murphaph

A few pics I'll caption later: Stiege, crossing the modern railcar going the other way on the Selketalbahn (Selke Valley Railway): The Manulla Junction of the Harz Network. There is almost nothing here. There was a closed restaurant in the old station building. No village or town. Disembarked the Selketalbahn and boarded s steam hauled service to Wernigerode on the Trans Harz Railway: Right from whence we came, left towards Wernigerode: Our train arriving out of Wernigerode. The loco will take on water and run around and haul us backwards: On the way through the mountains to Wernigerode: 30 minute break at Drei Annen Hohne. 3 steam hauled trains met here. This is our loco heading to take on water. Our train is in the rear on platform 3: Standard gauge piggybacking on narrow gauge: Arriving into Wenigerode Hbf: Over on the mainline platform for the journey home: Pit stop in Magdeburg with its impressive station facade. Great place to watch freight trains. One every few minutes:

No worries Connolly. I'll throw up the last few pics later/tomorrow. Back on mainline rail now on the trek home via Berlin. More or less the way I came.

Couple of snaps along the way to Alexisbad and then the branch to Harzgerode, which was tackled by railcar. The same railcar will now take me to Eisfelder Talmühle.

Not that I know of although the original DART is German. Arrival at Quedlinburg and transfer to narrow gauge. Had a few minutes to walk through the town:

Quick change in Magdeburg on to the RE11, first non-DB train of the day, being operated by Abellio of the Netherlands. This train will split in Halberstadt with this half continuing to Quedlinburg. Thankfully dual USB sockets available to charge phone and power pack simultaneously. First diesel traction for me today. Double deck Intercity to Cologne: My onward connection:

Berlin Charlottenburg. Train I arrived on terminated here and will return to Nauen a little later, this time being propelled by the loco: My RE1 connection to Magdeburg pulls in: The RE1 stops at Berlin Wannsee and Potsdam. Site of two (in)famous conferences. A little known fact is that the order by Truman to drop the atomic bomb on Japan was given in Potsdam. Potsdam Hbf: Brandenburg Hbf with timed diesel railcar connection of the to Rathenow (county town of Havelland, the county in which I live). I will try to use this service another day:

Thanks guys. For a lark I'll update with sporadic photos during the day. First train I saw today was a freight that passed through shortly before my (unusually) loco hauled RB14 arrived: My train. Normally a Talent 2 EMU. Perhaps due to works on the line it's loco hauled double deck stock today: Spandau. Start of the SBahn along this stretch of line:

My target for tomorrow, Wernigerode Town Hall: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.8332672,10.784358,3a,75y,3.18h,129.8t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPbnPK4_46YV43Bb2GBeYJr212l_yUgJENy7tKU!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPbnPK4_46YV43Bb2GBeYJr212l_yUgJENy7tKU%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya45.563225-ro-0-fo100!7i7296!8i3648 Plan: Mainline regional rail: Depart Brieselang 0540. Arrive Charlottenburg (West Berlin) 0605, depart 0621. Arrive Magdeburg 0751, depart 0807. Arrive Quedlinburg 0923. Normal price for this leg alone would be €43.50! Change at Quedlinburg to Narrow gauge Harz network, mix of mostly steam hauled with some railcar service in between: Depart Quedlinburg on the Selke Valley Railway, steam hauled at 1030. Arrive Alexisbad 1131, depart on railcar at 1237. Arrive Eisfelder Talmühle 1351. Change to Trans-Harz Railway and depart Eisfelder Talmühle at 1411, steam hauled all the way to Wernigerode, with a half an hour break at Drei Annen Hohne. This is where trains cross and it's a summit of the railway I believe. They take on water here in both directions. Trains on the spur to the summit of the Brocken Mountain depart from here but I've been up there a couple of times before so I will be skipping it tomorrow and heading straight to Wernigerode, arriving at 1633. I will then take mainline regional rail back to Brieselang the way I came most likely. Wernigerode is a beautiful half timbered town, with a castle perched above it on a hillside, that was spared destruction in WWII when the German commander of their armed forces, Gustav Petri refused to defend it against the Americans, knowing it would be destroyed, with great loss of life. He was executed for his actions, but Wernigerode survived intact and nobody was killed in its pointless defence. Without the €9 ticket this journey would cost well over €100.

I love TT (if Irish stuff hadn't existed I would have contemplated a TT layout as an alternative) but wouldn't we just end up with another incorrect gauge for 5'3" with this system? If Irish models ever appear RTR in a scale/gauge other than 00 I would hope it would include a true scale gauge of the prototype. But in reality I think 00 with allowance for 21mm wherever practically possible is the limit of what's commercially viable for RTR in the Irish market, given the small size.

Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg has a large Scandinavian section.

Barrack Street was perhaps the only place left at that stage where 121s ran bonnet forward. It wasn't shunting, they actually ran like that down into the yard. I think there was no turntable so they had to run bonnet first one way in single operation. I guess the relatively slow speeds allowed for a deviation from the normal rules.

You must be well pleased George. Looks the absolute business and as an aside, that park looks perfect for the hobby! My nearest lake is a proper lake. Always worried about losing radio contact and the young lad's boat drifting off!

Oh maybe my info is out of date Lev. I'm sure somebody more knowledgeable about the scene will come along soon to help.

Third last coach in the first video seems to have been bricked too.

The 10' Uniload ones would indeed be pretty special. I'd grab a few, though by my era they were largely, but not quite completely a thing of the past. They'd look well with the IRM forklifts for sure!

I think at the moment none of them are hauling any freight as there are enough 071s available and these seem to be preferred in this role. Welcome to the forum

Does anyone know why NIR didn't allow for continued push pull operations with the 111s? Seems retrograde to introduce shunting when with the Hunslets there was none required previously.

Q4 this year was the original projected delivery date. Not sure if that still stands with the world in seemingly constant turmoil. I saw a nice comment over on RMWeb about these engineering samples along the lines of "they are the sort of quality other companies would ship to end customers". I thought that hit the spot. They are going to be awesome, whether BR, NSE, Trans-Penine, NIR or someday IR. I am super looking forward to the NIR corporate livery. What a great splash of colour they add to a "south of the border" layout. I always considered the NIR stock "exotic", like a little bit of BR in Ireland or something.

Why not start with the unrebuilt kit from SF? You get the correct bogies thrown in for good measure: http://silverfoxmodels.co.uk/ir-ie-generating-steam-van-dutch/

The NIR stock made it all over the IR network. In fact some of the longest rakes assembled made it out on the GSWR as specials to things like the Irish Derby at the Curragh. Great scope for a modeller there as they ran on empty to Kildare or Portarlington so the loco could run around and drag them back to Heuston for servicing before returning to the Curragh to collect passengers for the return journey, before running around again at Kildare and heading home.

Hopefully this helps a bit:

It's almost certain that IRM will release the 2b's in IR/IE liveries in the presumably not too distant future given the tooling will exist for it. Common sense dictates that much. Common sense also dictates, that if NIR coaching stock is viable (especially the oddball ones) then CIE laminates and Park Royals should also be viable but IRM can't release the stuff in too quick succession because well, most of us can't afford it if they do that, so releases have to be somewhat staggered. Personally I find the release cycles from IRM just about right for the sake of my marriage.

Will do Sean. Give me a couple of days to dig it out from "storage".

A tragic start to this summer's cheap rail travel today with a fatal crash in Bavaria. At least 4 dead on a regional train that seems to have toppled over in a curve. RIP.

Yeah looks like sprung points to speed up running around. I think Heuston yard had at least one set as well.