rekoboy

Aerial view of Konradsweiler. The first pensioner in the coffee queue has arrived! I am working on the pavement at the tram terminus next, then adding street lighting and, at long last, the poles for the overhead line for the tram!

The post office yard wall is in place and straight away a Deutsche Post van, a Framo, predecessor of the ubiquitous Barkas, has backed in to unload. Next stage, a massive queue at the HO mini-market where a delivery of coffee has just arrived!

And on to the next time-consuming stage in the completion of Konradsweiler - the wall and the gates behind the post office. The wall is laminated up from 2mm plain poly sheet with a layer of thin embossed brick pattern poly sheet on each side. For such purposes I use N scale embossed sheet - it is always overscale and perfect for TT. The pillars are 3mm square poly tube with a 1mm thick square cap, and the gates are laminated from 3 pieces of 0.5mm poly sheet with the bars on top made from etched brass signal ladder. The gate 'hinges' are simply pieces of round section strip. The coping stones on the wall are H0 scale roof tiles. More photos to follow!

And the next instalment.....The boozers on the balcony are now accompanied by a party on the yard. Two more guests are just arriving. There's never a dull moment! Dustbins are in place, along with two bikes in the café yard. Still loads to do!

Next stage more or less complete....

Not only have I at last found time to run trains, I have also begun work on the completion and detailing of Konradsweiler. The row of three buildings above the railway cutting have now acquired a sturdy wall to keep the Preiser people from falling down the precipice and dividing walls have appeared between the back yards. The main wall has been laminated out of two strips of cards stuck together with Uhu which were then clamped to the curve of the railway as the glue set. Brick and stone embossed poly sheet was glued on to the card and again everything was clamped, and finally the coping slabs were made up from an embossed poly sheet of H0 scale roof tiles. Rather than one boring stretch of just brick for the wall there are three distinct sections. The whole lot needs lots of painting and weathering, and then the back yards will be detailed -the middle yard will have a barbecue party, I think!

Finally got some operating time at Kirchheim. The new BR 93 is a fantastic runner.

Take a look at this website for some good photos of typical BR95-hauled formations in Thuringia. A typical Personenzug had usually bogie Rekowagen plus a pre-war postal van or luggage van - right up to the end of steam and up to German re-unification. https://eisenbahnfotograf.de/drdampf/galeriedr95/sitedr95.htm

Thank you for this link, Keith, I had not picked up Dr Wilfer's commentary on the election of a far-right candidate to the post of regional mayor in Sonneberg. Frau Rekoboy, whose big sister lived near to Sonneberg, is appalled by the election result, but she is equally shocked by the abusive correspondence, referred to by Dr Wilfer, received by the staff of Piko, simply because they live and work in Sonneberg.

They are certainly able to be hand-operated - they are listed in the catalogue as 'manual turnout'. However, all other Tillig turnouts which I know (and there are a good few on my layout - see German Railways on this website, German TT, Kirchheim) are definitely not self-isolating. https://www.tillig.com/Produkte/produktinfo-83816.html

Thanks to our frequent spells in Germany with Frau Rekoboy's brother, who is now on the mend, thank goodness, very little has happened on the layout for weeks - except that, thanks to Piko, I am now able to recreate the passenger trains to Ruhla! ( See my post 'Rühler Bimmel'). Piko has brought out the BR93 2-8-2 - and I think it is their best steam loco yet. Absolutely top! She runs perfectly with a realistic top speed and has excellent pulling power. But the BR93 is also so exquisitely detailed and painted - 10 years ago you would have paid five times the price for a hand-built model of this quality. More reports to follow!

Try PMT - they produce a range of chassis for H0, H0m and H0e. www.pmt-modelle.de

Try Weinert: weinert-modellbau.de or look maybe at the website of Modellbahnunion - modellbahnunion.com The word you will need is 'Weichenstellhebel'

What a life story, Bernard! Fantastic! I can just see that convertible in my mind's eye! Our kids tell us we ought to write an account - or record the spoken version - of our lives and how we got together, and what happened next. For us it seems like yesterday - but it is actually the stuff of history books, already 44 years ago. Blimey!

This thread is turning to personal historical reminiscence! Birgit and I got permission to marry at very short notice at the registry office in Berlin-Friedrichshain - and had consequently a very impromptu wedding with few guests and transport care of the Berlin underground. We had a largely weekend relationship at that stage - I was working at the university in Halle, Birgit was teaching in Berlin-Friedrichshain. My boss Erhard, now nearly 90 and a keen railway fan, arrranged my teaching timetable so that I was free on Friday afternoons and Monday mornings. Every Friday lunchtime I caught the D-Zug Meiningen-Berlin Schöneweide, was at the flat in Berlin-Friedrichshain in time to cook dinner, and every Monday morning at 5.45 caught the D-Zug Berlin-Lichtenberg-Halle-Saalfeld which was still occasionally steam-hauled by a BR01 - but mostly we had Ludmilla power. As I said before, happy memories!

Aah, yes, the British embassy on Unter den Linden in East Berlin. That's where our banns were published for the wedding - they were displayed in a glass cabinet at the entrance. More happy memories! And the staff were great. Very helpful!

The layout looks brilliant, Bernard! More photos please! Our children grew up bilingual with the Sandmann, too. We have a lot in common, I think.

Ah, good question! I use my regauged Tomix only as a vacuum cleaner with a fixed brush lightly touching the rails. If you need a polisher, then you will have to adjust the TT bogie mountings so that the track is just touched by the polisher disc. Any real pressure by the disc on the track will stall the Tomix motor and potentially cause it to fail and will also make the vehicle difficult to move. A question of experimentation, I think!

That sounds an interesting idea! Do the Hornby bogies carry the coupler pockets? If not, surgery on the bogies will be needed to allow clearance for the pockets which need to be cemented to the underside of the Tomix body. The Roco freight bogies are designed with one end open to allow space for the coupler.

The word 'Drehgestell' means 'bogie'. Do you mean the bogies you find on the Digitalzentrale website? They are the standard Tomix N ones, probably left-overs from his rebuilds. Sadly, he appears to have stopped selling the ready -made Tomix rebuilds and the bits to do the job yourself. But if you can get hold of Roco TT freight bogies it easy-ish to do the conversion - see my article

The next loco is almost finished - modified Kato chassis, Shapeways body plus elderly E German pantograph, and steps, airtanks etc from the bits box. Still some way to go. She runs beautifully and will eventually be hauling a TT standard gauge wagon or two on transporter trucks.

I had an operating session at Kirchheim for the first time in ages - rush-hour!

And safety railings for the shunter - donated by a very elderly Minitrix diesel!

Update on the electric loco. The chassis and frame are finished, the shunter's platforms have their non-slip surface (!), the shunter's steps are in place, as are the air tanks. A pair of end-handrails for the platforms are next. So much progress!

The Kleinlok (Köf) has been evicted from its shed to make room for the Motordraisine.