Presse / Press

From the hobby room into the limelight-8 model railways compete in the contestfor privately owned railwaysat Faszination MODELLBAHN Sinsheim 2016

Dr. Michael Giersberg: "The distillery in the woods" (gauge Gn15)

This little layout tells the story of a schnapps distillery somewhere out in the woods. Apart from the distillery segment the layout has been expanded to include a reverse loop with storage yard. The railway is run using analogue controls by Heisswolf. All the rolling stock and the switch levers are self-made. The buildings are mainly constructed from plywood. The "forest distillery" layout again uses self-printed stone paper. The distillery has its own miniature track layout, with a branch line leading to the factory.

Gerd Ziller: Gerd's versatile living-room logging railroad (gaugeH0e)

The design of the layoutreflects many European forest railways of the early to mid-20th century. Focus is on the track sections running through the woods, with a small marshalling yard and depot, a wood loading point and charcoal stacks. The line runs past an idyllic lake, meadows and woodlands. Here the empty trains are loaded up before continuing their journey down into the valley, where the timber is processed into planks or paper. The locomotives on the layout are the typicallogging locos as were used on many forest railways in Europe.

Mario Alberto Scarati: Consolidated Nickel Mines Co. layout (gauge H0)

This layout shows aloading station, railway line and despatch station of a fictitious nickel mine in the American Southwest. A two-way hoist lifts and loads the mineral (nickel sulphide) into a primary buffer silo. From here, a conveyor belt transports the mineral to a secondary silo, from which another conveyor belt transports the mineral to a pivoting hopper and then loads it into rail wagons.

The detailedH0 layout was planned and created completely from scratch using the constructors' own designs.

Wolfgang Stößer: Oil feed pump (gauge H0)

This layout is built as a showcaseconstruction and has impressive backdrop and lighting. It depicts a North German landscape with a moving oil pump at the end of the 1950s. A tank train runs to the oil loading station where it is loaded car for car, with the oil crane swivelling out automatically and accurately. On abranch line a working train serves the construction sites. The lighting in the buildings is excellent and the interior of the railway workshop is visible. Figures and animals enliven the scenery. Birds of prey fly over the beautiful landscape and authentic birdsong completes the enchanting atmosphere.

Günther Jirouschek: Amorbach station (gauge H0)

The layout depicts a rural terminus. As the station has only one platform track, emphasis is on goods traffic.

The fiddleyard in the form of a one-metre large turntable has room for up to 8 sets of wagons.

Matthias Mickei: Cement works in Poland with narrow-gauge works railway (gauge TT)

On level 0 the raw materials are delivered on the narrow gauge works railway. The remaining factory buildings are on level 1, where the standard gauge railway has a connection with loading device. Herewagons are loaded in true-to-original detail.The era depicts the transition of the cement workstowards privatization and includes a workers' protest scene.

The tracks of the works railway in gauge TTe on the visible part of the layout were all self-made. The rolling stock consists of 3D printed elements on Märklin Z chassis.

Heinz-Ulrich Grumpe: Pennsylvania Steel (gauge N)

Here we have a small blast furnace plant with steel works in the East of the United States. The era is the mid-1950s. The blast furnace plant is completely self-built. Diesel locomotives already dominate the works railway traffic. The trains travel continuously to and fro carrying raw materials and pulp between the different factory units. On the elevated railwaylimestone, coke and of course iron ore are delivered and stored in bunkers. The raw materials are distributed by crane and conveyed up the inclined lift into the blast furnace.

The plant is situatedby a river, from which the necessary large quantities of cooling water are pumped via a pump house.Hand-painted figures round off this little layout.

Hans-Heinrich Schubert:American logging railroad (gauge H0)

The layout depicts the era around 1920 to 1930. There is a saw mill with smoke generator, a band saw, circular saw, woodchip transporter and a steam boiler which is partially movable. All the buildings are self-made out of wood.

Extra-long logs can be transported on a special wagon. Timber loading is operated using electrically driven winches.

A large trestle bridge is a focal point of the layout.