S scale from Stadtilm

[rekoboy]

Our nephew Thomas in Eisenach has a brother-in-law, Steffen, who owns a removal and house-clearance business. The last time that we were in Eisenach before the Covid-19 crisis we called in to see Steffen in his office, and he said he had a present for me from a house clearance. The present turned out to be a Stadtilm BR 24 tender loco and a 2-car railbus in S scale, made probably in the early 1960s - production ceased in 1964. Amazingly, both work. I have no S scale track, there was none from the house-clearance, but with leads held on the wheels the motors turn over vigorously, and relatively smoothly and quietly. I am wondering whether to build a little diorama to display them, or simply to add, to my wife's probable dismay, a further show-case to the wall! I have included a shot of the BR24 next to its much younger TT sister by  Berliner Bahnen - it illustrates clearly the size of S scale locos.

The model trains of Stadtilm (a small town in Thuringia) were produced to keep the Liebmann company going after its initial raison d'etre, building components for the aerospace industry was stopped by the Soviet occupying powers. The first range of toy trains was in 0 scale, in the mid-50s the S range replaced them, and were produced up to 1964. The factory still exists - but it produces propellor shafts for buses and trucks. The trains are really toys, the BR24 is very nice as a memento of the E German model railway industry, but it cannot be described as a scale model! And neither can the railbuses. If you read German and would like to discover a bit more about the Liebmann company and its trains, here is a link to the German Wikipedia page.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallwarenfabrik_Stadtilm

There is also a club for collectors which organises regular swap-meets.

http://stadtilmerbahnen.de/rueckblicke/

Edited May 25, 2020 by rekoboy
Misspelling

[sncf231e]

Stadtilm S gauge trains are very rare outside Germany. I found a few items which I can run on my S gauge track in the garden. The German manufacturer BUB also made S gauge trains, which are a bit less rare, but although called Spur S BUB used a bit larger gauge (So I cannot run BUB S gauge  trains on my garden track).

 

Regards

Fred

Edited May 25, 2020 by sncf231e