On the other side of the world

What if the world was flat and the downside was peopled by inverted humans seeking pleasure in such strange things as model railroads going backwards, on wide tracks surrounded by big modern houses nicely buffed and shining in an artificial sun - what if?

In such a world there could surely be a big cold storage capable of handling frozen fish, vegetables and meats, but no one would ever use it. There would also be a small door and window in the little office (with windows in great need of a hosing) where the boss, A. Larsson would reside in a cloud of Cortez-cigarettes behind his dark heavy oak table. Green is the colour of the doors and the leather furnishing on the office chair, green the faces of the visitors not accostumed to the thick smoke inside!

Possibly there will come a time and a place for this nice little railway building, perhaps close to the sea and with a siding or two enabling the little people in knickers and hat loading and unloading goods on the railway - who knows?

Lift me up!

What comes up, must come down. In a world of ever changing needs and deeds, even the not so very well equipped local metal work shop must listen to the demands of costumers and try to shine in front of business prospects. The Hilding and Co was facing a very embarrasing situation indeed, when it became clear that the railway´s new future aquisition, a Z4p, was not going to be completed within the workshop, but outside it. The framework, engine block and chassis could all be housed inside, but the final assembly was going to take place outside since there was no rails in the shop, and the final loco was going to be too heavy for any available crane to lift anyway.

Fast (or as fast as Hilding Brakén understood the deal was about to collapse) a simple but strong crane was ordered and put outside the shop. The crane was able to lift as much as 2 500 kilograms, which seemed to be sufficient, and was delivered in spring just before the construction of the loco was beginning.

The photo below shows the crane (of the PECO-brand) as delivered. Since then, a lifting cable has been installed, and the crane has come to good use in a variety of situations. The most widely spread event was when Mr. Brakén remarried the widow Bröster, and his (not so very clean and modern) underwear was hoisted to the air in some sort of practical joke performed by some of the workers.

The PECO crane as delivered - a fine example of robust mechanics!

The workshop

I found these three snapshots on The Hilding & Co mechanic workshop just when I was supposed to go on a business trip. I will not try to over explain them, they will have to talk for themselves. However, some of the staff has complained on the windy conditions inside, so hopefully this shop will have new glassing in due time for winter. Sorry to say, but the owner Hilding Braken is as stubborn as he is greedy so there will sure be some discussions beforehand.

 Please enjoy!

Diesel power in new colours

It´s time to introduce you all to the the only engine of Sörlinge Jernväg so far, the small diesel shunter, which started out as a small Roco engine.
This little fellow was painted in a two colour scheme, inspired by the Z43 "Moroten" (The carrot) and handrails, lollipops and different small details were added or rebuilt to be in line with my swedish memories of this engine.

Nickname for this little diesel is "Stampe", which comes from it´s little jumpy behaviour and "cute" outline. It´s primarily constructed for shunting but since it´s the only engine available it has been seen doing regular line duty with up to 5 wagons in its little hook. Some say it is T.R. Isings brother Sven, who has been adding some bits and pieces (perhaps not always with safety in mind) to this construction to add some additional bite. Behold Stampe in this recently taken photo series from the camera of Enar Basson.

This situation is of course quite desperate, so a new engine has been ordered at Hilding & Son - Mekanisk verkstad. This Addition is eagerly expected but it will sure take some time to construct this advanced machine, since the three employées at the workshop mostly has been involved in repairing farmers heavy machinery - mostly tractors! Anyway - hope is the last thing to leave us, and there is some chance this new engine (Z4p) will be ready by springtime. Good times are coming...

From above

One sunny sunday afternoon, the aeronautical club of Blankniva (a small village adjacent to Sörlinge)  took on the task to take photographs of the village of Sörlinge from above. A couple of the farmers in the vicinity and above all, T.R Ising, the strong man of Sörlinge, had approached them asking them to do so, because they all wanted nice aerial photos taken of their homes. Of course, money was involved as usual, the poor aeronatical club was in great need of cash to build a new hangar building housing ther newly purchased Cessna airplane, and the old man Ising needed some fresh photos of his estate to perhaps convince the locals the railway should be extended towards his farm (what a nice way to impress women by, isn´t it? "Just take the train to me, and I´ll pick you up at Ising station"). The amount of sugar beets and farming supplies this rail extension was said to transport was of course never specified, at least not during sober conditions. Anyway, the old yellow Piper super cup took to the air and a couple of nice photos were taken during the trip, one of them is shown right below.

Strangely enough, the photos seems to show no landscape features, just the tracks and some buildings, but who is interested in grass and gravel anyway? Another observation (made by the young man Enar Basson) was that the trackwork consists of quite some "adventurous curves", but it can of course be this man is too much affected by his juvenile testosterone?

Anyway, the Sörlinge station can be seen top middle with it´s one and only siding made for loading and unloading goods, primarily food and groceries for the village shop. Down to the left is the metal workshop, Hilding & Son - mekanisk verkstad, with it´s own siding track. Further to the right there is one switch leading to a small trackyard, and the main track goes south and then around back to the main station again. Not visible in this strange and uncanny photo is the small stop at the very bottom to the right just before the track turns back north to Sörlinge. The name of this stop I don´t remember, but sure enough it will be christened in due time.

The track will soon be secured by small pins and my train consisting of a small diesel switcher (on which there is some working progress visible!) and one G-finka, will travel around, for some time, until the hitches are straightened out.

At the end of the day, everyone was pleased by the photos, even old man Ising thought they would serve his purpose in an adequate way. Even though the layout plans pictured in an earlier post in this blog wasn´t possible to achieve in this small size, the "hand of Good" was quite happy with the results. Not a very easy task to perform...

On it´s way

Ok, now I´m started and of for this little adventure. On It´s way is also the trackwork and switches for my little railroad, I ordered them a couple of days ago. As I´m a real MRR-rookie I have never worked with flexitrack but I have ordered the ROCO-H0e flextrack (Feldbahn) and a nice railcutter so this will be really interesting! 

I´m of to Malmö next week for some foamboard to lay as ground inside my IKEA-frame. I´m also looking for some flexible ground filler so it will not crack when moving my little "painting", I think some latex filler will do the job, but first I will lay out the tracks and let my little train (the ROCO-shunter or "Carrot" to be and my Rimbo Grande litt G) play around for a while. Pictures of this will come up soon, but for now I will show you my little newspaperstand from Swedens "Pressbyrån". This is a nice little brass- and white metal-kit from Tekno bygg and it will also soon be filled with colourful magazines and candy from the fifties for all the little people to amuse themselves with during their wait for the next train or bus taking them to the seaside or in to town. Perhaps a small kid will look at the "En rolig halvtimme" magazine for his first look at a voluptuous womens body in caricature? 

The truth is in here - a note on accuracy

What if the rivets of a panel line is not absolutely correct? And if the colour of my painstakingly soldered brass wagon litt G is not the one and only shown in all the (black and white!) pictures taken in the forties! But if the little switcher of mine has never been near my litt Op in reality, will the sky fall down on my head? No, of course not! But I will sure be regarded as non-realistic, an anti-historic, perhaps even criminal by some rivet counters!? I don´t care, as long as I remember it this way, it´s just 100% correct and fun for me!

What I mean by "remembering" things I obviously never has experienced first hand is as follows. In my mind there is a cinema showing a nostalgic movie of yesteryear, with narrow gauge diesel and steam engines, wagons of different kinds, little industries along the line delivering pickled cucumber, handmade furniture and farmers sending sugar beet to be turned into sugar cones. A school class (perhaps my mother is one of the pupils?) go by train to a lake for swimming lessons all to early in spring and a man with a back pack travels the rails by foot, without having bought a "walk the line"-ticket in the small station office. There is a lot of action taking place and trains arrive and leave, buses and cars are heading in different directions, people of all kinds meet and try to make some sense of their place in life and above all, there is a lot o flavour.

The reality is full of distractions, inconsistensies and strange coincidences, but it´s not less real because of that, just the opposite. My memory of this movie doesn´t bother if there are one or two small inaccuracies in the picture, as long as I can feel the taste of Loranga soda on my lips when sitting in the small coffé shop by the railway station and the strangely rusty patina of a seldom used track catches my sight. A movie, a photo or a book can never try to grasp the complexity of reality, but perhaps it can give a plausable hint of what really took place - somewhere, sometime, somewhat. What more can we expect?

What I mean is, my memory of this little railroad is good albeit not perfect, and I don´t mind!

Enjoy or bust!

This little ROCO-shunter has probably never been travelling Swedish narrow gauge rails, but with a little bit of TLC this will turn into a nice little memory of the fifties when diesel engines like the SJ Z43 were painted like carrots! The process of "memorizing" this little engine has just started and a lot of detail is to be attached and of course it will go through my "dust factory" to get just the right flavour for my memory picture of it...

Sörlinge station building to be

Some time ago I bought some Artitec resin kits for my railroad to come and this one is to be the main (and only) station on the layout. The building is quite alike a Swedish station building (but the four chimneys would perhaps be two instead), but I have omitted some details in the kit to make it look more clean and at the same time opened up for some detailing of my own. This is the building straight from the box minus window glass and curtains. I will later on add these things, signs, litterboxes, a vendor machine and perhaps something more. The building is slightly weathered with colour powders from Greene scene. Artitec kits are somehow hard to come by, but Modelljärnvägsspecialisten in Luleå, Norsk model jernbane and of course E-bay has come to my aid here.

The feeling begins

OK, so where do I begin? I live in a small house with my family and there is not a lot of space for this railroad, and there is always a potential threat of it being crushed by some little kid or cat having it´s fun, so what to do? I soon found out that one solution could be having the layout being framed - then it could be hung on the wall when not in use and at the same time be quite safe from destruction (well, nothing ever is - I have come to learn!).

A prefabriced frame was bought from IKEA, 60 X 80 cm, which immediately set the borders of my  little world. I plan to install foamboard in one or two layers above the masonite plank (and the glass will have to come of of course). Since I am a man of big dreams and never ending plans of what to do next, I thought it would be a good idea to make some rules for the layout so I would not overdo it in this very limited space. Remember I want it to be simple, nostalgic and like a painting of a time gone by - not an electric grid pattern! I want this layout to be possible to be finished in 2-3 years, which may sound as a lot of time, but with two little active boys in the household and a demanding office work, not to mention my lovely wife with whom I want to spend a lot of time with - it really isn´t. 

The rules are as follows:

• A small rural railroad, set in Sweden at the outbreak of the sixties
• Kits for structures and rolling stock, no time consuming scratchbuilding please! 
• Only Swedish or Swedish-ich structures and rolling stock allowed
• Analog controlling
• A maximum of 4 switches, and 4 isolated sections (remote controlled)
• Format H0e, narrow gauge 9 mm track
• A lot of attention paid to landscape and structures, not only the trains

A first scribble on a piece of paper rendered this

My first attempt at Sörlinge railroad - SJ

The name Sörlinge, is a derivative of my childhood village of Hörlinge in Skåne Sweden, and since this model railroad is thought to be in the southern parts of Sweden an "S" was put in instead of "H" giving it a more southern tongue. The initials SJ is also the name of the Swedish federal railways company, so there is a small hint of expansion later on...

The layout contains one small station (Sörlinge of course!) with two tracks (top of drawing). There is also a small harbour facility with storage building, a couple of tracks for loading and unloading and a fright shed/blacksmiths workshop in the middle for goods to be handled. Just above the harbour in this drawing is a small stop.

Hm, looking quite nice, doesn´t it? Let´s go to work!

The feeling of yesteryear

Why is it the summers of childhood are always warmer, the ice creams cooler and the memories of a time gone by are always filled with joy, safety and above all -  a sense of being fixed somehow in a frame while the big world continues to change? Of course because we want it to! I have a strong drive for development in all senses and I love the technology that´s all around us, but at the same time strives to be enveloped in the foggy times of yesteryear ca 1950-60. But what the heck, I wasn´t even born back then! Doesn´t matter - I want the smell of a time gone by where everything was near, when all the houses in the woods were populated by strange people, where every little dirtroad was travelled by buses with people on their way to town to shop for groceries or a new hat, where the small railroad was used to move small things and nicely dressed people not talking in cellphones - a time when everything got to take it´s time. Since I am an avid modeller, with a lot of airplanes, ships, cars, tinsoldiers and so on my mind, it´s now a good time to build a model railroad - a small, slow one - but loaded with memories.

A narrow gauge "G-finka" built from a Rimbo Grande kit