Then and Now 2

As my 1/19 scale layout has gradually developed to a semi-finished state I've looked back on a few old images on the blog. I have enjoyed seeing the difference three to four years of hobby work has made. The first 'Then and now' post can be found here.

I have tried to set up almost identical situations on same location to create a 'now and then' comparison. 

In April 2021 track works were making shunting difficult. A lot of planning was needed to keep the supply of gravel running. Still no landscaping, ballast and even the rails are still in shiny nickle silver.

Image from October 2025 showing that a range of improvements have taken place and the photo shows an almost entirely landscaped layout - still with lots of tasks remaining, though.

The Baguley-Drewry locomotive has only reached first stage of rebuilding. In 2021 I removed current collecting gear and taken out the glazing in the cab windows. Hand rails on the top of the bonnet have been removed too. The Baguley will probably become my next loco project once the Fowler is finished.

Three New Underground Skips

Another three Hudson underground skips are now in service on my little 1/19 scale industrial narrow gauge railway. They are as dirty as the first three, carry the numbers 31, 34 and 36 and are from the same shipment that arrived in December 2022. I began assembly of the last three skips during summer and continued with final assembly and paint in September.

A full train of underground skips at Nystrup Gravel. The three new wagons in the foreground. The skips were primarily used to transport ash from the company's boiler room.

As the proces of painting and weathering is essential a total repitition of what I did on the first three U-tub skips I will refer to the post on finishing the first three skips. Below are a few images further illustrating the painting and weathering process in addition to the images in the post linked to above. 

Wheels sprayed with 'Chaos Black' from Citadel directly from the rattle can. Axles protected with masking tape and the single wheels double taped to a piece of scrap cardboard.

The first layers of weathering is on. It looks like a total mess at this stage. It will look better once finished... Notice numbering covered with dirty deposits.

With most of the weathering in place I just had to finish the couplings. That was done adding homemade hooks to the single chain links made previously. I only fitted hooks on one end of each wagon.

Home made hooks bent from nickle silver wire.

Last touches of weathering being applied. In reality the process will probably continue until I have found a level of ash deposit and dust I find reasonable.

With black paint on the hooks and a quick wash of heavily diluted rust coloured oil paint the skips received an air brushing of matt varnish with a little pale sand added. Then wheels and frames had track dust added with a thin layer Vallejo 71.142 'Sinai Sand' mixed with a lot of water.

Model Trains as Decoration

Many, if not most, railway modellers have too little room to build their dream layout and many has very little room for just a small layout and their collection of locos, rolling stock etc. I'm no different. I had been wondering if by making small dioramas or miniature settings I could enjoy some of my models in a different way. A 1/87 scale speeder, due to its small size, became the first of my model trains to appear outside of the model room. The small diorama on a slice of birch has been exhibited in our bed room on a low cupboard. It's small, green and kind of cute - not too different from a small plant. 

A mini diorama as decoration.

I have even taken the liberty to drag one of my 1/10 scale skips into my office at work, where it due to its large size is perfect as a conversation item. Not least because I work for a company building railways.

My next project is a narrow box diorama to fit between books on one of my shelves. A mine adit with track, lights and a underground skip - and maybe even forced perspective.

33. Internationales Feldbahnertreffen

Four days of narrow gauge trainspotting, forest trekking, a guided tour around a closed clay mine and good German beer. That was some of the ingredients in this year's Internationales Feldbahnertreffen at the 600 mm 'Stumpfwaldbahn' in Ramsen, ca. 16 km northeast of Kaiserslautern in Germany.

Henschel 24011/1939 with a pair of timber bogies moving through the forest.

The 'Treffen' is the major annual event for vintage narrow gauge industrial railway enthusiasts in continental Europe. As usual the event had four days filled with networking, presentations, train rides and visits to usually off limits workshops and storage buildings. 

A pair of visiting Hatlapa locomotives pausing in front of the station building at Eiswoog terminus.

American Fairbanks-Morse speeder visiting from France speeding along the line.

A large concrete and steel girder viaduct towers over the Eiswoog Station. Here a view down on a Jenbacher Werke 'Pony' visiting from Romania.

The 'Stumpfwaldbahn' is located in a hilly, forested area and with beautiful autumn weather both resident and visiting locomotives looked their best. The hosts must have been relieved with the weather turning out so nicely!

Gmeinder 1992/1937 with three skips being filled by a 1970´s hydraulic excavator.

The loco shed in Ramsen with Henschel steam loco being readied for service in the foreground.

Two Deutz locomotives in the 4-track shed.

As usual the event provided a good view into another organisation's way of doing things and several observations was noted that may be useful on the vintage railway where I volunteer myself. As a modeller inspiration was picked up and as usual the details on several types of steel skips made me think about the next project.

The viaduct above Eiswooge Station is an impressive structure.

Henschel 24011/21939 taking water from a small stream.

The sign from the event's bar is passed on from this year's hosts to next year's from Apedale in the United Kingdom.

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 industry 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.