More misadventures

I knew there may be a bit of a delay between posts, but I wasn’t anticipating it to be this bad. Getting ready to go to Japan, sorting out bits of moving, and of course that pesky thing called ‘work’ all conspired to keep me away from the modelmaking desk. Suddenly it’s nearly August and [...]

Read Full Post »

Stuttgart S-bahn Construction

Construction work continues at Wendlingen in preparation for extending the S-Bahn system to Kirchheim. This is part of a major package of investment by Deutsche Bahn which will see a number of extensions and new trains replacing the 1960’s built units that are still used here. The old units are in pretty good condition having [...]

Read Full Post »

To change a light bulb

Germany may be missing basic elements of civilisation (Marmite for example), but it does seem to retain a sense of proportion. A week or two ago I was in Vaihingen, and while waiting for my tram I saw these gentlemen squeeze through a gap in the hedge, call the control box on a cell phone, [...]

Read Full Post »

Good News

According to the local free paper (I know, I could put a sticker on the letter box so I don’t get it any more, but it’s good for lining the compost bin) Light Rapid Transit is in fashion at the moment with city authorities: in Germany alone Bremen, Düsseldorf Erfurt, Gera Karlsruhe, and Stuttgart are [...]

Read Full Post »

Eccentric-city

Stuttgart gives an outside impression of being all chic and cool, but is actually pretty eccentric a lot of the time. It is the only city in Germany to have a rack railway and a funicular line, which any other city would have privatised years ago. The rack line is known locally as the ‘Zacke’, [...]

Read Full Post »

Stuttgart 21

Deutsche Bahn and the city of Stuttgart are getting into some trouble with their latest pet project, ‘Stuttgart 21′. Their plan is to rebuild the station in the centre of Stuttgart from the current terminus-like station with all trains coming from the north and reversing, to a shiny new underground through station on an east-west [...]

Read Full Post »

Ghost Depot

While idly exploring Stuttgart on Google Earth I found a large tram depot in the suburb of Bad Canstatt. Oddly, I hadn’t been able to find any references about it in any books about it, and as I was cycling past anyway, I swung by to have a look.
The first suprise was that it is [...]

Read Full Post »

Helpful Economics?

Stuttgart isn’t the most bike-friendly city: It’s surrounded by hills for one thing, and a very strong pro-motoring lobby who have a tendency to howl if anyone threatens their highways. This seems to have blocked most effective measures like road pricing, and has given the city a legacy of dangerously high particle pollution in the [...]

Read Full Post »

Big Black Engine.

I’ve finished the baseboard for Westerooge, but three sheets of card stuck together are not that visually interesting, so thanks to the wonders of digital cameras, here’s a couple of pictures I took in Stuttgart station earlier today.

101 141-0 is one of DB’s crack express engines, and is currently in a black advertising livery [...]

Read Full Post »

Flying Bricks

East meets West. Former East German class 143 (L) and DB class 111 (R) together in Stuttgart main station, Sept 24th 2007

October the 3rd was German unification day, to commemorate the time when Germany was finally reunited in 1989-1990. This seemed a good time to make poignant comparisons between locomotive design in the two Germanys [...]

Read Full Post »