Some background...

The Free Heaven Harbor Terminal Railroad was constructed in 18 months by a group of four French lovers of American trains.
The purpose of this layout was to make French people discover the capability of N scale and to make them use the existing track, equipment and scenery materials in order to build their "dream" layout.

The FHHT layout has been developed, based on NMRA standards. These fine line standards have been choosen in order to offer a quality scene to viewers and convince them to adopt a hobby that can be practiced in the family, or between friends, just like it is in the US.

All people who participated in this layout are members of the AFAN (Association Française des amis du N - or "French Association of N Scale Friends")

Some facts about the layout

The layout

(Clicking on the track plan will display an enlarged version [96 kb] in a separate window).

At right is shown a simplified track plan of the layout which is a switching layout set in a harbour scenery.

The harbour is composed of many complex industries. Storing, loading and handling facilities have needed a lot of research and are, for most of them, reproduction of actual industries. Some other are purely free-lanced but based on the reality.

For the ocean ships, nothing exists in N scale as commercial vessels. Only a few war ships can be found in this scale. So the whole fleet was scratchbuilt, using sheet styrene, according to scale plans.

The layout is sectionable for easy transportation, since it has to be moved to many exhibitions. The connection between sections is made using wood dowels for alignment and regular machine screws for rigidity. This proved to be a good solution, even with the small track gauge used (code 40).

There are many plans for the future. Tracks will be improved. The "hidden" yard will be scenicked, although visitors will not see it, but operators will benefit of it. Street and building lighting will be put in place, A third ship will be build and, maybe, the central part of the layout will see the addition of a small module with an operating bascule bridge.

Some pictures.

(Click on the photos to see them full size and click on the full size photo to close it).