HAPPY 186TH BIRTHDAY, GERMAN RAILWAYS! 🥂💐

7th December 1835 marked the historical start of railway travel in Germany. The first 6.04km between Nuremberg and Fürth shortened the travel time between the two trade cities by 10 minutes. Almost 3.5 years later on 7th April 1839, the first long-distance passenger rail travel between Leipzig and Dresden was completely, the 88km stretch that was built in stages over 2 years. 8th December 2017 marked another landmark achievement in the German railway history. The completion of VDE 8 shortened the travel time between Berlin, the capital of Federal Republic of Germany, and Munich to under 4 hours. 186 years … Continue reading HAPPY 186TH BIRTHDAY, GERMAN RAILWAYS! 🥂💐

Mini Diorama for Office

I found it therapeutic to work on a model railroad in spite of its size. While my larger segment layout is stowed in the cellar for the time being, I found a small piece of wood 46cm x 11cm that makes a nice mini diorama for my office desk. I took a piece of medium right Peco turnout and laid some concrete Peco flex-tracks to each end of the wood. I used a 3mm cork roadbed which was made from cork wall panels (available at hardware stores). The platform at top end is also made from cork. I am modelling … Continue reading Mini Diorama for Office

Guide to German Railways Operation and Signalling Principles

For those who are looking for German railways operation and signalling principles especially in English, I highly recommended the following: Source: Mark Vogel (Flickr.com) Dr. Joern Pachl wrote an excellent document on the German railway operation principles (PDF), explaining in detail how the German system works compared to Anglo-Saxon’s. Wolfgang Meyenberg did an excellent job on documenting and explaining the various German railways signal principles from last 2 centuries as well as the latest practices. I hope both references will be useful to you in building a close to prototype railway operations on your model layout. Continue reading Guide to German Railways Operation and Signalling Principles

“Somewhere in Germany” Trackplan – Final Version

As promised, here is my updated “Somewhere in Germany” (“Irgendwo in Deutschland”) trackplan. I would call this the final version since for the past 2 weeks I have discussed and finetuned with a fellow N-scale modeler from Germany this trackplan. He has been kind and helpful to translate my 1st version paper drawing into a digital plan using SCARM. A BIG DANKE SCHÖN, DIRK! Basically, he took my requirements and wishes (what John Armstrong would call as “Givens and Druthers“) and made some modifications to my trackplan while still retaining my basic concept. I am pleased with the final result. In my initial plan, I had some … Continue reading “Somewhere in Germany” Trackplan – Final Version

Lucky Draw Win: “DB Netze Infrastrukturprojekte 2012” Coffee table Book

One advantage of working for Deutsche Bahn is you have information about trains and its operations (only publicly available information are published here). DB Projektbau GmbH, a subsidiary of DB Netze (railway infrastructure company) published a coffee-table book about their infrastructure projects in 2012. I won this book through an internal lucky draw. This wonderful book (in German/Deutsch) is available for Eurailpress from 48 Euro. A good book to have if you want to follow the construction guidelines of tunnels, bridges and right-of-ways of DB. Definitely an idea book for my N-scale layout. Continue reading Lucky Draw Win: “DB Netze Infrastrukturprojekte 2012” Coffee table Book

Alles gute zum 176. Geburtstag, deutschen Eisenbahnen!

Today, 7th December marked the 176th Anniversary of German Railways. The first commercial railway, powered by British-built Der Adler (“The Eagle”), started from Nuremberg to Fürth, a distance of 6 kilometers, signalled the beginning of railway undertakings in Germany. Soon the railway began to expand with other states established their own railway and were consolidated in 1924 with the formation of the Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft (DRG). From Der Adler to ICE, German railways is still growing with new high speed lines being built and foreign and private operators entering the German rail passenger and freight markets. There are over 500 … Continue reading Alles gute zum 176. Geburtstag, deutschen Eisenbahnen!