rekoboy

A simple test is to employ a TT scale figure (preferably of a tall adult) and a TT scale vehicle and check how they look in front of each building and doorway. In my experience many N scale buildings are somewhat oversized, and many structures for H0 are under-scale and suitable for TT.

Indeed it is! The 93.0 is slightly shorter and lighter than its more modern sister the 93.5.

In the late 1970s when I got together with Frau Rekoboy she was keen to introduce me to her big sister who lived in Ruhla, near Eisenach, Thuringia, in a particularly attractive part of the former GDR. My attention was seized by her address - Bahnhofstraße 27, but Frau Rekoboy soon pointed out that there had been no Bahnhof since 1967, when the branch from Wutha had closed. Nephew Thomas in Eisenach asks me often why I have never written anything about the Rühler Bimmel as the line was affectionately known - and now that Piko is bringing out the BR 93 in TT it is time to add an article. The Prussian tank locos of BR 93 (2-8-2) and 94 (0-10-0) were the usual performers on the steeply graded line which had incredibly long and well-loaded commuter trains thanks to the large numbers of workers travelling to and from the watch and clock factories and car component producers in Ruhla. By the time I first visited Ruhla the line had been long since lifted and much of the infrastructure demolished, but it was still possible to follow the route as a footpath. Wutha, the junction on the main line Bebra-Eisenach-Erfurt still exists as a much-reduced stopping point, but the only structure on the branch still standing is the intermediate station at Thal, which became a post-office and then a restaurant. My bible on the line is the book by Harald Rockstuhl, 'Die Geschichte der Ruhlaer Eisenbahn 1880-1967' and there is also a good website on the line: http://rühlerbimmel.de/ The line lives on though in some great footage on YouTube such as this...

And a memento (or two) of those trips from Hoek van Holland....

Oh, yes, and to finish my account a little more on our family trips to Köthen. On the first occasion that we used that train from Hoek van Holland we travelled through to Berlin, through West Berlin on the Stadtbahn and entered the GDR at Friedrichstraße station. Then, while studying the DR Kursbuch (all network timetable book, no, sorry, railfan's bible!) I discovered a tiny footnote on the so-called transit trains from West Germany to Berlin, that it was possible with correct paperwork to alight from such a D-Zug at the border crossing station, in our case Marienborn, and later, of course, rejoin a train in the opposite direction. As Köthen is nearer to Magdeburg and Marienborn than Berlin I persuaded Frau Rekoboy and the kids that this was an adventure and the way forward! Our alighting from the train at Marienborn was always of huge interest to the other passengers on the train who were, in any case, keen to see the menace of a GDR crossing point with its sniffer dogs and hordes of uniformed officials. We were always the only passengers to alight - not really surprising - and we were certain that people on the train were convinced we were being detained or were spies! Very amusing, though. The transit trains to Berlin stopped only briefly at Marienborn so that the travelling border officials could get on board - they stayed on the train as far as Griebnitzsee, a suburb of Potsdam, just before the West Berlin border. The border formalities for us at Marienborn were much more friendly and civilized than at Berlin-Friedrichstraße - and we had two small children who generally got a smile out of even the sternest GDR official. Marienborn is in what the GDR called 'Sperrgebiet' which was the area close to the inner-German border and for which you needed a second ID card, a so-called 'Passierschein' with which locals were issued automatically but for which visitors needed to apply - and were often refused, even for visits to close relatives. But a valid visa for the GDR in my case, or in my wife's case a GDR passport with a rather unusual permanent visa, meant we had no problem with being in Marienborn. But the strict regulations pertaining to the Sperrgebiet meant that hardly anyone needed to, or was allowed to, use the local trains that ran irregularly on the main line to Magdeburg. The DR saw this service as one of its least important and allocated the most run-down Rekowagen to it, generally hauled by a V100 diesel or occasionally a Ludmilla. We were usually virtually the only passengers on the train! Our kids after 40 years still reminisce happily about our train travel from Hoek van Holland, Marienborn and the lamentable state of the Personenzug nach Magdeburg!

Sorry, folks, I am at a loss with this set of contributions. What is the point of maintaining the presence of the topic when more than half of the pieces are missing? But I would like to add my thoughts to this topic - but concerning not the DR in West Berlin in general, but one particular train, the D-Zug Hoek van Holland - Berlin Stadtbahn of the 1980s which was the connection from the overnight ferry from Harwich and which we and our children still hold dear as it was for several years the start of our trips to the grandparents in Köthen. Just getting on to the train in Hoek van Holland with its DR rolling stock and Mitropa restaurant car was a pre-taste of our holiday - the smell of the DR disinfectant, the upholstery - and then the coffee, the beer, the Bockwurst. Happy memories. And now there are no longer trains to Hoek van Holland, just trams.

The last couple of months have seen very little modelling activity - my brother-in-law Waldemar in Erfurt has been very ill and we have been making regular visits since January - and helping to fill the tills of the P & O Hull-Rotterdam ferry! However, the Motordraisine is just about finished, although I still need to load the trailer with some tools and a concrete mixer. Most of my recent planning and thought has gone into the next electric loco for the tram network - I found a suitably cute loco body on Shapeways website, but it has taken a while to find a chassis that fits. Originally I wanted to employ two power bogies with jackshaft drive - see photo - but in the end I have had to settle on a Kato bogie tram chassis which has needed a degree of modification to fit. I think the folks at Plaza Japan rub their hands whenever they see an e-mail from me! The loco will eventually look more like an American interurban freight motor with shunter's platforms front and rear - but there is also a certain similarity to the German E44 mainline loco and to my old favourite Eggerbahn electric loco. More details will follow.

It is a lovely model and advanced for its time with its electronics. When power car and trailer are coupled together head and tail lights work on both ends - 'Lichtwechsel'. As Bernard wrote, the railcars, like most Piko products of the era are noisy in action. Your models with all of the paperwork intact would be very tempting for a Piko collector.

My latest adventure has nothing to do with European model shops but with a Japanese one, Plaza Japan, where I am a fairly regular mail-order customer. I ordered two items last Tuesday, total cost around £40, paid the eye-watering £22 for delivery by DHL - and the package arrived with no extra fees following copious SMS updates on Sunday afternoon! Just five days' transit. Top service! Note the size of the shipping box compared to the larger(!) of my two purchases!

They exist as manual and electric versions - I have a couple of the Roco H0e manual ones in the drawer. Originally, Tillig did not have their own turnout mechanism - they sold and recommended the Roco ones. The manual mechanisms look identical to the electrically operated ones - apart from lacking the three core lead.

The Tillig (or Roco H0e) surface-mount point mechanisms are a simple screw-fit to the side of the Tillig turnout or slip - they can be hand or electrically operated and are not too obtrusive.

@Les1952 - I have tried various combinations of Hunt couplings - and the best effect with my layout which includes R310mm curves on the spiral seems to be the combination of 2 medium couplings which give an acceptable gap between vehicles and no buffer-locking.

The latest experiment with Hunt couplings - a pair of Tillig 4-wheel carriages. The short Hunt couplings had the buffers almost touching, looked fabulous, but were not suitable for 310mm radius curves. The medium length couplings look and work fine.

I am a modeller in TT 1:120 of (E) German prototypes and I make a lot of use of the MAN F90 cabs and chassis by Schirmer-Modellbau (also sold by Tillig) and originally introduced by MK of Leipzig.

Shacman is still using the F90 cab or a derivative - as used in the past in Europe by MAN licensees such as Roman-Diesel and RABA.

And here you go - Bahnhof Güsten with the Eilzug Aschersleben - Berlin headed by a BR 41, Winter 85-86. Photo thanks to the team at Dampflokarchiv.

I think the comment about the inaccessibility of DR branchlines is exaggerated. During my years at the university in Halle I did a lot of rail exploring - and photography. Mostly I asked a member of the railway staff or even now and again a Transportpolizist - the usual reaction seemed to be 'Why are you bothering to ask?' or a look of amused disbelief that the mad Tommy was actually interested in the branch from Bitterfeld to Stumsdorf and its filthy Rekowagen or the relics of the Kanonenbahn (Berlin-Metz, truncated by the Second World War and the inner German border). With the exception, though, of anything near the inner-German border, apart from the Harzquerbahn. My wife's family thought I was pleasantly cracked - but supported me in my lunacy, such as the time in the early 80's when Bw Güsten employed one of the last serviceable BR41 2-8-2s on the Eilzüge from Aschersleben to Berlin- Schöneweide. My brother in law Waldemar drove me in his Moskwitsch to various photo locations. At Elsnigk station I managed a quick hop on the footplate as the driver shook his head and grinned. 'Ein englischer Bahnfan. Wo gibt es denn so was?'

The trains seemed to be running very smoothly.😇

Here is a clearer photo of the gradient ...it is on R310mm and rises 55mm on a length of 1964mm. Therefore a gradient of around 35/1000

Perfectly secure. On my layout there is a spiral gradient from Level 0 to Level 1. No problem!

At the Glasgow show I bought a trial pack of Hunt magnetic couplings for the TT 1:120 NEM pockets from Westhill. The pack contains 10 short, 10 medium and 10 long couplings which possess astonishingly powerful mini-magnets. I have been experimenting with them on a pair of Piko Reichsbahn Reko coaches, and I have to say that I am very impressed. As my layout includes some R310mm curves I was a little cautious about employing the short couplings - but found that two medium length couplings or one short and one long coupling paired made a very prototypical impression - and there were no derailments, no buffer-locking, no unwanted uncoupling, no matter whether the coaches were pulled or propelled. The first photo shows the situation with the original Piko/BTTB/Tillig couplings, then a trial with long Hunts (which leave a similar gap!) and finally the situation with two medium (or one long plus one short) Hunts. The next test will be on 3-axle Rekos by Kühn.

Try Faller, too.

Oh yes, and an interesting piece of information from the Hornby team - there will be two versions of their TT 1:120 locos, with traction tyres for sale on the European continent, and without tyres for sale in the UK.

No TT layouts at the Scottish show on the exhibition campus in Glasgow, but large reference to TT 1:120 by Hornby, Peco and Westhill Wagon Works. Hornby's TT 1:120 layout included a working HST in photo grey livery - but one of the stand staff told me politely to be patient when I asked about the Class 66 etc!

And the Motordraisine is more or less finished - all glazing done, but still working on the thorny questions of working headlights, handrails and screen wipers.