Visit to my FREMO friend (2017)

 

FREMO

FREMO stands for "Freundeskreis Europäischer Modellbahner", Association of European Model Railroaders.  At present, Fremo with approximately 1900 members is one of the few model railroad clubs in the world that enjoy an increase in the number of members.  I visited my friends in Germany and learned a lot about FREMO model railroad club activities. Refer to Wikipedia in detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FREMO

 

Specification of FREMO Module

There are multiple specifications in FREMO. Other than HO gauge, there is also a specification for N gauge. There are specifications not only for single track but also double track. There are different track dimensions such as normal track dimension and fine dimension. There is no interoperability between modules that belong to different category. For scenery, each module prototypes a certain region of a certain country at a certain era in a certain season of the year. The FREMO supports only DCC.



Here are two unique characteristics of the FREMO module as far as I understand:

1. The height from the ground to the top of the track is 1,300mm, that’s very high.
2. There are several pre-defined end-plate shape templates that every member has to follow.

The reason of such high height is that FREMO aims to give more realistic feelings for the loco operator who moves along modules in a standing position. Actually, it is true that the distance between the eye position and the loco is much closer, that definitely submerges myself in the world of real railway. The reason of restricting shapes of the end module is that they do not want to destroy the landscape even at the module connecting point.

FREMO Meeting

In FREMO, they hold very large scale gathering once several years. Recently, they held that meeting in 2016 as the 35th FREMO anniversary event at Riesa close to Dresden in Germany. It is amazing to see so many modules were connected in the huge venue.

Approximately 70 module meetings take place every year, the vast majority of which are events not open to the public. Such meetings last three to five days and are always organized and arranged by local members. These organizers determine the scale, the theme or motto and the epoch in which this meeting is set. Even smaller meetings have 40 or more attendees, some of which travel great distances to participate.

Module meeting

For the module meeting, the layout arrangement and the train timetable are planned utilizing CAD and it often takes more than one month to get the jobs done. An average size arrangement consists of about 10 railroad stations and 150 to 200 meters of main track and it takes about one day to set up and make it ready for operation.

After this has been accomplished train operation is carried out, usually with the time factor 4, in a number of sessions according to schedule and real-life operation. One such session usually lasts 3 to 4 hours and the participants take over various functions such as traffic controller, dispatcher, train engineer or shunter. The main objective of all such meetings is to conjointly pursue diversified activities in compliance with train operation encompassing as many attendees as possible.

For example, at the stone factory yard, the station master controls hopper opening and load right amount of stones (typically ballast of the model railroad) to hopper cars. The loco operator appropriately moves the hopper cars to adjust the right position as a collaboration task.

In Europe, more than 80 percents are freight trains.

It is amazing that the fine-built catenary exists above the track

One of the module end template

The yellow nob controls the opening level of the stone factory. 

A train speed controller that can be plugged to each module

Back side of the module

The connection point between two connecting catenary system

The gap between two connecting module is very small

Backside of the module

Canyon Station

"Canyon Station" as a Japanese HN Module specification

Photo Gallery

Module Concept

This module is built based on my trips to the south western region of United States several times. In those areas, both American Narrow Gauge (914mm, 3 feet) and Standard Gauge (1,435mm) co-existed in the early 20th century. For example, Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) operated several railway lines in those days. Most model railroaders outside US do not know that such dual-gauge track existed in USA.

That's why this module has a dual-gauge portion, 16.5mm and 12mm tracks are used. In fact, 10.5mm track should be used for the 914mm track from fine-scale modeling standpoint. However, I intentionally selected 12mm track because I wanted to connect my existing HOm (12mm) layout I built before, so the use of 12mm track is not a simple mistake.

The module concept and background is the following - "a fictional Canyon Station is located in south western US where both Standard and American Narrow gauges co-existed. The station is located very close to fictional Canyon River. This station is the beginning of the narrow gauge railway line that connects to some scenic areas of the other side of the river. There is a small bridge maintenance workshop nearby station."

In my layout plan, this "Canyon Station" theme consists of three separate modules, the canyon bridge module, the bridge maintenance workshop module, and the station module. The bridge maintenance workshop module is completed so far and two modules will come later.

Please refer to the following link for the specification of the "HN module" in Japanese.

Building of the module

 

Step 1: Track and turnout selection

Turnouts from three different manufactures are used in this module, one from Shinohara, one from PECO, and three from Tillig. The above dual-gauge turnout with16.5mm and 12mm tracks is manufactured by Tillig.

Backside of the turnout

 

Since original turnout's frog portion is not powered, I modified it to the powered frog using supplementary power supply from Turtoise point motor. The powered frog part I build is shown below.

The separated frog with wiring.

Step 2: Module base building

Track base board

 Trimmed track based board with holes.

Tracks are located on the track base board.

Wiring from the back side.

Track base board is put on the HN module base.

HN module base with wiring holes.

 HN module base

HN module with four legs. The length: 1050mm and the breadth: 420mm

Step 3: Scenery creation

A big rock hill is built by the mix of middle rock part I created for another module before and many smaller plaster-made rocks

Small rocks are temporally placed around upper rock base. 

Small rocks with IDs.

Upper rock base is supported by wood frames.

Allocated rocks are bonded by plaster

The rock hill before painting

The rock hill before painting

Ground surface details

Painted rock hill on the module

Track shoulder

Module end

Track painting

Step 5: Finishing

Ground surface painting

Completed module with trains

Completion of the Canyon Station module

 

In-module space for storing small parts in the case of hand carry

US Diesel Loco FP7 (red) and GP9 (yellow)

At the joint HN module club member meeting at Kyoto in 2017.

FP7 diesel loco is 16.5mm

This module is connected with my friend's module that also provides the same dual gauge track. The dual gauge is not a part of HN module specification.

The bridge maintenance workshop with workers at lunch.

Swiss's Glacier Express of MGB, Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn, is on 12mm track

Thank you for checking my blog!