Normal service…

…will be resumed as soon as possible: probably next weekend as I’ll be off being a tourist for a few days from Tuesday. I’m joining a bike tour of the Upper Neckar valley and the Black Forest from Tuesday to Friday. It’s not a railway centred tour but we will follow the same valleys as the railway for some of our route so I’m hoping for some opportunities to take pictures of red trains in dramatic surroundings. I promise to post those and keep the ‘stand and grin’ pictures that no-one else will be remotely interested in to a minimum.

I may get another entry in before then, but if there’s now a silence for a week, you’ll know why.

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Simple stuff

Modelmaking in Germany is known as the rich man’s hobby, and I’ve gone on about this and all the gadgets available elsewhere. So, what’s a chap to do in Germany if he wants to make models, but hasn’t a large fortune or shares in Märklin? Well, there is another model making scene here which is considerably less capital intensive, and to my mind, a lot more fun. It also includes some builders making incredible models.

So let’s look at some simple stuff. Like this lovely, tiny, model of a V-Skip Built by Michi K in Munich, who kindly allowed me to show pictures of it here. The model featured on the Gnatterbox, with a fuller report appearing on a German language forum for people making card models.

That’s right, this is made of card. Tough paper. Even the levers. Michi coloured it using pastels which wouldn’t have occurred to me in years, but does avoid the card curling. There are other projects on the forum too, which show some incredible models under construction and finished. I doubt I’ll be making models this good for many more years, but it gives me something to aim for. Sure, there are similar models being made in the UK, but it’s good to see that there are some other low-tech builders here in the Land of Gizmos as well.

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Upright Uprights.

Finally, the wood wagon is pretty well finished. The buffers will have to wait until I make a job lot for several wagons, and I need to dig up the dowel for the wooden crossbeams, but that apart, I can put it in the drawer for when I build a model for it to run on. I’d still like to make a simple 7mm scale shunting line like Sägewerk Pfeifle, but goodness knows when that will be possible.

I’ve several projects going along now which I’ll probably ramble about here, both railway and non-railway. The railcar is the main ‘railway project’, and most of the trouble on that is me getting around to working on it. I’ll tell you about the others as they happen…

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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 metre gauge, which dates it a bit as the system was upgraded to standard gauge Stadtbahn time ago, and this side of the river was one of the first areas to be rebuilt. This explains why it didn’t feature in the current depot list, but apart from that the mystery deepens. The track to the depot is intact, which means that the SSB have gone to the expense of maintaining dual gauge track over the river, and then a 200 metre branch line to the depot itself, along with overhead wiring and other paraphernalia, but there were no trams, or any evidence that there had been any for a long time. Even more interesting was the loop which runs through the streets behind the depot -the trams were single ended, so they would need to turn them occasionally- this was intact as well, and a team from the SSB were repairing the overhead wires. Is this some of area 51 of the tram world, or perhaps a strategic reserve of metre gauge trams? I have no idea. It would make a good museum: it is near the city centre, with plenty of space, good transport connections and a small running line around. Perhaps it is being made ready for this. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, here’s a few pictures of the depot and surrounds. Click on them for a bigger version. You can also see an aerial view of the whole depot, surrounds and tram lines here.

Opposite direction to the header image. The line leading to the left is the turning loop.

Back of the depot showing a lack of trams. The van was carrying soft drinks. Presumably the incline is to inspection pits of some kind.

Looking along the street, the loop follows the road. Notice tram style signals next to the traffic lights. The dotted line is a cycleway.

Rarely modelled, but a possible way to hide the back of a layout. Bad Canstatt fire station with the loop line running in the road in front.

Dual gauge junction. Line to the left is to the festival ground and sport stadia, that to the right goes to the depot.

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Uprights

I told myself that I wouldn’t post this until the uprights were at least painted and preferably on the wagon, but as I have to go to the workshop to do any spraying, and time for that is at a premium, I’ll have to post this shot of them in their or risk you thinking I’ve stopped altogether.

Once the spraying is done, things will speed up again as it’ll be back to acrylic paints and I can use those at home. I’ll try and get this done fairly quickly and then get back to the railcar.

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Stuttgart Harbour

One drawback of Stuttgart is that we are about 490km from Genova, Italy. It isn’t that I have a burning desire to visit this city, but this point on of the Mediterranean coast is the nearest bit of sea to where I am sitting. And there is also the small matter of the Alps in between which is a fairly formidable barrier on a bike.

Most of the time just being able to live so close to the Black Forest makes up for these minor drawbacks, and we have a lot of lakes nearby, and even a harbour for when we have maritime withdrawal, so last week I went one one of my summer rides which I warned you I’d go on about for a bit..

The direct route from our village to the harbour is deceptively rural: you cross some fields, go down an 18% hill through deep woodland, and just as you think you’ve descended into some primeval forest, suddenly there is a harbour right in front of you with ships, heavy industry, and (just as you were wondering when I’d get back to the subject) railway lines snaking through the factories. Unfortunately the railway does this rather well, and I was in a hurry, so although I knew roughly where everything was from Google Earth, most things were hidden from the road, and I only got a couple of images of lines where they crossed the road, or where it was possible to see some operations taking place. There was definitely some movement back there though, and I got a brief glimpse of an industrial locomotive on the end of a train of wagons. Ships were a bit more visible though- I was able to make a short video of this boat going down in the lock, which delighted the boys, and some companies (I’ve since discovered) advertise shipping schedules online, which gives a clue as to when there will be more movement on rail or water. I reckon that’s enough reason for another bike ride.

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Getting Obsessive

I’m a perfectionist: I get annoyed when a model is less than flawless, annoy my theatre company by always asking for ‘Just one more rehearsal’, and redraft blog entries obsessively. Last week I found I was tying myself in knots trying to make the railcar just the right shape, and to get some relief I decided to leave it and work on the 1:43 scale wood wagon I started on back in September. I only have to build the side supports and the couplings, so I figured it’d be a quick job.

So far it’s taken a week. I’m aware this isn’t exactly breakneck speed, but as well as being fussy I had to do a lot of it twice as I left the unfinished model in reach of our youngest. I’m still finding bits all over the house. The prototype used wide girders, in pairs, and naturally I wanted my model to look the same, which meant 24 uprights and a load of other small parts to hold them together. I’ve just about managed to get to the ‘first painting’ stage, and I expect this will keep me out of trouble for another week.

My hope is that when I come back to the railcar, which I reckon will happen sometime in November at the current rate of progress, I’ll see it from fresh and work out a way to make the front profile and get the roof to fit.

Now I’m going to post this entry before I decide to rewrite it…

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