rekoboy

I do not know what has got into me! Projects that existed on paper or in my thoughts or had been put aside for months, if not years, are getting completed! A couple of years ago I obtained a spare chassis, motor and wheels for the Hornby-Arnold Köf and occasionally my thoughts turned to possible uses for the chassis. By chance I saw a photo of an ÖBB track maintenance crew's Motordraisine - which I then discovered as a body shell for TT on Shapeways. The dimensions of the body shell seemed to indicate a more or less perfect fit for the Köf chassis - so I ordered one. The Köf chassis has needed some minor additional building-up with poly strip and some redundant moulding had to be removed carefully from the body shell, but these matters were so far the work of half an hour. The chassis will definitely need some extra weight as the Motordraisine will be towing a trailer, made from a whitemetal kit, and the body shell will need quite a lot of work, including the addition of a single headlight at each end. I shall keep you posted!

Thanks for the praise! 😊 You are right, nearly all of the E18s were in the West - but as in those days most TT modellers were very likely in the former GDR, Jatt catered primarily for them, although the company was based in Baden-Württemberg.

Speaking of Schrott (scrap metal or junk) I have just more or less completed an unintended project. Our good friend Hartmut in Brandenburg used to be the co-owner of a model shop until its lack of profitability forced him and his business partner to return to their original careers. Just before the Covid lockdown Hartmut presented me with a cardboard box and challenged me to do something with the contents. When clearing out the shop he had rediscovered the box containing a part-finished loco kit which an elderly customer had returned to him, saying that it was too complicated. The kit in question is of an 1-Do-1 E18 by Jatt, probably Germany's most impressive electric loco, which came into service just before the war, intended for premium express trains, especially on the ongoing project of the electrification between Munich and Berlin which, thanks to the war, never got further than Leipzig. The E18s were fast, powerful and elegant, and were tested on the routes around Stuttgart, between Nürnberg and Saalfeld, later Leipzig, and on the Silesian network between Breslau, Hirschberg and Görlitz. They were (are) phenomenally good machines and one of my absolute favourite locos, in spite of the fact that my layout has so far acquired no catenary! Later, later! The company that made the kit, Jatt, was taken over by Tillig getting on for 20 years ago, and some of the range was continued, including the E18, but with numerous changes, which meant that spare parts, if available might not fit. Jatt, like Triang 00 in the 1960s with the CKD series, offered its locos ready-made or kit form for the advanced modeller. I had put the kit to one side, having taken a look at the contents of the box, but recently I decided it was time to do something with the kit and impress Hartmut - who is not a railway modeller but builds large-scale radio-controlled trucks. The old gentleman who had started the kit had made quite a mess of things - he had broken the sideframes, replacements for which I was eventually able to source from a private individual who had made some resin copies to sell on German E-Bay. The main body of the chassis is a meaty casting which is surrounded by a plastic skirt which had warped a bit, like the roof. He had made a hash of installing the motor which carries a worm gear - getting that to sit properly and the worm to mesh caused some swearing, There is a problem generally with the way that the body of the E18 clips on to the chassis skirt (or not, in this case) so at present the body is held by double-sided tape, but a German acquaintance has shown me how to attach the body with two screws - which I may tackle before long. Some of the window glazing was lost or smeared with glue - I left one driver's window open so you can see the driver at the controls. The driver is a Preiser railwayman with his legs amputated. The loco looks great and is a lovely smooth runner - but there have been quite a few hours of unintended work and a lot of swearing.

The older pattern Tillig couplers as used still by Piko are OK, best lifted with a flat stick from below, although some prefer to use a magnet uncoupler from above. The newer Tillig/Kuehn couplings which Hornby appears to have chosen work well but can be tricky to disengage if your eyesight is dodgy! They are best lifted from below.

Some more photos for you. At present I am running a more 'modern' layout - the BR 50.40 2-10-0 is the E German Evening Star. That particular batch of lightweight 2-10-0s were the last class of steam loco to be built in the GDR and marked the end of steam design and construction at LKM (Lokomotivbau 'Karl Marx' in Potsdam-Babelsberg). The model is by Tillig. The other 1950s steam loco to be seen here is the BR 83 2-8.4 tank, also by LKM Babelsberg - which was neither attractive nor especially successful and lasted not very long in service. That model is, of course, by Piko. The green diesel shunter is partly a product of Rekoboy's loco works - I bought the body shell just in case (!) in 1982 in E Berlin, and when I was in Brandenburg a couple of weeks ago friends Günther and Hartmut presented me with a box of TT junk including a non-working chassis for that Zeuke diesel bodyshell! Once I got home the chassis was dismantled, the bits, including the motor, were given a bath in isopropyl alcohol and a good scrub with an old toothbrush. After re-assembly and lubrication she runs beautifully - if noisily, with more than a hint of the whistle of a turbo-charger when you turn up the juice!!

Continuing the topic of the freedom that TT 1:120 grants you in a typical UK location (traditional semi-detached!) here are further photos of my layout, Kirchheim. My two 'musts' for a layout are decent-length freight trains and plenty of opportunity for shunting - and these wishes have been easily realised with the choice of TT 1:120. Additionally, I have managed to include at the back of the layout loops and dead-end sidings (with track-circuits, no less) so there is ample opportunity, if I have time, for operating fun, especially as the goods sidings were designed as a form of time-saver for shunting puzzles.

I think there is also a genuine need, recognised by Hornby, to offer a model railway scale that fits better into modern houses. I work in German TT 1:120 scale and have a reasonably sized decent attic to play in - I would not have managed to fit in the layout that I have in H0 scale.

Here is the wagon with micro-brush tubes in service together with other home-made loads. The coal load is genuine E German coal, pinched years ago from my father-in-law's cellar, the tiny narrow-gauge loco is a souvenir from a railway museum in Lithuania, the black tubes are from my granddaughter's worn out felt pens, the truck is, as mentioned in an earlier post, a kit-bashed Czech LIAZ.

And here is the load of tubes with other wagons loaded with home-made cargo! The tiny narrow-gauge loco is a souvenir from a railway museum in Lithuania! The coal load is genuine coal on a chunk of polystyrene packaging, the black tubes are from worn-out felt-tip pens from my granddaughter, and the truck is a part scratch-built LIAZ with the cab from a Czech kit.

And the finished product. The securing straps are strips of thick paper.

And here is the finished product. The securing straps are strips of thick paper.

A further favourite pastime of mine, on the fringe of real layout progress, is the production of wagon loads, largely from junk. I have three favourite vehicles for loads - the BTTB/Tillig bogie open wagon (Eaos), and the BTTB/Tillig 2-axle steel open wagon and the 2-axle low-sided flat wagon - Rungenwagen. Loads for the open wagons are either scrap or coal or minerals - it is curiously relaxing to tip out the bit box and to put together what is basically a kind of sculpture of junk, which then needs creative painting! The low-sided Rungenwagen is the versatile one - here I make a removable floor of thin poly sheet on to which the load is glued or clipped. As you can see from the photos the loads include tubes (chucked out felt pens from my granddaughter), vehicles and steel bars made from the stems of disposable micro brushes. Logs and a digger have also been used. The lorry is clipped rather than glued on - it rests between wooden chocks (balsa) and steel ropes (plastic filament).

In response to the earlier comment on my environmentally unfriendly activities here is an example of effective recycling of the micro brushes. One of my favourite freight wagons, of which I have several, (German TT 1:120) (see my layout Kirchheim in the German railways section) is the BTTB/Tillig flat wagon or 'stake car' as the US translation has it! I am in the process of making a range of swappable loads for this flat wagon, all of which are based on an additional floor of thin poly sheet which will lift out easily together with the load. As you can see from the photo the stems of micro brushes make good round steel bars which after painting will be glued into the (pre-painted) poly sheet cradles on the additional floor. The load of three tubes in the background is also a result of recycling - they are from felt pens chucked out by my granddaughter.

They are not cotton buds, they have a fibre tip - I use them a lot, especially for painting 1:120 scale figures. I take the point about plastic waste - but the stems get re-used as wagon loads (steel rods) and I have not been able to find suitable genuine micro brushes at an affordable price.

I found that I was spending lots of money on little, expensive packs of mini- or microbrushes for detail and figure painting. Then my wife gave me the idea of trying micro brushes from the cosmetics world. Bingo! A pack of 100 from Ama*** costs about £3, about 6 or 7 times cheaper at least than an equivalent quantity from the modelling world. They work fine with my Tamiya and Revell paints.

Voila! The Liechtenstein truck is more or less complete - the card overlays were stuck on with a thin layer of white glue. I think the trailer will need a spray of semi-matt varnish to finish, though, and the card edges need some darkening. And I think a new, as in more modern, tractor unit might be called for. Maybe!

Voila! The Liechtenstein truck is more or less complete - the card overlays were stuck on with a thin layer of white glue. I think the trailer will need a spray of semi-matt varnish to finish, though. And I think a new, as in more modern, tractor unit might be called for. Maybe!

I posted this article already on the TT 1:120 section - if you do not follow that area, here is the text and the photos. I thought I would share with you some more of my kitbashed/adapted TT trucks. My problem is that I am only too easily diverted from my layout once I see, hear or imagine the magic words 'truck' or 'tram'. Just of late I have been attempting to deal with a backlog of part-finished truck projects - this weekend I managed three! Quite a while ago some Czech friends gave me some lorry kits by ES-Pecky - all 4 are based on LIAZ prototypes - LIAZ which is, sadly, now defunct was the heavy truck division of Skoda Industries, which now concentrates largely on rail technology and power generation - their car division was, of course, sold to VW years ago. I built one kit for an artic tractor unit and was not impressed with the quality of the moudings - however, the finished product looks good. In my truck bit boxes are all manner of E bloc parts, including some spectacularly unrealistic Tatra heavy haulage trucks - which, though, have very acceptable balloon tyres. I was looking at some photos of a family holiday in Slovakia in the early 1990s where I had snapped by chance (foreign spy???) a LIAZ army truck. Just what the forest enterprise on my layout needs, I thought, and once again carved up a couple of SES E German W50 chassis, added the balloon tyres from the unrealistic Tatra, the cab and air intakes etc from the original LIAZ kit and a flatbed body made from Evergreen sheet and profiles. A pity to stop now, I thought, and slightly modified the tipper body from the LIAZ kit to fit one of my many MK/Klose/Schirmer MAN chassis. With that truck there is still a good deal to do - the cab needs a touch of the airbrush, as does the chassis - but those MANs are great - no glue, all click joints if dismantling is needed. Finally I got round to assembling a Herpa artic trailer kit and pairing it up with an MAN tractor unit. The kit is all 'click together' - very straightforward. The only problem was that the king pin was too thin for the tractor's fifth wheel, that was easy to deal with. However, the Herpa trailer is going to be part of an experiment - a German acquaintance got me some photographic overlays for the Herpa trailers - as you can see from the photo the artic will be in the livery of a Liechtenstein haulier - chosen because my wife's cousin lives on the edge of Austria, a 20 minute bus ride from Vaduz in Liechtenstein.

I thought I would share with you some more of my kitbashed/adapted TT trucks. My problem is that I am only too easily diverted from my layout (German TT, Kirchheim, in the German Railways section) once I see, hear or imagine the magic words 'truck' or 'tram'. Just of late I have been attempting to deal with a backlog of part-finished truck projects - this weekend I managed three! Quite a while ago some Czech friends gave me some lorry kits by ES-Pecky - all 4 are based on LIAZ prototypes - LIAZ which is, sadly, now defunct was the heavy truck division of Skoda Industries, which now concentrates largely on rail technology and power generation - their car division was, of course, sold to VW years ago. I built one kit for an artic tractor unit and was not impressed with the quality of the moudings - however, the finished product looks good. In my truck bit boxes are all manner of E bloc parts, including some spectacularly unrealistic Tatra heavy haulage trucks - which, though, have very acceptable balloon tyres. I was looking at some photos of a family holiday in Slovakia in the early 1990s where I had snapped by chance (foreign spy???) a LIAZ army truck. Just what the forest enterprise on my layout needs, I thought, and once again carved up a couple of SES E German W50 chassis, added the balloon tyres from the unrealistic Tatra, the cab and air intakes etc from the original LIAZ kit and a flatbed body made from Evergreen sheet and profiles. A pity to stop now, I thought, and slightly modified the tipper body from the LIAZ kit to fit one of my many MK/Klose/Schirmer MAN chassis. With that truck there is still a good deal to do - the cab needs a touch of the airbrush, as does the chassis - but those MANs are great - no glue, all click joints if dismantling is needed. Finally I got round to assembling a Herpa artic trailer kit and pairing it up with an MAN tractor unit. The kit is all 'click together' - very straightforward. The only problem was that the king pin was too thin for the tractor's fifth wheel, that was easy to deal with. However, the Herpa trailer is going to be part of an experiment - a German acquaintance got me some photographic overlays for the Herpa trailers - as you can see from the photo the artic will be in the livery of a Liechtenstein haulier - chosen because my wife's cousin lives on the edge of Austria, a 20 minute bus ride from Vaduz in Liechtenstein.

If anyone needs BTTB/Gützold E42/Czech chassis parts, wheels and bogies as used above then I think I might be able to help.

Take a look at www.railnscale.com for a very interesting range of 3D printed road vehicles of the recent past. https://railnscale.com/modern-vehicles-tt-scale/

Returning to the earlier comments about the Reichsbahn ASF - Hornby-Arnold had/has the ASF in TT. I bought one in industrial livery a couple of years ago because it is so cute - although I have no real use for it, unless, of course, I get to build that working diorama....... Its pulling power is surprisingly good, in spite of its size, but a layout needs live frogs if it is to run well. The real ASF has spread right across the DB AG's network since the DB and the DR were merged in 1994, and the most appealing ones are in Intercity livery! See photo from the German Wikipedia!

How about TT 1:120? The Hornby-Arnold Köf are lovely models and run well in spite of their small size.

The Arnold Köf's chassis might be difficult to use in another loco as the body shell is used to hold motor and chassis together. I'll post a photo to explain as soon as I can.

Bavaria-Modell was a small manufacturer of high-quality H0 models based in Thüringen. Their website was: www.bavaria-modellbahnen.de but I think it is now defunct. The label on the box - 'Lokschuppen Hagen-Haspe' - is that of one of their 'main dealers' so to speak.