Retail therapy

I did some serious damage to my bank account this week-end. I guess it was inevitable since I showed incredible restraint during my year in Prague. Mind you, crystal, garnet and shoes aren't my thing so it was pretty easy to not buy much for myself. I did manage to pick up a bunch of viaducts that are hard to get in North America. However, things would have been different had I been assigned to Munich. It seemed like every department store sold model trains. I would like to return to Germany specifically for a train holiday and do some serious shopping!

After my visit to HobbyTech, my rolling stock is now up to seven train sets, which are all MiniTrix. There's a few other I would like to add to my inventory, but the sets I have now are enough for my European railway station layout. There are a few passenger cars that weren't in stock so I had to place an order. Sleeper cars will be pulled by a class 185 locomotive that's designed for cross border traffic.



11202 (1/1) ICE 3 three car set
11478 (2/2) DB Regio four car set
11608 (1/1) IC six car train set
12564 (1/1) ICE 1 four car train set
12565 (1/1) DB Class 185.1 locomotive
12785 (1/1) ICE 1 six car train set
12793 (1/1) ICE 3 three car set
15356 (1/1) "Sports Cars I" Automobile Transport Car Laekks 553
15357 (1/1) "Sports Cars II" Automobile Transport Car Laekks 553
15841 (1/1) ICE 1 bord bistro car
15842 (1/1) ICE 1 1st class car
15843 (1/1) ICE 1 2nd class car
15844 (4/4) ICE 3 1st class car
15845 (6/6) ICE 3 2nd class car
15853 (1/1) DB Nachtzug three car set
15854 (1/1) DB Nachtzug two car set

Starter sets

I finally got a chance to unpack my trains from the box and see how they look side by side. Two ICE3 and one ICE1. The ICE3 starter sets contained three cars, which I expanded to six cars. However, I read that the Deutsche Bahn's normal configuration is eight cars so I'll add two extra cars to each of them. The length of my ICE1 will remain six cars since there are no expansion cars with the same pin striping. It's difficult to see on the photograph, but the striping is an older style with a purple line beneath the red.

I came across the older prototype at Hertie's department store when I was in Munich in July. It was definitely an older model that had been discontinued as all the current ICEs in the Deutsche Bahn have changed their detailing to a single red pin stripe. The sales person gave me a 10% discount which I couldn't pass up. I suspect the store had difficulties selling it because of the older style detailing, but I wanted it because I remember riding other ICE cars with the same older style pinstriping.

Prior to 1994, the railway service in West Germany used to be called Deutsche Bundesbahn. East Germany's was called Deutsche Reichsbahn. After the country's reunification, they merged the two railway services and named it Deutsche Bahn AG or DBAG for short. I'm not sure what the AG stands for.

Tram

I visited Prague's tram museum a long time ago and just got around to sorting through my photographs. It is definitely a place to visit for train enthusiasts. The museum houses many different models of trams that were put into service over the history of Prague. Some are still working today although they are not part of the standard livery that are in daily operation used by the general public. The city operates these antiques on limited tours through the city for tourists. I've seen some of them roll through the city often with a bar service. If they offered that service on Calgary transit, it would double ridership!

Supertrain2008

The week-end of my return also happened to coincide with the SuperTrain2008 show. Sunday was the last day. Despite the jet lag, I was glad to make it out there. Although most of the train layouts were based on North American trains it still provided lots of ideas and inspiration. This year's show increased in size with many more exhibits on display. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who came to the show. Many with their children. Clearly the show was a big hit. However, the hobby still seems to be entirely dominated by men.

I also discovered there is a new train club called Calgary Eurorail Express that specializes in European model trains. They happen to hold meetings at Hobby Tech on Saturday mornings so I'll have a chance to check the club out while I'm shopping at the store. I've already identified the sets I want. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to pick up some accessories such as tunnel portals specific to the ICEs produced by Busch. Man those are hard to come by even in Germany.

I spoke with one person who was more into creating model building than trains. We got to chatting. He was very helpful and gave me some advice on my layout. I was planning to use paper or foam board to construct my buildings. He suggested I consider using plastic sheets, which can be had at any hobby store and wasn't expensive at all. The added bonus was that it was much sturdier than either paper or foam board and unlike foam board, wouldn't warp if painted. However, I'm still considering leaving the city layout all white like those architectural displays. In doing so, the focus will be on the model trains, which would stand out against the white background. Of course, I think I will do a quick mock up using paper to help visualize whether this will be esthetically pleasing. If it works out I might add people to the scenery and leave them unpainted as well.

Evolve

The original layout was designed with an opened air town market in the centre with the trains passing through the city. The shape of the market area was planned to be square. However, since visiting Telc last week, the plan has evolved. The layout now calls for a non-symmetric square that narrows at one end towards the cathedral. The direction of the tracks will align with the longitudinal axis of the square and terminate at the station at the wider end of the square. The layout will be narrow and long, which will make it easier to partition into four separate sections. I'm also planning to have the trains enter and leave the station across viaducts ending with a tunnel into the mountains. The tracks within the mountain simply loop and come back out the same portal, but on the other track.

Originally, the layout called for an elaborate gothic cathedral as the centerpiece. I'd still like to construct the original plan, but it will be a later layout. I figure I'll have a better chance of success if I keep my first layout less complex. I'm also considering using stiff cardboard as in those models created by architectural firms to showcase their designs to the public.

München Hauptbahnhof

I mentioned color schemes in a previous post. I love how the red regional express trains stand up against the white schemes of the ICEs. I'll finally be returning to Canada in April so I can start work on my model railway station layout then. There's a dealer in Canada who carries European model trains by Marklin and MiniTrix and happens to have the Regio Express bi-level trains in stock. I'm excited to see how they will look alongside my ICEs.

I noticed that MiniTrix has released the Lightweight Innovative Commuter Service Cars (LINT) in their product line for 2008. These were common on the Deutsche Bahn rail service in München, but I'm not sure if I want to incorporate them into my layout.

Praha Hlavní Nádraží

The main railway station in Prague is Hlavní Nádraží. This building was designed in the art nouveau style which sits on the site of a former station. From a distance, the towers are very imposing, but on closer inspection it is apparent that the station has seen better days. Lack of funding has left it in poor condition.

The city is negotiating with an Italian company to restore the station back to its former glory. They want to modernize many of its facilities as the city bids for the 2016 Summer Olympics. The real shame is that the motorway was built immediately next to the station blocking the view of this majestic building from the centre of Prague. One of my Czech colleagues said that the former regime made the decision to run the motorway through the city centre. A lot of people say it was a bad decision. I would have to agree with them.

Close up

There's a holding yard where trains are parked in Prague 4. It's about 2km from my place. I came across this on one of my excursions earlier last month, but only managed to come back to it today. Here's a close up. I'm told this locomotive is over 30 years old. It's definitely seen better days, but admittedly, the design and style has held up very well. The color scheme matches the Czech Republic's national flag, but I'm not overly fond of how they applied the colors, especially the red doors. My favorite scheme is still the Deutsche Bahn ICEs. That's the white with a single red horizontal stripe.

I visited two model train stores in town to see if any of them carried this locomotive. Unfortunately they didn't. There's a third store, but I chose not to go since they specialize in TT scale. I think I'll have to stay firm and stick with N-scale, otherwise this addiction would get out of hand. Besides, there appears to be limited selection for TT scale. Tillig is the primary provider of this scale and I've never seen this brand in Canada before. HO and N scale are the most common.

Viaduct

Since discovering animated gifs last week, I've been anxious to get out this week-end and do more filming. I had it in my head to take shots from the shores of the Vltava river just outside the open market at Holesovice. It was a good location to get shots of trains crossing the viaduct and provide excellent source material for other layouts I have in mind. I was hoping to get a glimpse of several passenger trains this week-end. I was not disappointed.

There were a few things I learned from last week's outing that I wanted to improve. I really disliked the slight flickering in my first attempts because of the auto exposure. I also decided to use a tripod with a remote shutter release to achieve a stable frame shot. Here is another view of that same train crossing a section of the viaduct taken from a different angle. I wish my camera had audio. The roar of the locomotive sounds so cool.

I also wanted to try my hand at animation with the camera following the subject so I returned to the same area as last week-end to take some more pictures of trams at a higher frame rate. It was the first time I had used the continuous mode on my camera. Google Blogger seems to be truncating my gifs and consequently only the first frame is viewable. Hopefully this is just an anomaly and gets resolved otherwise I won't be able to post any of my results.

Update: It seems like I'm able to post animated GIFs this week-end, but I'm not sure for how long. Uploading to Blogger is inconsistent so I'm making the most of it and uploading one more. For all these animations, you may have to right click on the broken image link [x] and select "show picture" if you have a slow connection.

Anime

I just downloaded a GIF animator and began experimenting with a set of photographs I took yesterday. I wasn't sure whether it would work. Google's Blogger doesn't appear to work smoothly with large images, but I discovered that if I resample down to half the pixel resolution, the smaller images work with no problem. Unfortunately, gifs are limited to a 256 color palette so the picture quality isn't very good, but good enough that I'll probably do some more spotting, cough, cough. I mean animating.

The lack of a video camera neccessitates using my SLR for purposes it was not designed for. However, the results aren't too bad and this is a cheaper alternative, particularly since funds for a video camera could be better used by increasing the inventory of rolling stock.

Spotter

This is it. This is the end. Today I went train spotting. Not intentionally at first. I was out and about in the city centre and as always I took my camera with me in case something caught my eye. Something did. Then it was a tram here. Then a tram there. I can see my future now. Holiday plans dictated by train schedules and model railway exhibits. I always considered myself a geek, but am I considered a spotter now? What next? An anorak and a flask...

Setting aside the stigma of being a spotter, I must admit I really liked the look of the Czech passenger train. Now I've got this urge to see if I can get a model of this locomotive in N-scale. However, i've been to all the model train stores in town and I don't recall ever seeing one of these.

Plan

As you may have noticed, I have an affinity for European trains. Of course, the point of collecting so many trains is to show them off, which calls for a layout befitting the collection. The main inspiration for the layout comes from my memories of the Köln hauptbahnhof, which is also where the title of this blog originated. A town square will be established in the centre of the layout. One of the two focal points will be the gothic cathedral facing the square. On the opposite side of the square will be the railway station with the platforms in the fore front for public viewing. I plan to use the same glass umbrella shaped roof structure as the Köln railway station. The station itself will be modern in appearance to provide contrast to the rest of the buildings.

The station's exterior walls will be glass, but I’m not entirely sure how to execute this as I want to construct the buildings from sturdy photographic paper. The idea came to me after seeing a 1:480 scale paper model of Praha, which is on permanent display at the city museum. Knowing it took the Antonin Langwell eleven years to finish his model leaves me a little concerned about schedule. At N scale, I will have to pay more attention to architectural details that otherwise would be indiscernible at smaller scales.

Livery

My interest in model trains developed gradually over the past year. It started innocently with a visit to a local model railway exhibition last spring. I remember seeing an ICE1 train set for sale at the show. I couldn’t justify the price at the time, but it was the catalyst that started my obsession. As other modelers may attest, this obsession has turned into a disease that has more or less consumed my brain, as well as my pocket book. A colleague in our Munich office offered to pick up an ICE3 starter set for me. I now have two of them along with an older version of an ICE1 six car set. I’m now considering expanding my rolling stock to include an additional ICE1 and a couple of Deutsche Bahn Regio bi-level commuter trains. I also have my sights set on a Thalys TGV. Suffice to say, “Drugs are cheaper than model trains”.

The trains in my collection are ones I have actually traveled on. However, I am finding myself drawn to other N-scale passenger trains such as the Gottardo TEE of the Swiss Railways and the Deutsche Bundesbahn's legendary Rheingold line. Both these trains belong to an earlier epoch and are no longer in service, replaced by more modern versions. I suspect I am attracted to these steel behemoths as they epitomize the golden age of railway travel long gone.

Muse

What is the allure of model railroading that attracts such a dedicated legion of enthusiasts? The initial allure for me was the memories of the European countryside evoked by the simple sight of a scale model of a train I had rode on.

One of my fondest memories was riding aboard an InterCityExpress as it sped northward through Germany. I had been backpacking across Europe for nearly a month and was heading back to Amsterdam to catch my flight home. The train made a scheduled stop in Köln to pick up additional passengers. I stepped onto the platform to stretch my legs and took the opportunity to study the expansive glass umbrella shaped roof that covered the platform area. I was captivated by the unique structure and turned around to look at a different section only to be awestruck by the sight of the gothic cathedral standing majestically in the background. The cathedral towered above the station like a giant sentry standing guard over its keep. It was truly a sight to behold. It was many years later before I could return to visit the interior of the cathedral.