Stock design 01: Intermodal

For the self-respecting modern, customer-orientated narrow gauge railway with freight ambitions and one eye on the bottom line, the ‘Must-have’ accesory is a container wagon. Transporter wagons or rollboks have their very useful place, but they are specialised and complicated bits of kit, whereas the good old ISBU container is simple and needs pretty normal [...]

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Spitzenwald Timetable

I should be making KÖB Railcar 2.0 at the moment, but unfortunately the loft ladder is stopping me. You may recall that the loft in our new apartment now houses the model making desk, which is wonderful and I’m happily messing it up, but unfortunately the ladder to the loft (installed -at a guess- in [...]

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What NG Could be -2

Posting is a bit sporadic at the moment because I’m still trying to get everything sorted for the move, and there isn’t enough banmdwidth in the world to detail the trials and tribulations of dealing with utilities companies.
In the hope of switching off, I had a brief look at YouTube and found this gem of [...]

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Container doodle

Over the last week I’ve been carrying this piece of paper about and doodling designs for a container wagon whenever I’ve had a moment to spare. Unfortunately this made the paper a bit dog-eared, but that’s life. At least it gave me something to stave off the withdrawal, as well as hopefully giving me a [...]

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Lowliner.

Back in the mists of time someone’s granddad realised that if you make a standard sized box you can fill it full of anything from rocking horses to paper clips, put it on a truck or a train, and when you came against a barrier said truck or train couldn’t cross, like the Atlantic, you [...]

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Downsizing 2…

In which I don’t announce a change to 1:87 scale.
So I’d almost completed the railcar, and as is fairly common for me, I get distracted by something else, namely building a 1:55 scale 40′ container, as you do. The nice people over at the MTI Forum had put a print of container sides with [...]

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Scale Strategy…

A while ago, Stephen over on the Fairlight Works Blog mentioned that he had a scale strategy: he builds layouts in different scales to suit the story he wants to tell. This spilled over into a discussion on the Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling forum.
If only I was that well organised, or that accurate. I have [...]

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Wendlingen-am-Neckar

I promise this is on topic.
This is the station of Wendlingen-am-Neckar, on the main line between Plochingen and Tübingen. It’s also the beginning of a branch line to Kirchheim and Oberlenningen, which has a rather eccentric way of leaving the bay platform and lurching across the adjacent road right in front of the station [...]

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Of snails and railcars

A friend of ours has a notice saying “Even the snail made it to Noah’s Ark slowly but surely”. Well, I’ve got the slowly bit down. The other one may be pushing it a bit as I seem to build in fits and starts, then spend ages wondering how to make the next bit work. [...]

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Think again (or: ‘Plan B’)

Another week just flitted by and the weekend was busier than before, so I think that ‘plan A’ is unlikely to happen. I’ll keep working on locomotives and stock in this scale and I’m now thinking about what I’d like to build.
I like the idea of having a loco shed: It seems appropriate as I’m [...]

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