different seasons, nicolas' priority being to perfect the existing one and to purchase a steam engine that would operate on sundays, as tourist trains do. i think recreating this regional railway between autun and chã¢teau-chinon is a good idea, here you are on the basis of everything that will be built, that's why i'd like to build a station here quickly,

and then, while extending the layout, to rebuild it as it was at that time, which is a station at every intersection, or a building, you see, ideas are not lacking, it can be a farm, well a mini-farm with miniature animals, etc, really we want to decorate the land, because if we just have rails lost in a field, it's not fun at all. autun vapeur parc's season goes from the end of april to the end of october, trains operate every day during school holidays, on wednesdays and sundays during school terms

and stop on mondays in july and in august. next week in aiguillages : the ho scaled layout of halanzy rail's friends in belgium. aiguillages offers a new report every week, about tourist trains or railway model-making, to be sure not to miss any of the next episodes, subscribe to its youtube channel, and subscribe to its newsletter that you will find on the site : www.aiguillages.eu, you'll receive every week a mail informing you about new reports published on the channel. until next week,

here is a selection of videos to watch for first or second time.