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German TT - Kirchheim


rekoboy
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18 hours ago, rekoboy said:

There has been some activity at Kirchheim of late - note the new platform roof in one of my following photos. more on that later. The big news is that Kirchheim has just received a new loco - the BR 58 (ex Prussian G 12) from Hornby-Arnold. The long wait has been worth it! The loco is fantastic - one of the smoothest and quietest runners that I have encountered, and the detail and paint scheme are of the highest standard. The only negative for me is the poor quality of the loco crew figures - but they can be changed easily, I think. See what you think!

Hornby BR58 1.jpg

Hornby BR58 2.jpg

 

Lovely looking model and one of my favourite locomotives

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On 15/10/2021 at 09:58, Hobby said:

If they do i hope that they'll choose the right scale and not Triang's hybrid version. There's no excuse to build to a larger scale these days unless to appease a small home market.

Hornby markets its TT, which is to European 1:120 scale, of course, through its German ? Chinese? Arnold subsidiary. So far the selection is small but of admirable quality - two steam locos, the BR 95 and the BR 58, one electric, a Reichsbahn CoCo Class E(2)51and numerous versions of the Köf shunting tractor. There are few Arnold TT dealers in the UK, but Hornby's own mail order service is great.

Edited by rekoboy
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  • 5 weeks later...

Sadly, I have been diverted yet again from work on the layout by the lure of road transport in 1:120! While tidying up I found a box with some broken toy cars from the GDR which had once belonged to my son. Anyone else would have taken the junk briskly to the bin. Not Rekoboy. Some time ago an acquaintance had passed on to me the attached photo of a French Willeme tractor unit with a swan's neck (goose neck?) low loader which I thought would be a good modelling project. I had a couple of crane jibs in my SES vehicle parts bag and a spare MK/Klose/Schirmer MAN tractor unit - and now I had plenty of moulded plastic wheels, metal axles and chassis parts from the broken toy cars, plus diverse bits left over from other projects. The perfect basis for a new heavy truck! The low loader is now nearly complete - a few more details and some weathering and rust are needed.

Schwanenhals-Basis.jpg

Schwanenhals im Bau.jpg

Schwanenhals fast fertig.jpg

willeme_prp.jpg

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You will be relieved to learn that some work has taken place on the layout - Bahnhof Kirchheim is almost complete, although a good number of figures need to be added and more detailing and signage completed. As you can see, some of the station staff are amazed that further work has been done! The platform is lit under the canopy with LEDs from a cheap strip intended for USB power. They are hooked up 'invisibly' to the power supply with fine copper wire recovered from a VW relay!  I am very pleased with the station signs which were produced with Word on my PC, employing the font 'Preussische IV 44 Ausgabe 3' which is available free on the internet if you search. See illustration. I experimented with various fonts and this clearly looked the part. The signs were printed on glossy photo paper and stuck with liquid cement on to poly sheet strips.

PreussischeIV44Ausgabe3.jpg

Bewunderung der neuen Schilder.jpg

Bewunderung der neuen Schilder 2.jpg

Edited by rekoboy
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  • 4 weeks later...
On 23/11/2021 at 13:13, rekoboy said:

You will be relieved to learn that some work has taken place on the layout - Bahnhof Kirchheim is almost complete, although a good number of figures need to be added and more detailing and signage completed. As you can see, some of the station staff are amazed that further work has been done! The platform is lit under the canopy with LEDs from a cheap strip intended for USB power. They are hooked up 'invisibly' to the power supply with fine copper wire recovered from a VW relay!  I am very pleased with the station signs which were produced with Word on my PC, employing the font 'Preussische IV 44 Ausgabe 3' which is available free on the internet if you search. See illustration. I experimented with various fonts and this clearly looked the part. The signs were printed on glossy photo paper and stuck with liquid cement on to poly sheet strips.

PreussischeIV44Ausgabe3.jpg

Bewunderung der neuen Schilder.jpg

Bewunderung der neuen Schilder 2.jpg

This is very handy, I was wondering what would be the right font to make station signs 

 

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I have managed to find time during the festivities to complete the last building (well, probably the last!!) for Konradsweiler. All the members of my family like to see themselves rendered immortal as the owner of a shop or business on my layout - you will remember from my previous articles that my friend Günther is the owner of the butcher's, my daughter a cafe proprietor, my son a bookseller, my sisters in law a bakery and a bed and breakfast establishment! This time it is the turn of our niece Elke who, with her husband, has a bike shop in Köthen/Anhalt. The building owes a little to Pola, a bit more to Auhagen and a lot to my well-stocked bits boxes. I find it difficult to throw anything away. The signs were produced on the PC, the blue enamel advertising sign for MIFA bikes came as a photo from a nostalgia website and was suitably reduced. Tomorrow I shall add the gutters and downpipes and a few more small details.

Zweirad 1.jpg

Zweirad 2.jpg

Zweirad 3.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have now directed my efforts to getting the tram route running. I have simplified the track layout at the depot - photos will follow - and at last I have got trams that run adequately. For a long time the only powered vehicle that would run properly on the tram route was the remotored Köf which has turned out to be a fantastic test machine. Quite a while ago I bought second-hand a Gotha tram with trailer cars by the Thuringian firm of Karsei. It looks the part - but was a dreadful runner. I invested then in a couple of Kato N chassis from Plaza Japan (www.plazajapan.com) which turned out to be useless , too, because their high gearing made them unsuitable. I have still not got the little electric loco to run properly, either, although it will be worked on soon. Just as I was planning to make the tram route and depot a static feature a German acquaintance who models trams in TTm told me that Kato had re-designed the 4-wheel N chassis with a flywheel and coreless motor. I ordered two in November directly from Plaza Japan, and they were here remarkably quickly at a very decent price. What a pleasant surprise they turned out to be! The running characteristics are absolutely first-rate - and with the flywheel they will coast over dead frogs with no problem. I wish some of my mainline TT locos would run as well! The first rebuild has been the Karsei tram. To get the Japanese mechanism to fit it had to be shortened (no problem with a sharp knife or razor saw) and then altered in shape using poly sheet and profiles to match the existing chassis. The photos explain this. The second Kato chassis has gone into a tram body which I bought from Shapeways. It is a model of one of the trams which ran on the Lockwitztalbahn in the suburbs of Dresden which was abandoned in 1977. This tram survived, though, and is still in occasional use on the Kirnitzschtalbahn in Bad Schandau.

http://www.tram-und-bahnbilder.de/details.php?image_id=153&mode=search

The quality of the bodyshell is not brilliant and a lot of strengthening has been needed where the pantograph by Sommerfeld is screwed on, but the chassis fitted perfectly into the bodyshell with very little alteration apart from the removal of the end hand-rails and the coupler boxes. Painting and glazing will follow soon!

Kato 11-110.jpg

Abgesägt.jpg

Umgebautes Fahrwerk.jpg

Der Boden.jpg

Zwei Fahrwerke.jpg

Strab Fertig.jpg

Lockwitztal.jpg

Lockwitztal und TWB.jpg

Edited by rekoboy
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More exciting progress on the VEB Straßen- und Überlandbahn Kirchheim-Annaberg - on the tram route in other words! I have finally achieved success with the little B-B electric locomotive, the 'pocket crocodile'. As you might have read in earlier posts, the original Japanese body kit proved impossible to glue together, so it was junked, except for the buffer beams and the bogie sideframes. You will remember that I sourced a very nice bodyshell from Shapeways, for which I had to build a new chassis while retaining the two Japanese power bogies. So far so good. But then the almost complete loco turned out to be a very poor runner, indeed - mostly, I discovered, because the two traction motors were not synchronized. I put the electric loco aside for quite a while and pondered a good deal, before I plucked up courage, seized the soldering iron and rejigged the wiring of the loco. I was very concerned that damage could result from my activities but the use of a fine-tipped USB soldering iron (which does get pretty hot) and low-melt solder enabled me to wire the two motors in parallel and improve the power pick-up on all eight wheels. My plan worked!! The 'pocket croc' runs beautifully, the pulling power is not fantastic, although I have put little lead blocks on board, but the croc will only need to pull or push a couple of track maintenance wagons - see photo. She has been painted with Revell acrylic colours. The pantograph is one of my collection of elderly TT? N scale? ones from my friend Hartmut in Brandenburg. The loco is nearly finished - she still needs couplings, lamp jewels, hand rails, brake hoses and a crew. Now I have started on a production line for TTm wagons having discovered that the SES W50 truck body (of which I have a bag full) is a perfect fit for the Peco N gauge goods wagon chassis. You can see the prototype as the rear wagon in the photo - I have disguised its origins a bit with brake wheels and steps! Both of the goods wagons are fitted with Bachmann N scale metal wheelsets with pinpoint bearings - they are astonishingly free-running!

Westentasche-Krokodil im Bau.jpg

Westentasche-Krokodil Fahrmotoren.jpg

Westentasche-Krokodil.jpg

Westentasche-Krok mit Loren.jpg

Edited by rekoboy
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Here are some panorama pictures of the layout as it stands. Progress has been made , but there is still some way to go! But is a layout ever finished?? The 'town centre' of Konradsweiler is provisionally in place, mostly to test the lighting. When I start the installation of the overhead lines for the tram (soon??) the town centre module will just be unhooked from the power supply and lifted out. It will then have more details and road surfaces added before it returns to the layout.

Panorama 01.22 a.jpg

Panorama 01.22 b.jpg

Panorama 01.22 c.jpg

Panorama 01.22 d.jpg

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I have been following your layout build and expanding MPD with interest for some years now.

 

Your Marke "Eigenbau" BR 58 made from BTTB donors was particularly interesting, back in the dark ages this was the only way of getting alternatives to the limited and eintönig BTTB offering and DDR modellers were very creative. I was lucky to pick up a few examples very cheaply in the 1990's before the TT renaissance pushed prices up;

 

Br24.JPG.92f17aa2e4d1805cbff52ca66123eaaa.JPG

 

A very nicely done Br 24 2-6-0

 

Br50.JPG.34c4c827e616ed0b2eeaacb323e52e48.JPG


A Br 50 2-10-0 consisting of a Br 35 body and tender on a chassis made from two Br 56 joined together

 

Br65.JPG.56c45b735c8d83c2a314c93132b00538.JPG

 

A Frankenstein Br 65 2-8-4T cobbled together from all sorts of bits! (Still needs work as the front footplate isn't right for the DR version)

 

Br94.JPG.bc9853473fbee276d11f47efe3594863.JPG


And a Br 94 0-10-0T consisting of two Br 92 bodies and chassis chopped in half and spliced together.

 

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Wow, TT Pete, what an evocative set of photos! Brilliant. The average TT modeller in GDR times would probably have sold his soul - if a good, atheistic GDR citizen had one - to get his or her hands on those locos! My own BR 50 was an officially produced version on a lengthened BR 56 /86 chassis - in the GDR it was only available in limited numbers to the members of the official national model railway society DMV (Deutscher Modelleisenbahnverband der DDR). As I think I mentioned in an earlier post, the BR 50 was sold in the UK in standard BTTB packaging by, among others, Mays Models in South London.

BR50.40 V1.jpg

Edited by rekoboy
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You will remember from an earlier post that the chassis rebuild for the Karsei tram left me with two left-over shunter's platforms complete with couplings from the Kato chassis. It would be such a pity to waste them, I thought, and when passing my local model shop I bought myself a couple of Peco N scale freight chassis - I have a bagful still of E German TT W50 lorry bodies, which, as I mentioned earlier, are a perfect fit for the Peco 10ft goods wagon chassis. This time I went for the 15ft chassis with the intention of being a bit more exotic! The job was done in half an hour. The N scale chassis was cut at each end at the point where the spring hanger joins the solebar. The W50 body was filed and cut flat underneath, and together with some strengthening poly sheet and microstrip the wagon was assembled with a shunter's platform at each end. In a bag of bits I found a couple of handbrake wheels - and that was it. A paint job and a load of some sort are needed - but weight-wise I have to be careful as the 'pocket crocodile' is at its limits with three wagons, although they are all three fitted with Bachmann  metal wheelsets. The final Peco chassis will be used for an overhead-line maintenance wagon with some kind of wooden or steel tower. I have a couple of tempting photos! My works on the tram route are getting dangerous for the continuing development of the TT main line, I fear! I am so pleased with the appearance and running of the trams, the 'pocket crocodile' and the engineers' wagons that I have started to consider building a small TTm tram layout to show them off.

Loreningredienzen.jpg

Loreningredienzen2.jpg

Lore 3 komplett.jpg

Lore 3 im Zugverband2.jpg

Edited by rekoboy
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  • 5 weeks later...

I am afraid to say that my emphasis is moving more and more to the world of TTm trams and interurban electric railways! You may remember that I mentioned that I am an enthusiastic customer of Plaza Japan - prices are brilliant, and so far the service has been absolutely first-rate, with deliveries within two weeks. My next project for the VEB Straßen- und Überlandbahn Kirchheim-Annaberg (the trams) was another centre-cab electric loco for which I bought a bodyshell from Shapeways. The chassis used on the first loco is no longer available, and so I turned my attention to available chassis at Plaza Japan and bought a Tomytec TM-TR02 (see photo) - the dimensions seemed right, although some chopping would be needed, I thought. In the end, I decided the chassis was not right and put it away in the drawer. Last week I had a Peco 9ft N gauge goods wagon chassis on my desk - and then the penny dropped. I could modify the Tomytec chassis to fit the goods wagon chassis and so build a powered goods van which could be used with a non-motorized loco! There was a good deal of surgery needed on the Tomytec chassis which needed to be shortened, and in order to make the ends symmetrical I had to remove one of the motor mountings which I replaced with a bronze strap. The original weights were replaced with thin strips of lead from a sheet cadged from a roofer! The Peco chassis and the modified Tomytec do not quite possess the same wheelbase - but from a normal viewing distance the discrepancy is not noticeable! The motorized chassis had the goods wagon chassis cemented around it and then an additional frame made of Evergreen profile to carry the very simple van body which is made up of planked poly sheet and profiles. The curved roof was made in usual style with a piece of black poly sheet firmly taped to a mug full of boiling water! The motorized van runs beautifully - and it is powerful, more so than the pocket crocodile which looks the part but lacks oomph! Paint job next!

TM TR02 Kat-Foto.jpg

TM TR02 mod.jpg

TM TR02 plus Peco usw.jpg

Geisterwagen fast fertig.jpg

Geisterwagen fertig.jpg

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  • 6 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Work continues adding details and, above all, people to the layout. Haltepunkt Konradsweiler has now acquired safety features in the form of fences and railings - I made a rough jig with saw cuts in a piece of floor board in order to solder up the handrail from brass wire. Over the years I have built up quite a collection of little people who are now gradually coming out into the fresh air! The scene at Bahnhof Kirchheim reflects a favourite photo of the steam specials run in 2012 to celebrate the centenary of the Kasbachtalbahn, a branch from Linz am Rhein on the right-hand Rhine valley line

Konradsweiler belebt mit Zaun.jpg

BR94 Kirchheim.jpg

2012-10-03-95-1027-Linz-Kalenborn-Bahnhof-Linz-IMG_6603-2-DSO.jpg

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Just sad how many photos of this layout from 2020-2 have been lost, they told a unique story and TT120 has a whole new audience.

 

Dava

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Yes, Dava, it is a huge shame that most of the photos which I uploaded to show progress have been lost from the website. I was tempted at one point to give up completely on RM Web - but, hey, I like contact with my fellow modellers. Here are a few current photos of Kirchheim, including the loco depot and a shot of my continuing activity of making overhead line masts for the tram system - I have rejigged the older ones with a modification included on the newer unpainted ones to ensure that nothing falls apart when the contact wire is soldered on. When I get back from my impending trip to Germany I intend to build a short test-track or working diorama for the trams in order to experiment with some OLE configurations before I commit myself to the final version on the layout.

BW Kirchheim Okt 2022.jpg

Köf mit Schotter Okt2022.jpg

Gütergleise Okt2022.jpg

Konradsweiler Okt2022.jpg

Zwei Schwestern 2.jpg

OL Masts Okt2022.jpg

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