Tribute to Weaver model trains

Earlier this month, Weaver model trains announced to cease production. This news trickled down slowly over the pond, only receiving me a few days ago. From the Internet buzz I understood that the owner is retiring and could not find a successor. Well that is sad news. We will miss Weaver trains for their quality, precision and the new models they placed on the market.

So, I reckoned it was time to get a few Weaver train cars out of the boxes and honour Weaver trains and their employees with a nice picture of some of their quality craft models on the other side of the planet. We will enjoy those model train cars for many years to come. Employees of Weaver trains, thanks for your contribution to the scale zero train model world.

Swap meet in Aalten

The toy trains swap meeting in Aalten has always been a relatively small gathering. A few years ago they moved from "de Pol" to "'t Noorden". The latter being a party center complete with garden railway for children. So the move makes sense to me. Although in my perspective a name like "the East" would qualify better. Nevertheless, they have excellent hamburgers, pancakes, serve cold beers and also host a biannual toy train swap meeting.

Train nuts party center in the North of Aalten.

This year there were only three stands with toy trains, which is an all time low, but nevertheless, there were still plenty of toy trains and toy train artifacts. In fact more than that I was planning to purchase anyway.

One could argue that there was a little bit too much of Fleischmann and Roco and no zero. But I wasn't looking for zero scale stuff anyway, and needed a few switches,

During my slow search and salvage trip through the aisles, I found two objects of local toy train folk art that will blend in perfectly with my layout. Somebodies attempt to solder Andreas crossing signs and somebodies statement in wood crafting, that resulted in a nicely build wooden tower. This tower could one day be used as advertisement tower, I just would have to make the poster "Lionel trains if you got the brains". Although this might need some more consideration.

Here is today's loot displayed; a few switches, crossing signs, circuit for flashing lights, a relay and wooden tower with no current use yet but with potential for the near future.

Visiting toy train heaven

Last weekend, I had to kill 4 hours of precious daylight time in South Limburg. After I finished doing some obligatory shopping and visiting the most beautiful book store (yes in Maastricht), it was finally time for some serious leisure time. So, I rushed to nearby Aachen to visit Hünerbein. In my perspective the closest you can get to toy train heaven.

Märklin 16101 book stand

After many wooden display cabinets which were completely filled up with half zero, N, Z and modern European scale zero trains, I finally came to the back of the store, where they keep their old scale zero trophies. They had a blue comet of American Flyer. Truly nice, but the demanded 750 Euros were a bit steep for me. Nevertheless, they also had a nice book store of Märklin number 16101. It is a reproduction of the Märklin 2616 book stall from the 30's.For just 30 Euros that was a no-brainer, I had to bring that beauty home. It was produced in 2000 to commemorate 600 years of book printing. I reckon that is the first Märklin scale zero item that I ever purchased as mint -new from the box- object.

They also had a Märklin crane in half zero and since I always wanted to have it as a child, I could not resist for 59 Euro and added to the shopping basket.

This weekend a Lionel enthusiast came by, So I had to clean the tracks from dust and tools and it was nice to let those trains run by.