DB branch line Rath Ost

[roythebus1]

Seeing the excellent pictures of the Wolfstatt layout on here reminded me of my small German layout I built in the early 1980s. Following a visit to the Koeln Ausstellung (Cologne Exhibition) in 1980 I met a DB driver with whom I am still frends. We got chatting on a BR101 outside the show and he was visiting London a couple of weeks later. I was a driver at Waterloo at the time, so offered him somewhere to stay. He turned up, had a few beers etc, we went to saty with him, and long story short he gave me a DB layout/track plans book. I becmae interested in the current DB scene as it still had loads of wagon load traffic, classic silverfish trian , loco hauls, as well as new stuff coming on line.

 

Studying the track plan book I found a large plan that had a branch line on it that looked suitable for a small starter layout. This was about the time Peco introduced their code 75 HO track, so gave that a try. I had 3 baseboards, the track laid, a couple of locos, some wagons and a few coaches. The layout worked, so a few buildings appeared.

 

At the Model Railway club a few weeks later, Vic Michel came in and asked if I had a layout available for an exhibition. When? Next Saturday in Harpenden. Well, er, yes, but it's only baseboards and track and 3 buildings. Vic knew me well and knew the layout would work. In the ensuing days I built a set of return loops for somewhere for the trains to go. This was a bit of a novelty as nobody in the UK seems to use them. All very simple to wire up and we could have 2 trains running at a time.

 

We went to the show, the layout ran well and there was a crowd round it all day. I asked some people why do you watch this layout for ages, there's no scenery on it and it's German. the answers were interesting, well it's different,  it works and the trains don't keep falling off! Encouraged, I developed the layout with station buildings, a scratch-built modern canopy, scenery, it looked the part. I built a box t one end which had a minimum radius double track spiral which led to 8 loops under the main station. Overhead electrification came along as I liked the Br111 and S-bahn trains that ran round Duesseldorf. Further extension was to the loops which somehow ran down a further level to more loops! All that was done at the model Engineer show at Olympia in 1991.

 

Other shows it went to were the International Model Railway Exhibition at the Old Horticultural Hall in London, the GRS exhibition in Oxford, Epsom in 1995, the last show being at Croydon some time in 2004 I think. Sadly a move of house meant I had even more room for a layout and I'd intended to build the complete big layout. But other things intervened so it was dismantled and the stock boxed away. I got back into modelling BR as the quality of British stock seemed to improve over the years.

 

I don't think the layout ever appeared in print, but possibly in Continental Modeller, but I do have some pictures around somewhere which Ill post when I find them. Anyone fancy doing an internet search look for Rath Ost.