Leberecht, My Prussian modelling adventure.

[Allegheny1600]

Hello everyone,
My name is John Edge and I am a H0 scale modeller living in North Western England, halfway between Liverpool & Manchester but I am not really interested in football, despite the proximity of so many clubs.
I am very passionate about German railways though, I love them all! I have a diverse collection of H0 equipment from Era I through to Era VI but lately I have come to love the old Prussian railways most of all.
For this reason I have started to construct a suitable Era I layout in my spare box room. I have built and arranged four boards in an “L” shape of approximately 2.70m x 2.15m, three boards will be scenic, the forth board is a traverser.
I have been working on a track plan and so far have come up with this (below)


I hope it at least looks “Germanic” if not exactly “Prussian”. I have had some assistance from a German forum in ensuring that it does follow some aspects of Prussian design.Where in Prussia? I have no idea, hence the name "Irgwendo" which in German means "Somewhere"!
Why Prussia? Well, I originally followed the Bavarian railways for a long time but found that in DB days, I liked the look of the former Prussian machines better, they have become some of my favourite steam locomotives. A couple of years ago, a friend sold me a Brawa G 5.4 with DCC sound for only £100 and I loved it so much, I couldn’t stop and now have several locos and have been slowly building up my fleet of Passenger and freight cars.
So far, I am only copying what I have already posted in "other places" but presently we will get to some new stuff.
Greetings,
John

[NakatsuHime]

Nicely unusual, and will be looking forward to developments.

[pete12345]

Looks like an interesting and compact plan The extra run-round loop line should allow Güterzuge to be marshalled, and/or the Steinlade to be shunted without interfering with Personenverkehr

How big will the Drehscheibe be? Fleischmann make (or used to, at least) a nice compact model that seems ideal for a setting such as this.

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the positive responses!
Pete, your assessment of the track plan is quite correct, that is exactly how I plan to work the layout. I originally designed the layout with the tracks coming together in a three way point but later learned that was more of a Bavarian design, the Prussians liked to use the Drehscheibe instead, for it's twin purpose of changing tracks and turning engines.
When I made this discovery, I trawled the internet hunting for the small Fleischmann model (as you say!) only to discover that it is long out of production.
Rats! However quite fortunately after only a few days, one came up on ebay in the UK and I managed to win it. Lucky me as they are quite rare.
The length of the Fleischmann table is 183mm or approx 52' in H0 scale.
I've spent quite a bit of time working on this table but I will have to detail this in a later post.
Cheers for now,
John.

[Allegheny1600]

Hi again all,
I recently found some pictures I had taken during baseboard construction so I thought I'd post them, hopefully they may be a useful record of how I did it.


This is the timber for the final two boards, all cut ready for assembly.


I clamped a pre-drilled 'noggin' of timber to the ends of the main frame as a drilling template. Note the sacrificial piece of timber that I place under the work, this saves the work-piece some 'splitting' and also saves the workbench/table.


Once 3.5mm clearance holes were drilled, use countersink in electric screwdriver for fast easy countersinking.


Using the work table to line up side and end frames, then clamping securely into position.




Drilling pilot hole then carefully driving screws home - DO NOT overtighten as the wood will definitely split.
This will form an "L", take another side and end & repeat then join both "L"s together now we have a rectangular open box.


Mounting the central frame piece. Similar procedure to drilling end holes only now I go from pencil lines on my 'noggin!


The completed open box.
Part 2 coming shortly.

[Allegheny1600]

Use tape measure corner to corner as squareness check, I allow up to about 1/8th inch (3mm) here as we're not doing cabinet making and it's soft wood too.




The open box can now be placed on the board top material and the outline of the frame marked out, then you need the centreline for drilling. This is necessary due to the 12mm thickness of the framing, you really need those screws to go in central & square on.
Again note the sacrificial ply underneath, my work table still got a few holes in it.


Countersink those holes again.


Checking everything is flat.


Two almost completed boards.




Now, those EMGS/C&L type board joiners won't work in such thin timber so taking some slim offcuts, screw & glue them into place.

What I didn't photograph was, once all the metal furniture was added and the boards tested for fit, I then glued in all those little quarter round pieces seen in the first image of post #5. Not much to see, I use the old carpenters method of smearing glue over the mating faces then 'rubbing' the gluing piece closely into position so the glue gets into the grain, then 'sticks' into position. Needless to say, the glue hasn't set yet but it is enough to hold itself in position until it does set properly.
Cheers,
John.

[nickbrad]

Great start on those boards, I am always up for seeing something different, so will follow this with pleasure.

[Allegheny1600]

Thanks Nick, All,
I know this is somewhat out of sequence, sorry about that but I'm still playing catch up here!
Over the holiday period I did get some modelling done (at last!).

[url="https://flic.kr/p/Qgbpsh"][/url]
Here we have all the blank segments completed (still with masking tape) and the partially repainted track segments too.

[url="https://flic.kr/p/Py1Edj"][/url]
The rails were painted with Howes acrylic "dark rust" and the 'concrete' section with the same firms "concrete", I had to repaint this as all the blank sections were painted this way.

[url="https://flic.kr/p/QgbnFw"][/url]
I took the opportunity to paint the rail sides on the bridge deck, these had to be masked off. Only when I removed the masking did I realise the section between the rails is removeable, oh well, never mind.
I also thought it a good idea at this stage to paint the sides only of the circular rail the bridge rides on, with all the segments in place, this would be very difficult.

[url="https://flic.kr/p/QLSAry"][/url]
I had also cut down the place where the bridge was built up to support the operators hut, also the supporting "jockey" wheel was repositioned.

[url="https://flic.kr/p/QLSyQN"][/url]
I'm quite pleased with the overall appearance here.

[url="https://flic.kr/p/Py1AmS"][/url]
As the bridge deck and the track segments are code 100 rail, I bought some Peco transition tracks to drop the section of rail down to code 75 and painted them too.

[url="https://flic.kr/p/Py1zRo"][/url]
At very long last, the turntable is almost complete!
All that now needs to be done is to make and fit a short section of railing around the winder and then install into that hole in my baseboard that I cut, in about October 2015! Oops, that's too long ago, I hope the next bit of real progress doesn't take so long.
Cheers,
John.

[Dad-1]

Mildly amusing ........
Our local clubs secretary is John Edge and he's into German railways
particularly NG.
That aside I'll be watching, anything different to British Outline is more
than welcome.

Geoff T.

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Geoff,
Thanks for that sentiment regarding the different to British outline, I really appreciate it! It seems quite common in some places (especially online) to denigrate anything that isn't British so to be appreciated is wonderful!
Well, I'm John Edge and so is my uncle! I also came across another one in Derby, I think the (something Bonds? The thing before the lottery!?!) people wanted him and suspected I might have been him! (No money came my way btw!).
Now, there is another one down south AND he's into German railways too? Cue 'twilight zone' music!
Cheers,
John

[Dad-1]

"Spooky"
Once one of my granddaughters favourite sayings !!

Geoff T.

[railsquid]

Hi Geoff,
Thanks for that sentiment regarding the different to British outline, I really appreciate it! It seems quite common in some places (especially online) to denigrate anything that isn't British so to be appreciated is wonderful!

Sentiment echoed - and I will in the fullness of time have a small German section on my layout (albeit mainly early 90s - 1990s in DB/DR/DBAG transition period).

[Dave]

I lived and worked in Germany during the late 70's and early 80's. Went on a few trains but didn't really take any notice. Any new layout is worth following in my book.

[Allegheny1600]

Hi All and thanks for the endorsements!
Progress on Irgendwo has been glacial I'm afraid.
Mum-in-law being terminally ill, dad-in-law not much better, business steady and helping out with my club - all contribute and take their toll.
However, I'm finally making progress on rolling stock, may I introduce certain items on here?

I've recently completed a large amount of horse trading with an old friend that sees me acquire much of his Prussian stock in exchange for my Bavarian stock, not to mention some reading matter. Here is my 'new' Trix T3 along with some Fleischmann coaches;





CC my very good friend Doug and seen on his layout, Alte Rinkham.
Apparently, the T3 originated between 1881 and 1910 and on the Prussian railways, they numbered some 1345 examples in total. This particular version (431 examples) was built between 1895 and 1905, the Fleischmann version (which I also have!) only numbered 52 copies. There are only some quite minor differences between the two types, mainly around the water tank.
This loco should be capable of hauling a good 36 axles on the flat, this one may need some attention as it seemed distressed at pulling more than 10 axles and very little up DOugies 3% slopes! It squealed at trying such a grade so was hurriedly assigned to a flat route.
Despite that, I am very pleased with it although I have read that it's rigid chassis causes hesitation, it ran smoothly enough, only baulking at occasional dirty spots which were soon rectified.
Hopefully, I can show more items as time goes on?
Cheers,
John.

[Allegheny1600]

I'm no great shakes as a cameraman but here is a little video I made recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wum6Zz44P4

I must add, this is on my good friends layout, Alte Rincham now sadly demolished due to moving house.
Cheers,
John.