Everything began with cards written for each of my purchases in model making and accompanied, as I like photography, by an “identity photo” of each model. For the support, I had to choose between Word document and HTML. I opted for the latter, which I already used professionally for educational materials.
Since I don’t have an extraordinary memory, I also began writing a history of the modifications that I brought to some models.
On the occasion of a move, I found documents that had been sleeping for several decades, the oldest of which dating back to 1910 — I was not born, eh! They were probably not all very rare, nor of a prodigious interest, you’ll be the judge. I began to scan these documents, some being damaged and fragile. Moreover, they were easier to consult as well. A long-term work, far from being finished, especially as I decided to make a character recognition for some, the interest being to allow a search in the text.
At the beginning, this website was merely a synthesis in a practical form of what I have just presented to you. Then came naturally the idea to publish it, hoping that some Internet users would be interested.
It was a big surprise to me, that some people around me, a priori not concerned at all with the railways, found interesting things on this site. With these people in mind, I endeavour to use as little jargon and abbreviations as possible; when this is not possible, I try my best to explain technical terms in tooltips or by other means.
In the pages devoted to models, you will find, whenever possible, a table of compared dimensions — reminiscent of Loco-Revue of the 1970s? I am aware that such a table doesn’t tell all about the accuracy of a model, which holds much of its overall aspect. But this can hold some surprises: some models are wrongly decried!
In these pages, for some motor stock, you’ll also find timetables of depot assignment, in PDF, built according to the data of the well documented eurocity64 website (and of course with the author’s agreement). Very handy if you want to see at a glance which machine is assigned to which depot and at what date (within a year).
This site has been tested and seems to work correctly with Internet Explorer release 7 to 11 (with a definite degradation for IE7)*, Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Android, and Safari / iOS (iPad), including cell phones. Not tested under Opera. If you notice any oddities, be kind to let me know.
* Note : as of 2019, this website is no longer tested with Internet Explorer.
It is not so easy to submit to the appreciation —not to say the judgment— of other people. But any benevolent and constructive criticism will be welcome. Good reading!
Bernard Guillotin