Grensstad is a fictional location in The Netherlands situated close to the borders of Belgium and Germany, so it sees a wide variety of traffic. The layout follows the traditional continental approach with it being operated from the front which allows for greater interaction with the visitors.
Trackwork and Baseboards
The boards are Tim Horn pre constructed and measure 3m by 1m when set up. The track was already laid and wired to a high standard with the boards designed as plug n play and is something we have tried to keep as we have added lighting to the scenery etc.
The track and point work is all Peco throughout, the points are manually operated from the layout front via a wire in a tube method which works well. The layout is fully wired for DCC operation with the electrofrog points polarity controlled by a series of hex-frog juicers.
The scenery
The warehouses around the freight sidings came from ten commandments and were painted with acrylic paint. The station platform was made from a base Auhagen kit and adapted to suit the location with other decorations added from various sources. The buildings in the town square are all Faller kits sourced from the Netherlands and were adapted to low relief.
They are reproductions of actual Dutch buildings. The vehicles and pedestrians are all off the shelf Herpa, Viking and Faller Models with some specific Dutch ones again obtained from shops in The Netherlands. The signal box is again a Faller kit slightly adapted to suit. The street and building lighting has been achieved using the Woodland scenic just plug system, which follows the original plug n play wiring ethos. The working signal is ready made by Mafen and is accurate to the era modelled.
The Rolling Stock and Operation
The operation is loosely based from the late 1990’s through to the present day which was a deliberate choice to allow the variety of locomotives, DMU’s etc to be showcased. The layout can be easily operated with two people. This allows us to always keep something moving somewhere on the layout.
The rolling stock mainly consists of Fleischmann, Minitrix and Piko ready made items. The mainstay of the passenger operation is a Fleischmann NS Wadloper unit and a Piko Stadler private operator DMU, although this sometimes gets interspersed with a DB218 on either Silverfish or Double Deck stock to add a bit of cross border variety.
The yard shunter is normally a Fleischmann ex DR V100 now used by ACTS although sometimes an old NS600 will appear (the Dutch version of an 08).
The freight traffic is predominately in the hands of multiple NS 6400 centre cab loco’s from Minitrix and Piko although an ACTS 58 does make regular appearances along with some SNCB class 77’s from HobbyTrain. DB 216/217’s or a DB232 will often appear to add a splash of colour. The locomotives are a mix of sound and normal DCC.