Soviet Bogie Platform Wagons

In my continued proces of building up a collection of Soviet narrow gauge rolling stock, two platform wagons arrived today by mail. Quite unusual for such rather rare prototypes they are out of the box delivered finished and ready for service (even if I don't have a layout to use them on).

 

Two new platform wagons unpacked and photographed in the garden with a MD-54-2 and a piece of mining machinery as load.

The protoype for the models is a simple steel framed platform wagon with sheet metal floor and cast steel 'american-style' bogies and central couplings. Pockets for stakes to enable transport of wood etc. are placed on the outside frames. Several types of platform wagons were built by Demikhovo Engineering Works (DMZ) with some of them having very low sides and some strengthening beams across the load area - probably for transporting logs. The Demikhovo Engineering Works (Демиховский Машиностроительный Завод, ДМЗ) in Demikhovo near Moscow was founded in the Soviet Union in the 1930's building machines for the peat industri including bogie hoppers by the thousands. Today the company is the Russian Federation's main producer of EMU's. 

Drawing and data sheet of almost identical platform wagon built by DMZ. It's fun that the gauge is stated as being 1520 mm - clearly a mistake!

Works photograph of a platform wagon from Demikhovo.

The wagons are handbuilt in Ukraine by the Ukrainian 'Miniland' model railway organisation that is best known for operating Ukraine's largest 1/87 scale model railway in Kyiv. They are not what I would consider cheap, but the quality/price ratio is well balanced and I already have more models on order. Packaging on arrival from Kyiv is top quality, and once cardboard box and bubblewrap was removed I had a tailor-made lasercut wooden box in my hands. The box will help protect the models from all but the most viscious mishandling.

The contents laser engraved on the lid of the wooden box supplied as a safe home for the models.

With the lid off the wagons can be seen fitting into the foam lining of the box. Thin plastic wrapping makes it easy to extract the models.

The models correspond to available drawings of Demikhovo platform wagons and both are assembled with care, bearing no visible marks from glue, solder or files etc. The wagons are equipped with full underside detail like air tank, pipes and brake rodding. Paint is well applied, probably by air brush, and the lettering is clear and the wagons carry individual numbers and appropriate data.

Platform 1930 in light grey livery.

Braked platform 1262 with brake compartment built from steel sheet and profiles.

Underside detail on platform 1930. The only thing missing is the brake shoes.

As an extremely utilitarian design the Demikhovo platform wagons weren't the kind of rolling stock anyone took a particularly interest in. Consequently most images show prototype wagons heavily weathered and worn. As long as all eight wheels touched the rails and the couplings pointed in the right direction all seems to have been fine. I look forward to add weathering to the models in the future. For the time being they will stay in their nice box.

Platform wagon loaded with two substantial concrete elements. This particular wagon seems to have been light grey in a distant past. Surely an inspiration for my future weathering work on the two models.

More Underground Skips

During my summer vacation I began assembly of the last three 3D printed kits of Hudson underground skips that I had delivered in December 2022. I finished the first three of the skips in May 2023. Having to recover after a bike crash left me with a chance of getting to work on the skips after a period of demanding work.

Six underground skips in the Nystrup Gravel yard. The newest of them closest to the camera with unpainted wheels and no weathering.

The work remaining was mainly related to the wagons´ couplings. Small triangles of 1 mm plasticard with a hole for the coupling link was glued behind the endframes. Next identical  coupling links were made by winding 1 mm NS wire around a piece of 2 mm plasticard with the width matching the inner measurement of the coupling link. A fast method to fabricate links of the same size.

To add weight to the light 3D printed wagons small pieces of led were glued in place on each side the mount for the couplings.With lead weights also glued behind the skips' supports for the tubs have worked on the first three skips work tolerably well, even on my bad track. 

Plasticard triangles for mouting couplings glue behind the buffers. The added lead pieces on each side of the triangles are also visible.

All the stuff needed to make equally sized coupling links in close-up.

The links ready for further work and fitting on the skips.

With the last glue dried I sprayed both tubs and frames with 'Chaos Black' and a little rust coloured paint left in a spray can. The skips are now ready for weathering and I also need to bend up three hooks for the couplings.

The skips are nice and simple kits demanding only simple tools. As such they are an exellent choise when modelling in the cottage. Here photographed on the stub of a newly felled tree.

Most Northerly Tram Line in the World

No three week vacation lasts forever and I had only one day to settle in on the company office before heading to a sister company's office in Trondheim, Norway. I'd been there on two short visits before the vacation, but this time I did a 10 day shift of writing text and organising a bid process. While I like to bring models or kits with me to the cottage, bringing them on a work trip so far north is stretching the enthusiasm a bit. Consequently I have no progress to report from the Nystrup Gravel modelling table.

Tram 95 arriving on Breidablikk Station a rainy July evening. Notice new steel catenary mast. The trams were built by German company Linke-Hofmann-Busch in 1984.

On two of my trips to Trondheim I managed to visit the Gråkall-line twice - and even getting a short ride. The 1000 mm gauged tram line is the world's most northerly tramway system, following the 2004 closure and dismantling of the Arkhangelsk tramway in Russia. The Norwegian Gråkall line is almost nine kilometers long, running from St. Olav's Gate in the city centre gradually climbing up through residential districts to end at Lian Station in the hills south of Trondheim.

Tram 97 rolling gently into Munkvoll station from Lien. Munkvoll is home to the company's workshops and a tram museum open during the summer months

Steel catenary mast in Dronningens Gate (Queen's Street). Currently no trams operate on the line inside Trondheim city due to planned sevage and road works. 

Wooden catenary masts between Breidablikk and Belvedere stations.

On Munkvoll station there is a pizzeria in the line's balloon loop and a restaurant with outdoor second floor seating. I chose the restaurant and could photograph tram 93 starting towards Ila while enjoying a good meal.

The Gråkall line was opened by a private company in 1924 after a troubled and lengthy planning and construction phase having begun in the field back in 1917. The line was lengthened to Ugla in 1925 and to present day terminal Lien in 1933. Trondheim city took over the line in 1966 from the private company and the line was closed in 1988 at the same time as the tramline in Trondheim. Locals took over the Gråkall line in 1990 and a new company is running the line with great success today. Even if the trams are rather old (built in 1984) trams as well as the line are well maintained, with new steel catenary masts gradually replacing the charming wooden ones.

The summer has also been used for volunteering on the 700 mm gauge vintage railway in Denmark and I have been out working on the line as well as participating in the traffic.

8-coupler Da 7 (Henschel 18449/1921) pulling out of Hedehusgård Station passing M 12 with a works train.

Rare Coal Load on Nystrup Gravel

Skips loaded with coal was a comparatively rare occurence on Nystrup Gravel, where the vast majority of trains consisted of skips loaded with gravel. Recently a black and white picture of a coal train in the Nystrup yard surfaced and I wanted to explore the story behind the image.

Nystrup Gravel loco 3 with three skips loaded with coal, including some rather large lumps.

The image is quickly exposed as a simple editing of a digital colour photograph from my small 1/19 scale layout. The coal in the skips is Danish coal from a site I visited on my trip to the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. Bornholm has its rocky underground exposed in contrast to the more westerly located parts of Denmark and a few sites on the island has been worked to extract coal. I visited one of the sites and quickly filled a bag with small lumps of coal. Back home I filled a few skips with Danish coal to resemble the black and white photo. Quite expectedly I succeeded splendidly!

Skips 12, 3 and 54 filled with coal and pulled by Nystrup Gravel's small Lister R. The coal transport is a striking contrast to today's Denmark that used no coal for the last 3 months straight for the first time since the 1830's.

The coal lumps are quite large and some of them may have to be worked with a hammer to fit on the grate in Nystrup Gravel's central power plant.

Despite being quite large, the coal lumps from Bornholm are flaky with thin layers of sand. It will not be hard work breaking them up.

The coal from the Hasle quarry on Bornholm was brown coal (lignite) of a better quality than the brown coal quarried in Jutland at the same time during the German occupation of Denmark (1940-1945). The coal on Bornholm had a burn value amounting to 2/3 of German coal. Up to 40 m of overburden had to be dug away before the coal could be excavated. The overburden was transported by 900 mm skips to the nearby coast and tipped into to water. Surely an endevour only profitable during wartime with a cronic lack of coal from foreign suppliers. Today the site is called 'kultippen' (the coaltip) despite the fact that it was overburden being disposed of. Walking on the tip it's quite easy to pick up pieces of black coal in the sandy dunes that today is left as a kind of desert. There is even a few skips (collected from elsewhere on Bornholm) displayed at the site. Follow this link and see a short movie about the coal extraction on Bornholm.

The sun setting into the Baltic Sea behind the row of skips displayed at 'Kultippen' near the old coal quarry on the Danish island of Bornholm.

900 mm Jung-loco with skips on the tip. The wooden skips are seen being emptied on the site that can be visited today and that supplied the coal for my small 1/19 scale skips.

Bornholm is also known for its many stone quarries and on a visit to one of them, I had to have a supply of granite for another skip. The granite may be on its way to Ericsson's Stone Masonry that sometimes had stone slabs delivered via removable track panels. Perhaps the skip with smaller pieces of granite was delivered this way too? 

Nystrup Gravel skip 2 in almost immaculate condition with small blocks of granite. Probably for the local stone masonry.

'Take care and move slowly, when you get to the masonry's wooden track' chief mechanic Petersen could be telling the driver, before the short train leaves Nystrup.

Vacation Modelling

As usual I bring a project for some slow vacation modelling in the cottage. This year I chose three 3D printed Hudson underground skips. They are second stage of a six wagon build proces with three skips finished in first stage back in 2023. With experience from building the first three skips there shouldn't be much to worry about! 

Three skips posing assembly line like on the cottage table cloth. One-piece full length 4 mm diameter brass bearings fitted.

One skip fitted with wheels - two still waiting.

The skips' wheels are designed for 3 mm axles and I used Albion Alloys thin-walled brass tube with a 4 mm outer diameter for bearings. To make the wagon a few grams heavier, I cut a single, long brass bearing completely enveloping the axle instead of two bearings fitted into the axleboxes on each side of the skip. With limited view of anything below the skip's tub the slightly larger appearance of the axle has hardly been noticable on the first three wagons. The axles were then cut to length and the wheels' axleholes were reamed with a 3 mm drill, the axle fitted in the tube bearings and the wheels pushed on. 

Before fitting, the wheels were cleaned up a bit and the worst dimples on the running surfaces removed with a sanding stick. 

Three skips fitted with 'caked on' ash on frames and skip bodies. The modeller enjoying a beer while working.

The putty has dried and now lead sheet is fitted as ballast.

Before the wheels were fitted, I sanded the printing traces from the sides of the frames. That was an easier job than to remove the traces on the sides of the skips' tubs. As the wagons were used to transport ash on Nystrup Gravel I'm applying a heavy weathering that will help to cover the last traces of the printing proces.  From prototype photos the skips were covered with 'cakes' of ash on the sides and to represent that, I added texture to the skips with modelling putty. I applied the putty with a wooden toothpick and worked the semi-dried putty into a thin layer with texture with an old tooth brush. 

With the putty dried I turned my attention to fit the lead ballast that is crucial to achieve accetable running from the skips. The first pieces of lead sheet was super glued into the skip body rests after being bent to a perfect fit.

Now work to bend up couplings are waiting.

Large Scale Skip Decorating Office

One of the 1/10 scale skips is now in service as office decoration right next to my table at my workplace. I always have a conversation items on a cupboard next to my table and I frequently rotate items. I had originally planned for both skips to be placed on the cupboard, but found them too large and consequently only one is displayed. 

The 1/10 skip was introduced in the office on my birthday 12. June and had to compete with flags placed by colleagues for attention. The skips holds a good amount of candy! 

Finally a Lorry For Gravel Transports

I have searched for a nice lorry to place at the lorry loading ramp for as long as I have had plans for my 1/19 scale Nystrup Gravel layout. In 1/19 scale the selection of lorry models is quite limited, the models are large and comparatively expensive. Now the lorry is here!

'Looks like good German quality!' Nystrup Gravel workshop manager Petersen seems to think of the Mercedes L 3500.

My hunt for a lorry in 1/19 scale (for car models the most usual scale is actually 1/18 scale) hasn't been easy. As mentioned the selection of lorrys is limited and they can be quite expensive (usually in the range of 150-200 €). I have a closed van and a small 3-wheel lorry in my collection and I've been lucky to find them quite cheap on Ebay. For years I have been looking at the Schuco Mercedes L3500 as the smallest lorry fitting my layout's time frame. I have been holding back buying one due to the price, but I've now been fortunate to get my Mercedes at almost half the usual price, even including postage. 

The Schuco model holds the usual high quality of the company's products. The model is a mix of metal castings and injected plastic parts with vinyl tires. There are far fewer clumsy details on the model than usually on die cast models as parts with delicate details have mostly been done in plastic resulting in more finesse. The model is huge (particularly so when I have just finished a 1/87 narrow gauge locomotive) and measures 40 cm in length. As such it fits the lorry loading ramp on my layout. Unfortunately the Mercedes is 9.5 cm high over the sides, exactly 3 mm higher than the chute on the lorry loading ramp! I'm now planning how the ramp can be rebuilt to accomodate the Mercedes.

40 cm of 'Wirtschaftswunder' Mercedes lorry ready for service on my small layout.

A peek into the cab shows a detailed interior. Perhaps a driver figure could be fitted?

The lorry model will not need many details added apart from new license plates and hand tools like showels. I will definately fit custom made decals to the model before detail painting and weathering.    

If you are a reader from Scandinavia and want to know more about the prototype Mercedes L 3500 I can recommend a visit to the Sundborg blog, where the author goes into detail with the history of the first post-war classic Mercedes lorry. Check the blog out for plenty of other interesting stories. The blog is a testimony that ideas and creativity can inspire across scales and themes. Dive into Sundborg's abundant inspiration - but set aside some time for the experience!

Period advertisement for the Mercedes L 3500 even showing then end of a typical DIN steel skip.

The rear end looks good too and will probably be adorned with the local haulage contractor's name. I have built models of haulage contractors lorries before, among them was the double cab Ford i 1/35.

I'm not starting work on the lorry anytime soon, but will probably design and order decals this summer in preparation for a winter project.