Busy repair yard

It is getting a bit over-crowded with pre-war Lionel cars that are patiently waiting restoration. Amongst the latest refugees is a 814 boxcar in very poor brown overpainted condition. It used to be bright yellow-brown in better days. The 814's came out in three rather similar bland colour schemes: yellow-brown, cream-maroon and cream-orange. Perhaps it is better to try a really nice colour like burgundy red / black. That would combine great with the copper details. Well, this needs some consideration. Furthermore, another 812 gondola joined us. This was clearly tortured: a front siding is missing and a very strange plastic hook coupler is bluntly glued on. And two tank cars joined: a 654 with missing rails and a 904.

It is getting time for some restoration activity. As can be seen on the photo's the metal of a 1689 Tender is in pink Hammerite primer, waiting for better weather to get a nice Gun-metal top-coat with Tamiya spray paint TS 38 (this is the only gun metal paint easily available in Europe). This tender was already primed with a more simple primer, but that one was found to be incompatible with Tamiya spray paint (nice textures formed, GRRR). So indeed, a lot of work for nothing. The other bare metal parts are of a 259 Tender of which the metal is heavily pitted and grooved by rust. I already removed the rust with a brass brush wheel, but the metal will need to protected, plastered, polished and smoothened thoroughly. So at least some progress is made.

Winter station

This winter holiday season the Dutch railway museum organised a winter station. They created a skating oval in the central building, musicians, story tellers, a traditional merry go round and special children activities.

The special exhibition was devoted to 120 years of Fleischmann and showed tin model ships, scale zero trains, more modern toy trains in h0 and n scales and also several Magic train layouts. These magic trains are in scale 0e (narrow gauge in zero), have added play options for children (parts of the train wagons can be disassembled and assembled easily) and look quiet sturdy. Many children were playing happily with the special play layout. These Magic trains appeared new to me, but apparently they have been on the market from 1992 on. I think scale zero is a good choice for children hands and 0e makes it easy to get cheap h0 rails and to run them here in Europe. The trains themselves puzzle me a bit, as if they are simultaneously meant for children (added play functions) and middle aged train-operating men (quiet well detailled). In case Fleischmann is serious about getting more children interested, they could get some inspiration from Lionel with their Thomas the tank engines, Polar express and Potter's Hogwarth express. Furthermore, they could add some whistles, train sounds, etc. to add play value.

One of the positive surprises of the winter station was that they had fired up "De Arend". This was the first train engine ever to run on Dutch soil, between Amsterdam and Haarlem in 1839. Obviously, it was British made and what a smoke comes out of this steamer! The driver must have felt like a smoked herring after a day's work. Great that they had it smoking for us. Pity that they so limited wide gauge tracks so that it can not really run anywhere. By the way, this engine is a replicate that was built in 1939 for its anniversary.

Stream lined express

Here is a video showing a beautiful streamlined steamer with three passenger cars running around my layout. The engine is a 1668E and a smooth runner. It was made from 1937 to 1941 (so about 70 years old) and still running perfectly. The passenger cars are numbered 1630, 1630 and 1631 and were produced from 1938 to 1942