Memorail

Deep in the south west of France in the department Lot is a small railway museum named Memorail. This museum is located in the old goods shed of St. Gery along the former Quercyrail. The scenery along this line gorgeous; it lies in the gorge of the river Lot and is exceptionally beautiful.

The entrance fee is just a few Euro's and you will get to see a lot of railway artifacts, a nice h0 railway layout and several beautiful self-built large scale models.

One of the volunteers explained to me that they hope to raise funds to re-open the Quercyrail from St. Gery to Cajarc through the spectacular gorge de Lot. That would indeed be a great idea, but the scrubs and small trees that grow on the former railway line since 1989 have done substantial damage and more than some bucks will be necessary to achieve this goal.

Model of the WWI truce train car.

Decapod French style.

Let's hope they succeed to revive the Quercyrail and that trains will run through the valley bed again.

Doetinchem Stoomstad 2013

During the weekend of August 24 to 25th a steam fest was held and the organisation asked me to run some old toy trains. I had several months to prepare myself and choose for two ovals of pre-war Lionel trains.

The inner circle was classic 027 Lionel tubular track, the outer circle was modern Merkur tubular track. The streamlined engine was composed of the 1668E - 1679T - 1630 - 1630 -1631. The freight train was composed of the 1664E - 1679T - 652 - 651 - 1679 - 1680 - 657.

Two toy trains ran almost continuously; one freight train and a passenger train. They performed great. The 1668E suffered from a loose wire from the E-unit and was replaced after a day by a 1688E. Since it were original cotton-insulated wires, it is no wonder that it malfunctioned. I will have to rewire the engine.

It was funny to notice that most visitors did not recognise these toy trains. Some said that they were "Märklin" or "very old Märklin". I had explain quiet a lot, but that is just fine to me.

 Perhaps I have to organise a slightly larger table the next time...

Most of my public were young children; 3-6 years of age. They had never heard the rattle, seen the colours and smelled ozone of old metal toy trains on tubular tracks. What a joy to see these wide open eyes and mouths...

After two days of continuous service, I was more than satisfied with the reliable performance of these pre-war engines and I am glad to have shown some good old toy trains to a younger generation.

For some other pictures of the steam fest, see the site of Achterhoekfoto.

New tubular track curves

Yesterday, I visited the local toy train meeting in Zutphen and purchased some new tin-plate toy train tubular tracks made by the Czech company Merkur. Sixteen R9910 curves make a circle (about 042) and some additional straights R9920 (12 inch long)  make it an nice oval. The local Merkur and ETS dealer had a stand and layout. The tank engine 9195 with lights and sound ran a small goods train around the oval. It was a lively display and it really stood out from all the regular sales booths. Here are some pictures from the "Modelspoorbeurs Zutphen".

Modelspoorbeurs Zutphen May 25th 2013

Merkur toy trains

Merkur and ETS toy trains

There was also a bloke with a Lima scale zero layout, which was nice to see. And I was able to buy two old Lionel street lamps with die cast poles and the white plastic caps.  So a perfect trade meeting as far as I am concerned.

Lima scale zero layout on the floor of the Hanze Hall.

Well we directly laid an oval of the new track on the floor and it just ran great; no more derailments, shorts and other issues. The Weaver Alco can now finally run with some Lionel and Weaver cars directly coupled to it and without the help of some spacer to avoid derailment. I sure made me happy today.

The major bonus of tubular track is the rattle and rhythm, which can be heard in real trains on real tracks as well: 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 3, etc.

Steam and model railroad days in Nienoord

Last long weekend (May 9th -12th) amusement park Nienoord held the steam and model railroad days. There were quiet a few large steam engines showing off, puffing and whistling. But the large steam powered model trains that actually run a circle through the forest is the prime attraction of Nienoord. Quiet a few steam engines came over to join the fun. Here are a few pictures to show you what it was like. The rain on Saturday and Sunday, was unfortunately slightly less attractive.

Sunny afternoon thoughts

The good thing of MTH engines with protosound is that you need to charge their batteries every few months to avoid a lot of repair trouble. So, this basically means I am forced to make a temporary layout and enjoy my trains every now and then. Today, I learned that all my engines run great, but that a bulk head flat car filled with true wooden logs is truly heavy for many engines.
Furthermore, one of my JEP 042 curves has a wobbly dent that makes the cow catcher of my camelback engine hit the center rail all the times and besides some electric sparks this causes a guaranteed derailment, so I will need to buy some proper wider curves soon.

Pre-war Märklin exhibition prolonged

The pre-war Märklin toy train exhibition in the OVM Doetinchem is a much larger success than predicted. At first the closing date was set at the end of February, then it was prolonged to the end of April and now they do not even want to call a closing date anymore. The museum attracts much more visitors than what was usual, and a large part of the visitors comes from other regions. Classic toy trains are popular indeed, much more than the railroad history of branch lines. I would be surprised to see some more toy trains in railroad musea. There is nothing better than the feel, rattle and smell of an old toy train running on its tracks.

Märklin Rheinuferbahn in gauge 1, remake by Thull.

Märklin passenger car with open doors

It was an honour

Living in this corner of the world and playing with American toy trains that run on 3 tracks, means that other 'conventional' toy train enthusiasts think of you as the one expert in all Lionellish things that are around. This can be funny when some folks think that Marx trains are extremely rare, and sometimes annoying when folks try to push you a Lionel car in poor condition for far too much cash. But this last month, I had one encounter, that I will remember and cherish.
I was kindly asked to help a 89 year old to run his toy train. I went to his house equipped with some modern rails and transformer and I was amazed to find what he got. The original Lionel catalog of 1938, a Lionel junior train set with 1690, 1690 and 1691 passenger cars and the concomitant freight set: 1680 Sunoco tank car, 1679 Baby Ruth box car and the 1682 caboose. He showed me the original receipt of purchase back in 1938, from a toy shop in 'de Kalverstraat' that does no longer exist. To be frank it was half a month of house rent back in those days. So it was a great gift. And this gift lasted for ever. Can you even imagine that current toys will last this long?
We set up the rails on a large oval table and I noticed that he had trouble with his fine hand co-ordinations, so I could understand better, why he needed some help. When the tracks were laid, we took his engine, cleaned it, lubricated it and it just run. I noticed that the commutator plates were dirty and the brushes got a bit hot, but is worked just fine. I listened to his long life story. Impressive. He was very happy to run his own train again. So much joy in the eyes of an elderly person, who is hindered by his own body to play with his own toys from his childhood again and what a joy to see such an old Lionel train running again indeed.

Here is the prove that Lionel did make transformers for the European market before WOII.

Treinenbeurs de Pol in Aalten

Last Sunday there was a small local train show in "de Pol" in Aalten. It is held a few times annually. And last Sunday it was relatively small, since there was also a larger train show in Houten. Besides the organiser, Herman the clown, there were several traders with mostly Märklin, Fleischmann and minitrix stuff. Two were the most attractive for me. The ho-scenery stand showed a large choice of gypsym wall and road slabs, which are fairly cheap and look really nice once painted. Some of the coarser brick walls in h0 scale can easily be used in 0 scale, so it a tempting manner to make walls and brick roads with these slabs.
Another stand sold laser cut building kits of Moba Art and I purchased the simple shed in scale 0, so that will render some simple building fun in the coming days.

Restoration is a personal matter

Every few months people e-mail me and ask me if I would like to restore their old toy train items for them. The answer is no. Restoration is a time consuming activity that involves many choices. In case you would like to capitalise the labour costs, you would soon figure out that restoring is a non-economical process. And that is exactly the point. Restoration is done because of astonishment, admiration and appreciation for an old toy object. It is my hobby, not a profession. While restoring a toy train object, I get a bond, a personal appreciation, with that object. That is why I do not want to part from objects I have had held in my hands and saw being returned to former glory.
Additionally, while restoration you need to take many choices. These are often personal and arbitrary choices. There is no one way to do it all. And many times compromises are required between originality, time, costs, availability of spare parts and some level of creativity. My choices are not necessarily the same of those that would like to have their toy trains restored. The whole concept of liability versus the freedom of restoration just gives me the creeps and that why I simply say NO. So I do not restore for others. Nevertheless, I do appreciate to make others enthusiastic and where possible assist others with their own restoration projects.

Smoking Camelback

In case you ever wonder why it is sometimes better to play outside...

Cause a Camelback MTH 30-1142-1 likes to smoke once in a while.

Merkur passenger cars

Today, I visited a toy train shop which sells Merkur trains. Merkur tinplate toy trains in scale zero have a long history and they still up to this day produce tin-plate toy trains of European, mostly Czech railways. Merkur has a distinctive style; solid metal, well painted and a bit rough on details (which stems form the fact that it is plastic free metal toy train). The trucks are a bit similar to those of Williams; diecast metal. I purchased two passenger cars; Merkur 9330 and Merkur  9751.
Merkur 9330 is a green passenger car with a first and second class compartment . It is 42 cm (approx. 17 inch) long and weighs 800 grams. Merkur 9751 is a blue passenger car with a luggage and passenger compartment, is also 42 cm long and weighs roughly 900 grams. The luggage doors can be opened and closed. Both carriages are equipped with Bing type couplers (hook and eye), so I need to change one for a claw, but that is easily done. The coupler is held in place by a washer and a nut.
These carriages were taken for a ride by an American Camelback engine of MTH, although an impossible line up. Neverthless they just ran nice on my old JEP tracks with 042 curves.

Besides the passenger cars I also bought two tubular style switches. The nice thing of Merkur track is that it is completely compatible with Lionel tubular tracks and has simply three pins on one side and none at the other. This in contrast to Märklin and JEP rails with two pins up and one down. Merkur has three different switches, similar to their curves, with curves of 22.5 degree (or 1/16th circle) and radii of 625 mm, 760 mm and 900 mm, which would roughly correspond to 050, 060 and 072 curves of American tubular track. My Lionel and MTH engines run smoothly over these switches. These are manual controlled with a big yellow lever and once in position, they will keep it. Because it is solid technology. Meaning that running an engine over such a switch when it is in the wrong position will result in derailment.

The standard length of Merkur tubular track is about 12 inch, so bit longer than 10 inch Lionel tubular track. In the picture below a Lionel 027 switch is compared to a Merkur 060 switch. Clearly the difference in curvature and length can be seen.

I used the run-your-own-Märklin-trains-event in the museum to run the Merkur carriages with an old Märklin steamer. That was just fine.