Authenticity

As I have said, I am trying to build a war 2 milieu set somewhere to the east of Germany at about 1943-44. It is to be a depot where damaged German tanks and vehicles are brought via rail to be repaired and re-deployed. I have chosen the season to be autumn with a light dusting of snow and frost on the undisturbed parts of the layout.

Locomotives

I have been researching the types of locomotives being used on the eastern front and there appeared to be many. I have chosen so far to have a Class 38, Class 50, and a Class 52.

Class 52 Kriegslok

War damaged Class 52 Kriegslok

The DRB Class 52 is in grey kreigslok livery and will be used as a long haul military loco pulling a Panzer unit including troops and tanks to the front. The unit has the new Panthers and Tiger I's as the main tanks.

Class 50

The DRB Class 50  is in standard black and is to be used for hauling freight and other carriages to the front. I will probably repaint this one in camouflage.

Class 38 Prussian P 8

Class 38 (Prussian P  8) being refueled on Eastern Front

The DRG Class 38.10-40 is a heavy locomotive used for general purpose freight and passenger hauling. It was originally produced as the Prussian P 8 class from 1909 onwards. All of these locomotives have been documented as being in use at that time and possibly in my fictitious location. I am still trying to find a suitable loco for use in shunting. It appears that at that time there were a number of Prussian T 12 tank locomotives around being used for heavy shunting and goods trains on short hauls. Märklin H0 produce one of these in the 1980's - 1990's in the 3095 BR74. I am trying to get one of these from eBay now.

Class 38 in the winter on the Eastern Front.

Rolling Stock

Here are some of the photos of rolling stock I have found. By the 1943, due to heavy losses from bombing raids, trains where compiled from rolling stock of different types from different locations.

It is hard to believe it is nearly a year later. The set is up and running, I bought some plaster and paints to play with but all went quiet for a while and I never made anything with the plaster at all :( Still things are moving along.

During my mid year break from study, I am doing a Master of Information Systems part time after work, I found myself with some time. I went downstairs and found my m-track had all rusted up. Probably, something to do with sharing space with a clothes dryer; lots of moisture. So I got out some fine sand paper and spend a couple of hours cleaning the track. It was back breaking, dirty and unpleasant. Unpleasant enough for me to upgrade my track to c-track.

Like everything, it was not simple. Apparently, the sizes of m-track and c-track including the curve radii are all different. After a quick trip to the marklin-users.net forum to ask a bunch of questions a lovely chap there did up a track plan for me! How nice! He also pointed me at the track planning software WinTrack 11.0. I went there but found the US$99 was a bit steep for me but there was a demo which installed and ran well. Sadly saving and printing track plans was barred, though I could and did take a screen shot of the plan and saved that. Searching through eBay I found that to reproduce my layout (approximately) would cost over $500. That seemed a little daunting, but in hindsight I probably should have done it ;)

Well, now I am buying bits and pieces of track, some from each pay packet. I did go out on a bit of a spree and bought 3 2nd hand locos and 6 second hand wagons. They were so cheap and nice and fit my layout (WW2 theme) so well!. Here are the pics:

3084 BR50 loco

3094 Streamliner Loco (About 1939-41)

3393 Mhi BR52 Kreigslok 3604 Delta Digital System

4002 - tinplate rural 2nnd class passenger car

4038 - wagon fourgon

4601 - OPEN FREIGHT WAGON + BRAKEMANS CAB

4601 - OPEN FREIGHT WAGON + BRAKEMANS CAB

4610 - WUERTTEMBERG Tank Car

Wasserwagen ÖBB - 4445

This lot all ran to around $400 anyway...lol.

Until next time!

Where to research

This is a list I will maintain of useful links to use when researching your WW2 layout. I will grow this as I go. 

• Biblioteca - Download Märklin catalogues, track plans, signal guides from 1930's to 2000
• Märklin Users Forum - Great bunch of knowledgeable people.
• Tiger tank transport train article - interesting article by a guy who built a tiger tank on carriage kit.
• Eisenbajnstiftung - Pictures of the railway in WW2
• Simple Computer Aided Railway Modeller - Software for layout design.

What did I get?

Märklin 3000 (Class 89)

Märlkin 3098 (Class BR38)

Märklin 3029

Märklin 3083 ETAT (French)

In the beginning...

Hello and welcome to my blog. This one is on my railway experience and is kind of my way of keeping a track of all the bit and bobs I use on the internet to help me plan and build my layout. So expect to see a whole load of links posted here as I go on.

History
Since I was a wee lad my Dad had an interest in model railway. Occasionally he would bring some of his stuff out and build a small layout but mostly it was stored away in a crate or two in his part of the wardrobe. To a child it was a thing of mystery and wonder. All my childhood I remember wishing that Dad would bring it out and set it up, but it happened only rarely.

As I grew to a young teenager I got older I got sneakier. Sometimes my parents went out on a weekend afternoon leaving my older brother and I at home. I would then sneak into their room and open up the box and pull out the carriages and engines very carefully and look at them. I would then repackage them and put them all back exactly as they were before. I sort of remember getting caught once with them coming home early and me having stuff everywhere. Very embarrassment!

Anyway, as a way to connect with my dad now that he is retired, I have started buying him model railway related things for presents and taking him to train shows and the like. Recently I decided that I should give it a go myself. That seemed like a nice idea but I already had a room full of WW2 tank kits (from a previous hobby re-exploration) waiting patently for me to build and adding a new bunch of gear seemed a bit much. So the bright idea went off! Why not combine the two!?!

So now I am researching information on tanks and trains in WW2.

Today
Over the last few weeks I have gone on an purchasing phase. I have researched sellers of Märklin (my Dad's chosen system) products in Australia and overseas and also eBay sellers looking for Era II (1930-1945) rolling stock and steam loco's. I have had some good luck and certainly learnt a lot. See my next post for a list of items that I procured.