Rail to rail and wheel flange to wheel flange distances

Some German toy train collectors apparently claim that the Merkur outer rail to outer rail distance would not be similar to the one of Märklin rails and of related prewar scale zero brands. And the same would be true for the wheel flange to wheel flange distances. How to convince a German that is precise and wrong at the same time? Hmmm, show the evidence, I would reckon. So, here are some pictures, to deal with this misunderstanding for once and for all. 

So here we have my beautiful table with metal ruler and four types of scale zero rails; from left to right: old Hornby-Meccano, modern Merkur, old Lionel 0 and old Lionel 027.As everyone with good eyes can see; the inner-distance between the outer rails is 3.2 cm. That is why it is scale zero!

And guess what, Merkur and Lionel rails simply slide in each other... (well that is how I have built my layout in the first place).

And guess what, modern Merkur rails also couple with old Hornby-Meccano rails.

Additionally, the wheel flange to wheel flange distance of prewar Lionel cars (top) and modern Merkur cars (bottom) are the same: 2.8 cm. That why both cars run so good on these rails...


Und für die beliebte Nachbarn: Viel Modelleisenbahnspass gewünscht!

Merkur 9120

The Merkur 9120 is a modern diesel shunting engine with 3 axles of which two are powered. The quality is solid - no compromise- full metal, coarse scale zero. I would not call this engine tin-plate, since the metal sheets used to produce this engine are more like armoured plate than tin-plate. The paint job appears to be a green powder-coating, again a very good 'no frills' quality. The engine runs on DC, so I changed my control center a bit to be able to run both AC and DC engines on my three rail zero layout.

I purchased the engine with Merkur couplers. By removing the two red-yellow front and end boards, I got easy access to the nylon coated metal nut that holds the coupler and replaced it with Bing couplers. I choose Bing style couplers, since they can also couple with Lionel latch type couplers.

The Merkur engine is a heavy weight of 23 cm (9 inch) length, it can both crawl and run. It has no sound system. The motor sounds a bit like a vacuum cleaner when it races over the tracks. The engine has directional lighting, runs smooth and pulls a heavy consist with ease.

Here is the new control centre, with toggle switches for AC/DC and DC direction. Furthermore, it is equipped with an automatic short circuit safety system and many switches for lights and future uses.

Red bridge

Finally, I am finished with painting the bridge. Much better now, I would reckon.
Furthermore, I am learning myself to make 0-scale trees from metal wire, clay, brown paint, wood glue and green fluffy pieces of foam. A hobby on itself, and so time consuming!
The ETS engine runs fine in curves but not on straights. The reason is that the springs in the third rail pick-up push the wheels slightly up from the tracks , which causes loss of traction. So, I need to improve on that.
Anyway, here are two pictures of the bridge.

Converting a ETS 102 from 2 to 3 rails operation

I just finished converting my small electrically ETS 102 rectifier from 2 rail to 3 rail operation.
 This engine is from 1996 and it used to ran fine on brass ETS rails, but now that I have finished my new layout with Merkur rails, I decided to convert it to 3-rail operation. Therefore, I needed to disassemble the engine. This involves sliding the roof of, loosening the two top-light LED's from their fittings and removing two screws that hold the engine-block to the bottom plate.

The new 3 rail pick-up assembly is from Merkur. A small pine wooden plate was made in which the 3-rail pick-up assembly fits tightly, which in turn fits tightly in the underside of the engine.

A connecting orange wire was soldered between the electrical pick-ups of the left and right wheels. The connection between the wheels and the engine was disengaged by cutting though the print-plate and soldering a new grey wire between the loose connection and the 3 -rail pick-up.

Below, you see the new grey wire to connect the 3-rail pick-up and below the soldering point is the broken connection to the wheels.

 

And after assembly the engine run fine on 3 -rails with DC power from an ETS transformer.

Lionel train on Merkur tracks

In case you ever wonder: "does a Lionel train run over modern Merkur tubular tracks?".
Here is the answer: "Yes, it does!".

Bridge and Light tower

Yesterday, I finished with cutting the X-beams for the bridge and nailing them down. Today, I filled a few gaps with wood filler and sanded the lot. So now the Ogle Winston Link Bridge is finished in crude. Guess I will have to contemplate the colours now.

Additionally, I soldered a few connecting wires to my Light Tower. For some reason I collected two rotating beacons; one metal of Lionel and one plastic from Marx. Both operate crappy; the light makes the beacon spin in a very uneven manner. So , I decided some time ago, to transform the Marx tower into a light tower. I used some scrap wood, paint, wires, sockets and lights and the first result is quiet all right. Looks a bit camp and that is just fine with me. Imagine that the core wooden barrel was a basket in which thin wooden cooking sticks were sold.

Cutting X-beams

Building a wooden bridge in scale zero is nice work, but you need real tools. Small doctor knives could work excellent with N scale, but here we need a small precision saw instead. Nevertheless, I have finished 2 cross-beams and still plenty to work on further.
Thought about what Frank suggested, and will name this bridge Ogle Winston Link when it is finished. That would be a tribute for a great photographer. Just have to get it done, Find a nice OWL poster and  print a small sign.

Dangerous crossing of a Lionel 289E over an unfinished bridge.

Building a bridge to ...

This weekend, I discovered that the Lionel 289E engine is a great engine to pull the Merkur coaches over the new track.

The video shows how smooth the Lionel 289E engine pulls the Merkur coaches 9751, 9330 and 9331.

Additionally I started with building the bridge to the other side (what else) and used the Lionel 817 caboose as the highest car in the rooster to measure the clearance.The bridge is still a bit rough, but it is a start.

New track for the layout

This Saturday, I went to Blik en Speelgoed to purchase some new Merkur tracks. The new track enabled me to remove the old half inner circle of Hornby-Meccano tracks and get some clean and level tracks in stead.

 Here you can see what I did with the Merkur switches; make a new switch yard.

 Plenty of new clean tracks, I would reckon.

Also the Weaver tank car that never fancied the Lionel 027 radius tracks, can now safely be placed on a side track without derailing it.

 In the middle of the larger table I used some my older Lionel 027 tubular tracks from the eighties to make a small yard.

 Here the Lionel 1668E crosses the temporary bridge.

Shake rattle and roll over new tubular tracks.
The moral of the last months; you can clean old tracks what you want, but you cannot get it level and straight, so in the end you will buy new tracks anyway.

Cleaning old track gives you black hands

This weekend we went to a local train swap meeting of MSC Achterhoek, which was larger than expected. I just purchased some small stuff; new color-coded wires and a rectifier.
In the evening, I repaired the 1668E, which had a loose wire between the E-unit and the electromotor. Well, it was still cotton insulated wire, so I cannot blame it for its age. Thus I replaced the wires with modern plastic insulated wires. It ran fine of the new Merkur tracks, but not on the inner half circle of old Hornby-Meccano tracks. The third rail pick-ups sparked and the trains did not ride steadily. Therefore, I tried too clean those old tracks, which a Dremel with a brass comb brush, followed by a rinse with tissue paper and alcohol, which rinsed off most of the black charry deposits. The top surface of the old rail now looked like a shiny mirror and my hands looked like those of a coal shoveller.
Some engines now handled the inner curve good, others did not. Engines with sliding shoes as third rail pick ups performed better than those with rollers as pick ups. Anyway, I reackon that I need to buy some more clean new Merkur tracks after all. That is a new project for next week.

Lionel 1668E running on the new tracks

The Lionel 817 caboose has the right size to fit with Merkur coaches.

The Lionel 603-604 coaches look like silly dwarves compared to the Merkur coaches;
Who said that everything American is bigger?

Towards a permanent layout

During the holiday season I build the benchwork for a permanent layout in the attic. The layout will have two levels; the lower level with Märklin h0 scale trains and the upper level with Lionel trains. Here are some pictures of the construction.

The new long Merkur coach was used to test the clearance of the new layout. The three rail 0 scale layout has a U shape with a bridge between both extremities. Merkur rails with roughly a 042 radius were used for the outer circle and the side track. But I will probably use Lionel 027 tubular tracks for the freight yard on the middle of the table. Well, there is still plenty to do.

Sunny autumn afternoon

With the lovely sunny autumn weather, I felt obliged to get outside and run the new diner coach. It ran great. The Merkur coaches with Bing couplers couple easy with pre-war Lionel trains with latch couplers, but pre-war Lionel is a bit under scale as compared to the modern Merkur tin-plate toy trains. But the modern MTH engines are a better size match and they also let the coaches run smoothly.

A string of colourful happiness

Pre-war Lionel trains look kind of small compared to these
huge Merkur coaches.

Dutch scale zero meeting in Zutphen

This weekend, the Dutch scale zero train meeting was held in Zutphen. Since most Dutch model railroaders are into half-zero or N, the scale zero public is limited and the gathering has a nice peaceful atmosphere. Up to a few years ago, this was the holy domain of fine scalers, scratch builders and rivet counters. But the toy trains have expanded to here as well. First, brands like Lenz and MTH made more and more European scale zero trains, which are very highly detailed, although some rivet counters will always be difficult to please and we start to see those trains in Zutphen now as well. Secondly, the local Merkur dealer has gained his own table in the group and achieved some pretty good sales with coarse scale Merkur trains, that run on 3 rails...

Yes indeed, here are some MTH engines on sale.

Some fancy coaches.

Nice modelling on the modular layout

It can't get more Dutch than this, I reckon!

Here is the Merkur-Lehnhardt display table with some nice trains running smoothly on the table. The sales representative of Merkur told me that it is likely that Merkur will also commence to produce AC trains in stead of those DC only engines. Would be a very good idea, as far as I am concerned. Also a larger hopper can be expected in the coming year.

Anyway, I could not resist and purchased a beautiful red diner car, Merkur 9331.

Merkur 9331 diner coach.

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.