A journey from here to there

 A personal philosophy 

In order to be a modeller of railways there needs to be a model railway. It doesn't matter if it is a loft or an Ikea box, there has to be a railway, otherwise we are mere collectors of things in boxes.

Occasionally, a thought begins to become a concern, why build a model railway and why choose a particular subject? My obsession, for it is an obsession, is to create something naturalistic that pleases the eye and restores old memories of quiet rural railways of Southern Germany. 

I greatly admire those individuals who devout a lifetime to build a perfect representation of a actual location, set at a specific time/date. Their dedication is admirable but there are constraints, as they can utilise space and have access to information, neither of which I enjoy. By contrast, my world is one of limited to just 5m x 1m and limited information from both the internet and the few books that feature my chosen subject.

My project is based upon a notion that a modest rural line in Oberfranken  had been extended a few more kilometres before funding was finally exhausted and the planned wayside station became a terminus for the remainder of its short life.

The generic trackplan is simple, the only extravagance is a tiny wooden loco shed with fuel+water and the style of the station buildings is typical of the builder. 

Various features (LDEs) from around the location are recycled, all chosen for their similarity to other local features. Colours are carefully chosen from a palette used in the location, mostly natural, a mix of greens + earth, subtle rather than brash. 

The stock was carefully selected with help from local experts, there are no 'special' visitors as everything must have been used on rural lines within 25kms during the timeframe 1950-68. 

The wherefore of operation on Pottendorf

 

The layout in the shed is small, only about 3,4m of scenic area with four storage roads, this means that it is a shunting puzzle rather than ‘parade’ style layout. Four is the magic number as there were just four trains per day on a typical branch in the mid ‘50s. 

 

The stocklist reflects the purpose of the layout, just a few wagons and coaches plus a railbus are the four trains that shuffle backwards and forwards. The wagons form two trains, the coaches another with the railbus as the simple shuttle that does not shunt at all. 

 

Each of the four scenic roads has at least one uncoupler, the platform has two so that after uncoupling from the head of the train, the loco can pick off vehicles from the train and set them into sidings. 

 

Running through all four trains should take about 25-30 minutes of intense concentration, enough to keep me happy.

I hope that this explains the approach.

A branchline

Modelling a simple brachline

The Leupoldsdorf train station is one of those stations in Franconia (and elsewhere) that were built at a time when it was still believed that the railway would continue to make mobility and the development of the area possible in the future. However, the station remained a temporary structure throughout its life and was finally shut down and demolished in the 1990s. 

 

The former railway network between the cities of Selb, Holenbrunn and Wunsiedel was quite well developed. Starting from the Regensburg - Hof main line, the rail line reached Holenbrunn in 1877. In 1914 the route to Selb town and further to what is now the Czech town of Cheb (Eger) was added. The main reason was probably the porcelain factories in the area, which promised a lot of freight traffic. The route to Eger existed from Oberkotzau as early as 1865. As early as 1877, Wunsiedel was reached from Holenbrunn by a local railway. Holenbrunn thus became a small railway junction. Wunsiedel was the end point of this branch line until 1913. Then the line to Leupoldsdorf was opened (November 8, 1913) and Wunsiedel became a through station. The route to Leupoldsdorf was supposed to one day become part of a connection toBischofsgrün, that was the dream at the time. 

 
Things were supposed to be different...

 Apparently the route was extended at the instigation of the owner of the Hammerschloss in Leupoldsdorf. However, this was no longer owned by the castle when it opened. This is what it says on Wikipedia. I can't say to what extent this is true, but dreams of a continuous connection through the Fichtelgebirge existed in many places. There were also such plans between Gefrees and Weißenstadt. Due to the First World War and the subsequent development of the automobile as an essential mode of transport, all of these ideas were shattered. 

Track plan sketch of Leupoldsdorf train station. The connection on the left is said to have served a soapstone processing company. However, it is fairly certain that the business on the siding was a stonemasonry business. 

Leupoldsdorf is a rather small station. Of course there wasn't much going on here! There was no locomotive shed, only the most essential freight facilities (no head or side ramps, apart from the small ramp on the Gsch). But there are two private sidings. One tied to the loading road track. I think I can remember (an old article from the "Eisenbahn Magazin" from 1981) that there was supposed to be a stonemason's business that was served here now and then by train. Otherwise, logs, among other things, were loaded in Leupoldsdorf. By the way, the beautiful Eg of the station is reproduced in a drawing in H0 scale in Em 6/81

Secondly, in an extension of the track, a soapstone factory (below). I'm not entirely sure about its exact location, number of buildings and extent. This siding was secured by a track barrier and there is also said to have been a moving Sh2 signal there (similar to that in Falkenstein near Regensburg). This was folded up to operate the connection. I don't know how exactly this happened and whether this signal was operated from the Eg or at the location of the signal itself. The level crossing at the train station exit to Wunsiedel was later given a flashing light monitor with the appropriate signals, while the Bü am Eg remained secured only with St. Andrew's crosses. The entrance was secured with a trapezoidal board and a slow speed disc Lf1 (30 km/h). 

During the DB's steam locomotive era, the following series ran here: 98.8 (Bavarian GtL 4/4), 64, 86. Later: Vt 75.9 (or Vt 70.9?), Vt 95.9, V60 and of course the V100. The route belonged to the management area of ​​BD Regensburg. In 1975, passenger traffic between Holenbrunn and Leupoldsdorf was stopped, and in the 1980s the beautiful wooden building on the Eg with the goods shed extension was demolished. Freight traffic ended in Leupoldsdorf in 1993. The tracks were later dismantled. Today, at the former location of the reception building in Leupoldsdorf, a small piece of track with a freight wagon is set up as a quasi-monument. You can still explore part of the former route by bike... 

 

 I like the station so much 30 years ago that I drew a small track plan, however, I added a few more freight tracks and a locomotive station to the station. Today I would perhaps do it differently, quite apart from the location of the shadow station anyway. Because the small train station also has its attractions and is definitely worth seeing. If you don't have that much space for a branch line terminus (as can be seen on some model railway layouts) or are just looking for a small, rather unobtrusive end point for a larger layout (main line with a branching branch line, for example), I think this is a very suitable terminus station. 

More photos from Leupoldsdorf

 

 

 

 

Beside the road in Bayern

The location of the layout is Oberfranken, Bayern. There are many features that are common to the region and throughout Bayern, these include artefacts related to the catholic faith of Bayern.

Wayside crosses and wayside shrines bear witness to the piety of the people. For hundreds of years, these small religious monuments made of wood, stone and masonry have mostly been erected and maintained by the wayside, some decorated with flowers and candles.

Pottendorf has two such features.

A loco shed

Other than the station, the other major railway building is the locoshed, it is a simple single road wooden shed that was rebuilt from a very old Pola kit 

 

 

 

 

The locoshed has a small coaling stage and corrugated iron flammable store.

 

 

 

The corrugated iron flammable store will be replaced with a better HO version.

 

 

Details such as a water tap outside the locoshed

 

The water crane is a Spitzner type, copied from the example that once stood at Kempten, Bad Neustadt and similar to the one at Miltenberg

Grey Primer

 

98 812 receives water in the morning at Bad Neustadt station to be prepared for the next (return) trip to Königshofen, on 01.07.1968.

 

Older style, unknown location, possibly Endorf
 

 Some inspiration was gatherered from the old loco shed at Kößlarn as that branchline shared many features with other Bayerische nebenbahnen. The loco shed was at the opposite end of the station yard and was surrounded on three sides by long grass, it still survives despite being abandoned by the DB.

 

The cottage

On the latest version of Pottendorf there is a small cottage for the farmworker, it has a couple of fruit trees, vegetable garden and chicken coop.

 

The Faller cottage has a vague similarity to the Häcker family house from Ergersheim preserved as building 12 at the Fränkische Freilandmuseum in Bad Windsheim. Rather scratchbuilding maybe just the removal of the lower level of fachwerke?

 

These archive images show the original building and its original proportions.

The building is a timberframe built around 1706 and an external stucco finish on the lower section of the walls .

Link to the museum's description click here

 

The cottage, below is a new kit that was reworked. There really wasn’t too much scope the lengthen the building as the sub-base of the scene is finished but it has lost the fachwerk (timber framing) below the top of the ground floor windows. It has been carefully stipled with AK Interactive Terrains acrylic, a texture normally used for roads etc.

I am fine with its actual size although it is about 30% too short compared to the Häcker family house but all other dimensions are 1:87 moreover buildings of this size were once common until the '70s when living in a two down one up became unacceptable. 

 

Although unfinished, the result will be acceptable

 

 

 At the bottom of the cottage garden, there are some chickens

 

Tim

Building the layout

The blog is about building a small fictitious terminus vaguely based on other small stations in Oberfranken, instead it is merely an amalgam of features of existing locations in the area, a plausible fiction.

Oct 2022 

It began with four old baseboards that were cleaned and prepared for new track

 

Mar 2023 Track laid and fully wired

 

February 2024 

The platform receives a coat of Acrylmasse textured light grey paint and the roads and station yard have been repainted with limestone paint and layer of Acrylmasse.

 

 

 All the track has been ballasted, ready for testing. 

 

April 2024 

The backscene is finally in place

May 2024

The edge along the backscene is mostly complete, it is patchy were the PVA failed to 'grab' the static grass, the rest of the grass was secured with MattMedium.

Finally, the front edge nears completion, just a few untouched patches to be covered, tomorrow, trains will be running.

Perhaps worth mentioning that 'Pottendorf' represents a station during a rather wet ‘60s late summer and it is in its final months of existence, lack of maintenance has resulted in a general unkempt appearance.

June 2024
Starting to plant the trees, ten in total

 

At the end of the track

 

 

 

 

 

It is a lantern from Auhagen 41618, not easy to assemble nor easy to install. A shallow slot had to made in the trackbed and it is held in place by the white PVA glue. There are six on Pottendorf. 

September 2024

Finally complete