[MichaelE]

A cargo consist on my Deutsche Bahn railroad.

I bought a Roco Br.193 Vectron w/sound for the Swiss SBB Cargo International freight hauler and a short consist of wagons. I'll be adding more in March.

The SBB CI hauls freight all over Europe and the four pantographs on the roof adapt to different county's catenary. Internal components allow these locomotives to run on different voltages and frequencies as well.

This locomotive was introduced in 2010 and is the newest locomotive on my railroad. The Br.187 I have was introduced somewhat earlier around the century mark, give or take.

The detail and printing on the locomotive is impressive and I have not installed the many detail parts that come with this locomotive nor the wagons. The yellow swing-roof cars still need the railing and other details installed, although the Rail Cargo Austria swing-roof came already installed. Both from the same manufacturer. Go figure.

This decoder has an automatic stop function programmed in that can be actuated randomly to simulate a locomotive fault or the engineer running an aspect, but I don't think that will see much use with another train about a minute behind on my layout. It also incorporates the optional use keep-awake horn that sounds randomly and you must turn it off each time it sounds. These are used on almost all locomotives I can think of in Europe.

I like those swing-roof wagons and the coal hoppers too. The yellow swing-roof cars and the blue PKP hoppers came as a set so each car number is different. The printing is so good on the hoppers that when I was trying to photograph them, the camera kept pulling up the company contact information and the phone number in Poland.

The yellow SBB tank car is a water car for railroad maintenance work. I don't know how it's used, but you'd have to have quite a crew to drink up that much water. Or maybe it's beer.

Back to running trains for now...

 

[MichaelE]

I almost forgot...

 

[Lemonhawk]

Why 4 pants? Different voltages?

 

[Lehigh74]

More detail than I ever expected to see in HO.

 

[MichaelE]

Different voltages, frequency, and the zig-zag of the cat wire in different countries.

The standard Swiss catenary would not be able to follow the German cat wire. The German pan contacts are wider because the zig-zag of the cat wire is greater. The Swiss pans are much narrower because they don't zig-zag the cat wire as much as Germany does and the Swiss pans would 'fall off' the wire destroying both the pantograph and a good length of wire and masts.

 

[MichaelE]

More detail than I ever expected to see in HO.

If my scenery skills were better and the lighting was right you couldn't tell them from the resl thing.

The Germans are fanatical about detail. Another reason I was attracted to European outline modeling.

 

[Stumpy]

Yes!

 

[MichaelE]

I thought you'd like that after the addition of the heavy freighr Br.151 locomotive still in passenger service.

 

[Stumpy]

Detail of the cars is impressive.

 

[Magic]

Those are really nice looking cars, nice to see something different.

Magic

 

[Gramps]

Different voltages, frequency, and the zig-zag of the cat wire in different countries.

The standard Swiss catenary would not be able to follow the German cat wire. The German pan contacts are wider because the zig-zag of the cat wire is greater. The Swiss pans are much narrower because they don't zig-zag the cat wire as much as Germany does and the Swiss pans would 'fall off' the wire destroying both the pantograph and a good length of wire and masts.

Very nice and very different.
When it goes from one type of catenary to another how to they avoid shorting out?

 

[MichaelE]

I don't know the answer to that questions Gramps.

If I had to guess I would say they lower the operating pan and coast under the next system and raise the pan while still in motion.

There are very short sections of catenary in systems that get replaced, or there may be something wrong with the cat that will cause the railroad to erect a sign indicating the pan(s) must be lowered and they will have to coast to the next good section. It not usually a very long distance.

Here is an example of a chang-over point. Those signs indicate the pans must be lowered prior to proceeding past the signs.

Here is another going from 750VDC to 15,000VDC. There is an isolated section of catenary between the two systems that is not visible in the top photo, but is there nonetheless.

 

[Gramps]

Very interesting, thanks.

 

[MichaelE]

This is another example of a changover at the German/Polish border at Frankfurt Oderbrücke. Not to be confused with Frankfurt-Main.

Notice the pans are down on this locomotive so he must either be stopped or is coasting under the next system.

 

[Gramps]

Thanks for the responses. Coasting from one system to the next makes sense and is probably the simplest.

 

[Lemonhawk]

15kv to 750 v, just a slight change in voltage! Thanks for all the great pictures and explanations. Now you just have to model a change over point! Another reason you need that button on your controller to raise and lower the Pans! Probably a good thing their not powered, just too much messing around and not enough running the trains!