Claude_Dreyfus

One of our club's (Liphook & District MRC) occasional activities in the past has been to visit a show in Germany. Previously it was the Modellbau Koln; however that was one of a number of casualties post-Covid, so we looked around for an alternative. The obvious candidate was the big show at Dortmund, itself only about an hour away from Cologne on a local train. Cologne made a logical base of operations as we were familiar with the city and its hotels, as well as the convenience of its station (direct trains to Brussels etc.).

 

Our usual MO for these trips to to take the Eurostar from London to Brussels, with a two-hour gap, before continuing on to Cologne using the ICE. The journey is normally pretty smooth (it also includes the connection to London, which in my case was a combination of Southern and Thameslink), and fortunately that was the case this time.

 

 

We arrived at St Pancras at about 7:30 and waited around outside the Betjeman Arms until 8:00 for breakfast - a good way to start the journey proper. Then to our steed, for this leg of the journey 374007/008. Note one of the remaining 373s in the background.

 

The layover at Brussels is enough time for lunch (at one of the cafe/bars opposite the Eurostar entrance) and a dash into Carrefour to get some Belgium beer for home. I also managed to get a few snaps at Midi station.

 

 

 

 

 

And thence to Cologne, using the Brussels - Frankfurt ICE service.

 

For these trips we now tend to use the Kommerzhotel Köln, fairly basic but right next to the station, convenient for the city and very clean. Once luggage was deposited we went into the city on the hunt for beer and Currywurst. 

 

Cologne station has always been an interesting place, with plenty of activity and interest. Sadly, and inevitably, there is less variety there now to even 12 years ago when we made our first club visit; but it is still a worthwhile place to wile away a couple of hours. There is also a bookshop at the station with a decent railway section. It is still a photogenetic place, especially with the cathedral next door...

 

 

 

 

Our first full day in Germany was our trip to the show at Dortmund. I have heard much about it over the years, but this was our first visit. The journey to the show was very straight-forwards, helped by a day pass for up to 5 people which cost €52.00. Pretty good value as it included the Dortmund trams, plus other local trains in the area. 

 

At Dortmund station itself was my first sight of one of the BR147s used on the more middle-distance ICE services.

 

 

The Dortmund show was certainly large, and not just limited to railways, with model cars, boats, planes and other things on display. There was also a large Lego display. The show had a sizable trade showing, although perhaps unsurprisingly Marklin featured heavily...most stalls had half of their space devoted to Marklin. Those that didn't were Marklin specialists and therefore had all of their space devoted to Marklin! A fair few manufacturers were also present.

 

There were less layouts than I expected, although there were some excellent examples. For me the best layouts were French, I will admit to being a little disappointed with the German offerings. A few of the layouts are below...

 

In my humble opinion, the layout featured in the first three pictures was the best in show. Quite exquisite. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I met the editor of Continental Modeller photographing this pretty French layout! The show was certainly worth the visit, but by all accounts not as good as previous years. I did not indulge much with the trade stands, although I am very taken with the PCX range of H0 road vehicles - some of the best quality H0 cars I have seen.

 

Our journey to and from Dortmund was on one of the semi double-decker BR462 EMUs. An extremely pleasant environment to travel in - it was also noted that Modellbahn Union are producing a version of this unit in H0; there was a pre-production sample on display at the show. Once back in Cologne, we were off out for schnitzel (with a fantastic paprika sauce) and more beer.

 

Day three involved a day-trip out to near by Wuppertal, to have a play on the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn. This is a 40 minute train ride from Cologne on one of the National Express 9442 'Talent 2' units - seen here on the left with one of its DB cousins.

 

 

The town of Wuppertal has attractive parts, however its main draw is the suspended railway, which is not only a popular visitor attraction but also acts as a key part of the local transport infrastructure. The vehicles themselves are quite modern, although the infrastructure still has the air of fin de siècle design. Those units also have a pretty rapid acceleration!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The suspended railway was a real treat and well recommended if anyone is in the neck of the weeks.

 

The following day was our return home, with our train due to leave Cologne at just before midday, so we had morning to wander around the city and see what was passing through the station. Despite the reduced number of loco hauled services, there was still plenty of interest in and around the station. The next few pictures show the variety of what we saw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once on the train, our journey back - again via Brussels - was equally uneventful; which is what you want from a return journey. The homebound highlight? One of the original class 373s as our steed home! 

 

On 13/04/2024 at 23:10, John M Upton said:

Thameslink is such a dull operation that an eight car 700 going to Brighton is almost a "interesting" variation.

Maybe so, but the interesting variation that turned up at Three Bridges from Brighton at about 7:00am last week was not appreciated! Got a little cosy by East Croydon...

49 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

someday, people will appreciate the class 156.

They will be preserved.

They will run railtours.

They are the future of Heritage on the mainline

someday.

 

😀

You jest, but that sort of thing happens a lot in Japan. A large percentage of tourist trains are rebuilt examples of JNR DMUs and EMUs (KiHa40/48 being probably the most common), which are known by the fantastic term 'Joyful Trains'.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyful_Train

 

Many are adapted for specific routes (big windows in scenic areas, local craftsmanship in the interiors), and prove popular. Rebuilding a couple of 156s when the time comes to run specific WHL tourist services may not he such a mad idea.

3 hours ago, adb968008 said:

 

For me, a return visit to Knysna, South Africa has been postponed a decade now, i thought one day steam may return there, but alas it hasn’t returned and neither have I.

Sadly I suspect you will have a long wait. The line closed following a landslide and there is, so far, neither the money nor the appetite (at least from Transnet) is there to reinstate it. Private operators have been approached, but the view of the local guide when I visited in 2019 was that a potent blend of corruption and incompetence meant he did not expect to see trains running along the route again. I'd love for him to be wrong...but suspect he isn't...

This one was quite amusing...

There has been a further announcement from WCR regarding the Jacobite bookings...

 

https://westcoastrailways.co.uk/news/important-announcement-the-jacobite

 

An interesting take on the matter, and one I suspect the ORR may not fully agree with! 

Great to see a new overseas focussed exhibition planned, I wish it well. Annoyingly I'm not around that weekend, or I would certainly have visited. Here's hoping it is a success; I certainly like the idea of the various overseas groups getting together to help with the organisation and running. 

7 hours ago, Night Train said:

Some good footage of the aftermath from the NTSB.

 

 

I expect various figures within the insurance industry will be stocking up on industrial grade vaseline in preparation for the financial rogering they are about to receive.

The suggestion (from an Actuary I was talking to yesterday) is this could be a bigger total loss than the Costa Concordia. If so it could be the largest marine-linked loss on record.

16 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

I wonder if it’s related to a desire to have something really obvious and clichéd, so that those unfamiliar with the prototype can immediately tell which country it is, much in the way that Hollywood films feature a shot of a red bus driving past Big Ben/a yellow taxi/the Eiffel Tower to show that the characters have arrived in London/New York/Paris. One alternative that I have seen is to have a big flag at the front of the layout.

 

Quite possibly, it often leads to 'where is this set' type questions.

 

14 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

One alternative that I have seen is to have a big flag at the front of the layout.

That was my way of getting around it. Didn't stop all of the questions, some still didn't see the full-sized Japanese flag at the front. More frightening were those who did not recognise the flag itself!

I have loved railways for as long as I can recall, influenced by holidays (mainly Cornwall), my father's model railways (German, Swiss and Austrian) and an enthusiastic head teacher from my primary school who encouraged my interest. 

 

My interest really took hold for watching real railways in 1989 when I started senior school. The Coastway West ran along the end of our school fields, with the Lavant branch running along side the science and art blocks. There was a surprising variety along the main line then, with regular engineers trains (33 or 73, usually the latter), plus the Portfield oils (37 or 47), Ardingly aggregates (always a 56), and of course the Lavant gravel shuttle (always a 73 when I saw it).

 

Regular visits to London from about 1990 (into Waterloo) properly introduced me to the class 50, and I have happy memories of a day trip to a number of termini that year. Oh, to have had a camera back then!!

 

That got me properly started, and although I didn't travel regularly I managed to get a reasonable haul of numbers in the early to mid 90s, mainly residents and visitors to the south-east. 

 

Although I have not collected numbers for many years, I still like to take a few pictures...

3 minutes ago, Mike 84C said:

The main interest comes from people who have visited Bantry and recognise some of the remaining railway features or did'nt  know there had ever been a railway to Bantry! I'm always surprised by how many have been to the area

We took our club 70s set DR layout 'Inspired by Friedrichstrasse' to a show recently only to find the owner of the layout next door lived in Berlin in the 70s! What is more, a few other visitors and other exhibitors had either done the same or visited the city during that time. I expected one or two would have known the layout during that period,  but there were more than i would have imagined! Fortunately the purpose of the layout was to capture the essence of the place, as opposed to being a slavish copy, and the comments were very positive. My Japanese layouts have been similar conversation starters with people who lived, or visited there.

 

In terms of overseas layouts at exhibitions, a good variety will attract me to a show, whereas I tend not to bother with shows that have no-overseas offerings. That is not to say I will ignore British models...far from it...I just like the variety a well-rounded show offers. 

 

I am less fond of excessively twee models, or those which chuck every cliché in the book at the layout. For example, none of my Japanese layouts had a pagoda or set of torii gates, or regular Bullet trains. They take the subject seriously. I would add, the addition of cliché and tweeness has appeared on a fair few UK layouts as well (although not the Bullet Trains!).

I have seen the proposed changes timetable, and there isnlt much there to 'improve' the service. There are a few things would immediately improve the service (at least from an Arun Valley perspective) however.

1. A later departure from VIC along the Arun valley (the current 22:30ish departure is not much use). People want to use the trains, but if the service isn't there (theatre, concerts etc, normally don't finish in time to get to VIC for the last train of the day), they're not much use. People drive to Horsham or even across to Haslemere to get the later services (good I suppose for car park revenues).
2. The proposed timetable changes make the Portsmouth service much slower, so renders the splits at Horsham rather pointless. There was a lot of anger when Southern introduced this from passengers along the Arun Valley, removing the direct Chichester service from the Arun Valley stations, as well as making the journey to London longer as there is an additional wait at Horsham for the 'fast' section to arrive/depart. It would be better for the passenger to return the Bognor split back to Barnham. Naïve I know, but the degradation in service was not reflected in the ticket prices from our local station...
3. Reinstate the well patronised London Bridge directs. The justification for their withdrawal was straight out of the Beaching sleight of hand play-book. Withdraw the later afternoon service and then say the service isn't used. Guess what, the 18:05 was withdrawn 'due to Covid' and the 17:05 was retained. A 17:05 departure from London Bridge may work for Southern managers and Civil Servants, but was pretty useless for those who actually do a day's work in the city. The trains to London Bridge are now very well patronised, with large numbers of passengers joining the Thameslink services to get to the city. There is certainly a case to reinstate this, and other LBG directs.

I know Southern have no intention of doing any of these things - they spent years trying to dump the London Bridge directs, so I don't expect them to return, and given the rather pathetic excuses given not to run a later train (engineering works was one (do they have engineering works every night on the Arun Valley? Of course they don't...)), that ain't going to happen either.

A couple of pictures from the 1990s featuring de-icing units. Picture quality is not great as these are scans from prints.

 

First up is 930017 at Eastleigh in about March 1994. It was quite early, and the winter sun was very bright, so not a great photo. That said, I'm glad I managed to get this picture, as it is another of those unrepeatable pictures...

 

 

A few years later, and in a newer livery, 930005 rests at Haslemere. 

I have a set of ADE centre entry bogie carriages in DB Green. Despite being around 40 years old, the level of detail is excellent and they hold their own against far more modern offerings. I did not, however, realise they produced locomotives. 

6 hours ago, brossard said:

Surprised no-one has thought of this:

 

John

The one that really came to mind was this one...

 

 

Not really the weather for taking photographs; dull and foggy, whilst running through a cutting!

 

155311 passes north from Pulborough forming the 2Q10 09:58 Barnham Up Sidings - Tonbridge West Yard via London Bridge. 29 January 2024.

 

They also produced the tamper in N. I have one. Lovely looking model, but the motor was absolute rubbish and the build quality suspect. I bought it from Hobby Search, and had to send back for repair/replacement. HS were excellent and the service they provided was first-rate. Had it repaired and returned at no extra cost. 

Nice to see the layout on here in more detail. I do like Austrian railways, and am currently at the top of that slippery slope having got hold of some OBB stock last year. 

 

I did not visit Ally Pally last year, but some club colleagues did and were of the view that this was the stand-out layout of the show. Would definitely like to see this 'in the flesh' one day.

They will be, and there will be no concession for overseas modellers! Manufacturers such as Green Max are very much for the domestic market. Keep an eye on some of the Japanese for (the English language JNS forum for example) as someone on there may tackle it. 

Agree, Hobby Search are very good. 

 

Note about the kit, it is not motorised, nor by the sounds of things will it be easy to fit a motor. Obviously someone will do it...will be interested to see how it will be done.

Interesting. Good to know, thanks. 

 

GBRf 66304 leads the 6G12 11:02 Eastleigh East Yard - Gatwick service through Pulborough on 20 January 2024.

A couple from Scotland 

 

156474 and an unidentified class member rest at Kyle of Lochalsh back in about 2002.

 

156496 arrives at Bridge of Orchy with a Glasgow service in June 1996.

 

Another from Bridge of Orchy, but a few years previously (August 1989). Sadly our family holiday was a year or so too late, so I just missed LLB 37/4 on the route. This is notable as it features a 3-car set, but sadly I cannot read the number. 

 

Edit: A little bit more info on the 1989 picture. Apparently in the summer of 1989 a small number of units were reformed to 3-car. This was just for that summer season, although a similar exercise was carried out in 1992 as well. The 1989 units involved were 156445, 447, 449, 450, 453 and 456 (who retained their set numbers). The additional centre cars were provided by 156435, 499 and 500.

 

More details on this subject are here...

 

http://members.madasafish.com/~dysgraphyk/156/class156_misformed.htm

 

2 hours ago, Neil said:

As I see it the principle downside to the closure of the blast furnaces and their replacement with an electric arc furnace is the lost jobs. We need to move to greater recycling of materials and this would take us a step in that direction. Unless we want to see an ever warming world for our children and grandchildren then we have to change how we do things; the old ways can't continue. It is magic thinking to imagine that tackling climate change can be done without change and that we should have some sort of special exemption for polluting industries that contribute to global warming. 

 

And that, as I see it, is the crux of the matter. At the present time, heavy industry is extremely polluting, both in terms of emissions and impacts on the local environment. There is also the economic factor. My very rudimentary understanding of electric arc vs blast furnaces suggests that the former are more energy efficient and flexible. If you are going to make your facility more flexible and future proofed, then electric arc seems to be the most logical approach. Sadly this means a reduction in workforce, however anyone who believes that we will move to a greener economy and retaining the same level of skilled manual jobs, is going to be sorely disappointed. 

 

Politicians and others who on one hand espouse green credentials and campaign against heavy industry, or oil exploration or mining, cannot complain when the inevitable closure of such polluting facilities have an impact on local employment and communities. That is the price that is paid; however tragic that is for the communities. People can be retrained, and the need for commodities such as steel is still required, so there is a future. And that future is being developed as we speak; more efficient production methods, less raw materials required, less energy required in the production.

 

As has been mentioned before, outsourcing coal mining, steel making and other polluting activities does not solve the issue - it merely transfers the issue to someone else; especially galling when countries such as the UK beat up others for their high carbon emissions, when we are customers of those countries.

 

Perhaps a fairer way of attributing emissions would be to spread those produced in a country to the emissions figures of their customers.  So for example, it has been said that China produced 1,875 million tons of steel in 2019, resulting in at least 3,375 million tons of CO2 being generated. If 10% of that was exported, then surely 10% of the emissions should be attributed to the customer countries (the product is for them, and in the past likely as not they would have produced it themselves). This may help reduce the drive to reduce heavy manufacturing in a country to meet green targets, but actually only shift the issue elsewhere - and yes I know that economies of scale will impact on the calculations.

 

In saying all of this, it is regrettable that for the sake of headline chasing, a clear and sustainable plan was not on the agenda for any of our governments over the last few decades. Closing coal power stations in particular at a time when our need for electricity is significantly increasing without a consistent, reliable and most importantly upwardly scalable alternative for providing this electricity, will not win favour with the populace when they cannot charge their car; irrespective of how many pats on the back the politicians may get a climate summits... 

 

As with so many things, the need for immediate results or a 'lasting legacy' causes so much more damage. But then, when has a long-term sensible approach (an approach that would inevitably encompass more than one government) ever been a palatable option? Ultimately you cannot have the best of both worlds today, either option will have its supporters and detractors, but sadly no matter which approach it taken there will be those who lose out. So glad I am not a decision maker!

 

I did make an enquiry about these with Rails of Sheffield (being a Rapido dealer). They are going to check to see if they can take orders for them. I have my eye on a couple.