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.