The blog is about building a very small layout of a very simple terminus based on a location in Thuringia, rather than a copy, it is merely an amalgam of features of existing locations in the area, in short, a plausible fiction, it certainly does not exist.
The original Grafenwalde
Please note
The layout is NOT a copy of any particular location but it is a very loose interpretation of a station in Thuringia, the model should show the station in the summer of 1954, at the time up to the end of the 1960s all the tracks were still in place.
The layout is based upon a Kleinbahn that was originally, a short line, in this case only almost 7km (4.3 miles) to Frauenwald in Southern Thuringia. It was a standard gauge line that was served by tiny trains and lasted from 1913 to 1965. Due to the topography the station at Rennsteig was a 'Spitzkehren bahnhof' or 'hairpin station' where the train changes direction. The railway had to meet the transport needs of the predominantly rural structure of the area
89 5901
The railcar shown below was employed until WW2, although a 0-4-0 tank loco with road number 5 plus passenger cars and goods cars was also employed. This loco was supplemented by one obtained from the Kleinbahn Neuhaldensleben–Weferlingen former roadbed is accessible today as a Wanderweg
The railway survived the Second World War, in 1949, the railway was nationalised and the operation was taken over by the Deutsche Reichsbahn. At the beginning of the 1950s, tourism to the Thuringian Forest increased significantly. In 1952, through express trains ran from Berlin to the Thuringian Forest for the first time. In Rennsteig, the train, consisting of four-axle express coaches, was split up. Three coaches continued on to Schmiedefeld , the other three were hauled by a T 3 to Frauenwald
The condition of the track deteriorated noticeably, and despite increasing traffic, only the most urgent repairs could be carried out. On February 13, 1965, the line had to be closed due to snow drifts, and trains had to be replaced by buses. Railway operations ceased after that because no funds were available for the necessary renovations.
Unfortunately, there are no suitable building kits for HO
An alternative solution
As part of the search for a simple station building for Thuringia, I made a photo album of various smaller stations. The variety of styles is quite amazing, from full fachwerk, to rendered, stone and finally brick, there is almost no common style, maybe because many of the railways in Thuringia were ‘private’ enterprises…. Below is Geraberg beside the line from Plaue to Ilmenau it is a few kilometres from Ilmenau, at the northern end of the Rennsteig.
Auhagen's Goyatz, the similarity to Geraberg is remarkable and as it is not a unique design, its use can be justified for Grafenwalde, somewhere in Thuringia.
In 1913, the Rennsteig-Frauenwald Kleinbahn (KRF) was opened. From 1912 onwards, the Gottfried Lindner A.G. wagon factory in Ammendorf near Halle (which later became the well-known VEB Waggonbau Ammendorf) supplied several narrow-gauge railways with four-axle combined passenger, mail, and baggage coaches with eight upholstered 2nd-class seats and 40 wooden 3rd-class seats. The first of these coaches was delivered to the Rennsteig-Frauenwald Kleinbeahn (KRF),
The goods traffic is largely logs that were loaded in the yard, 50 years ago loading was achieved with ingenuity and man power as
the only methods.
A few choice images:-
Other details
The ladies
The orchard along the front of the layout, this delightful montage is often a feature of parts of Oberfranken, some of our neighbours, have
orchards with sheep to keep down the weeds. Having mentioned Primo apple trees
before, it was the obvious place to procure the orchard.
I like the laser-cut kits from Model Scene, try A&H Models in Brackley they are good people.
This is item 48502 old railway sleepers
and you can make this with them
You need basic cutting tools, some card, a small lump of foam, earth coloured paints and PVA
This is a painting of the Kyffhäuser line by Peter König and a bargain on eBay resulted in the first and only tender loco for Grafenwalde.
It runs very well
It will be useful for the tourist trains
The G7.1 in service
The G7.1 locomotives were intended for goods duties especially on hilly routes. As a result, most of the engines went to the western German and Silesian railway divisions and by 1909, 1,002 examples had been delivered to the Prussian state railways whilst during the First World War these simple and robust locomotives were required for military use.
After the Second World War, the locomotives that ended up in the Deutsche Bundesbahn were mainly used in shunting duties and were retired by 1957. In the Deutsche Reichsbahn in East Germany the last G 7.1 was not retired until 1966, including 55 669 seen here at Potsdam.
The small farm comprises of a low house and a small yard separated by a railway line.
The farm buildings include a Wills SS30 barn kit that has been improved with a layer of Polyfilla fine surface render.
Just a couple of scenes in the farmyard, the farm is a tiny dairy unit, just three working buildings around a courtyard.
The 'futtersilo' a must-have on any farm from Epoch 2 onwards but this is the actual reason why there is a silo
Hunting for Frogs
The earth cellar.
Whilst
looking around an old farm we found an odd feature found beside the
farmhouse, it was a small stone hut built into the side of the hill. It
was the entrance to a cold store or 'Erdkeller' for the 18th century
farm, although farmhouse had a basement it also had a separate earth
cellar.
In
terms of room height and shape, it penetrates far less deeply into the
ground, only two steps lead down to the brick entrance. The quarry stone
vault of the cellar is also completely covered with soil and potatoes
are stored here over the winter - dark, cool, but frost-free.
There
were a couple of other similar garden cellars in the village, one was
not built into the side of a hill, instead merely cut into the farm
garden and covered with the displaced soil.
On the layout there is a small cottage for the farmworker, it has a couple of fruit trees, vegetable garden and chicken coop.
On the layout there is a small cottage for the farmworker, it has a couple of fruit trees, vegetable garden and chicken coop.
I
remember that in my childhood, chickens (and other domestic birds) were
bustling around in every village. The owners of the poultry seemed to
have no concern for their safety at all. A constant image was the birds
taking carelessly walks along the road running through the village
buildings. And this sometimes ended in a tragic accident under the
wheels of a car.
