Schinkendorf. A small German H0 Layout

At the Ally Pally show, I bought this Roco VTG Ferrywagon from Ellis Clark Trains, along with another wagon. I went and got a cuppa and sat down, took it out of the box and found the chassis was severely bowed. Not expecting a positive response, I took it back, but no, the gentleman I bought it from remembered me and when I showed him the problem, refunded my money without quibble. I promptly bought another item with the money, he put the van in the bin, thought for a minute and then said I might as well have it as it would only get chucked away, "see what you can do with it"! Needless to say, I can heartily recommend Ellis Clark Trains! I took the wagon apart after a few days, and found the problem was due to the weight, which is a casting fitted in the centre of the floor, having cracked, swollen and distorted, pulling the chassis put of shape. Mazak rot, probably. The weight came away easily, breaking into two halves, but the chassis was still bowed. After a bit of ponderi...

These seem to have been quite common both sides of the Intra-German Border. Basically a relatively lightweight, rubber tyred, small crane, rather different from, say, a JCB or Coles Crane in the UK, though I have seen one or two similar devices here. They have a wide variety of uses, often picking up scrap for loading/unloading or agricultural products such as sugar beets. While the open wagon this example is about to start unloading carries coal, I'm not sure how typical "bagger fodder" that is, it'll have to do for now as it's the only loaded open wagon I have. Both sides? Yes, this example is from the DDR. I also have a Kibri kit for a West German one, but have yet to assemble it. I don't know whether this type of bagger was exported from East to West (at least, pre 1989), if not then I'll have to build a DR layout as well!

So far in my German railway modelling, I have only used Peco Setrack, as it was what I had. Yesterday, I was at an exhibition and bought a couple of Roco Line points for a bargain price, to see how they compare with Peco. There's a whopping great curved point, but what really interests me at the moment is this 3-way. The curves seem to be about equivalent to Peco 2nd radius, but it could still form the nucleus of a small layout, perhaps in an APA box or similar. Not sure about the big boxes for switching on the sides; these incorporate springs so you can run against the point (may be useful) but don't look great. I'll have to investigate means of hidden actuation, I'm sure such exist. James Hilton has recently featured a couple of excellent small European themed schemes for H0 on his blog, here: https://paxton-road.blogspot.com/2024/02/kohlenbachbruke-eastern-european.html and here: https://paxton-road.blogspot.com/2024/03/commission-european-secondary.html and although...

 290 110 and its short train of empties blocks the crossing at Schinkendorf while waiting to depart. Nobody's worried about this, as none of the waiting vehicles has a driver, and anyway they'll only be stuck behind the tractor 🚜 . What's a heavy shunter like a 290 doing at a backwater like Schinkendorf? Perhaps deputising for one of the regular engines that's failed, or in test, fresh from overhaul or repair. Actually, I bought the 290, which seems to have been used very little, at Ally Pally last weekend for £50. It is on test following my obtaining the right type of Profi couplings to fit the dovetail style coupler mounts; this both enables and requires a test run to see how it works with stock. Short answer, pretty well so far, even passing the acid test of putting a rake of 4 4-wheeled opens through the sharp reverse curves. This defeated the 212, resulting in buffer locking, though to be fair the latter loco is the only properly close coupled loco I own. Sounds l...

I bought this Piko "Hobby" BR218 from Scograil at the London Festival of Railway Modelling, Alexandra Palace, last Saturday. In order to change the couplings to my preferred Profis, it's necessary to remove the swinging coupler mounts from the bogies. These have a small spring to centre the coupling...and, naturally, when I removed the first mount, the spring, which is held captive between the mount and a hole in the front of the bogie, vanished. Normally when a spring pops out, I have a vague which direction it's gone in, but not this time! A search of the modelling table, followed by a search of the floor, eventually yielded a spring. But not the one that had gone missing...that's silver in colour, the one I found is bronze. So the original spring slipped off to some other dimension, then back again, changing colour in the process. Quantum, obviously 🙄  Meanwhile, back in our reality...what a bargain! Sure, it doesn't appear to have flywheel drive, but it s...

Yesterday's WRG show went well. The layout ran nicely, any problems were largely due to being distracted while operating, mostly by nattering to my "audience" and running against points or whatever. One oddity is the when pulling more than two open wagons from the loading siding by the platform with the BR212, the leading wagon derails on the loading dock points. This doesn't happen with the Köf 3, I suspect the sharp curve of the point combined with a lack of weight in the wagons, and perhaps nearing the limit of swing of the close coupler mechanism on the 212 may all be contributing factors. I ran pretty much all my stock yesterday and this was the only combination that gave problems. I continue to be impressed with the performance of Profi Couplings and close coupling mounts. Once I've put the layout up at home again, I'll experiment with adding weight to the opens, I intend to load them anyway so it's no problem.  Thanks to all concerned for organising...

One of the basic features of the whole "build a layout while preparing to move" thing was the ability to pack everything for storage or transport quickly, easily and for it to be well protected.  The layout itself sits in two 22litre Really Useful Boxes that are sold for storing wrapping paper.  Below these two is an excellent stock box sold by Trainsporters...I'll come back to this as I think it deserves a post to itself. At the top is a box from another manufacturer, bought as I couldn't obtain another 22l RUB. This contains the fiddlestick, Peco Loco Lifts, tools, meter, soldering iron, H0 cars, the 798/998 railbus, KLV and class 212 in their boxes as well as loco and track cleaning stuff. Now to put it in the car...