Katzhagen - Archive - August 2016
Heidi - having 12000 miles under the belt
Early in spring an occasion arose to acquire some rolling stock from an
inheritance - in South Africa...
Accordingly the 12000 miles do not relate to the milage but to the transport distance which this loco had done: Germany - South Africa - Germany.
Quite soon it turned out that the transaction was executed by the former South African representative of LGB. The topics of the following conversations probably don't need to be explicitly mentioned here...
Given the asked shipping costs the overall sum would have gone through the roof, but fortunately, a kind soul who emigrated to South Africa some years ago, brought along the purchased vehicles on the occasion of his last trip to Europe.
Hence, the inevitable happened, Heidi had to spend a few hours at the beauty parlor...
Accordingly the 12000 miles do not relate to the milage but to the transport distance which this loco had done: Germany - South Africa - Germany.
Quite soon it turned out that the transaction was executed by the former South African representative of LGB. The topics of the following conversations probably don't need to be explicitly mentioned here...
Given the asked shipping costs the overall sum would have gone through the roof, but fortunately, a kind soul who emigrated to South Africa some years ago, brought along the purchased vehicles on the occasion of his last trip to Europe.
Hence, the inevitable happened, Heidi had to spend a few hours at the beauty parlor...
The fine details will remain almost invisible in the cab's darkness.
The colouring is based on pictures as shown on the website of «Club 1889». This club is dealing with maintainig historic RhB rolling stock.
The minor adaptions of the details' colouring to the prototype provide for an almost "new" model. But the railings along the water tanks cause eye cancer...
The evil was eradicated: Railing removed, mounting lugs separated and drilled out, 1.5mm brass rod cut to length, bent and inserted.
Revision and amendments complete - Voilá !
Minimal adaptions of colurs - great impact.
Applying smaller rims to the lights and a bit of paint results in a quite different optical appearance.
Also the rear view rewards for the efforts with the details' emphasis.
Colour also was brought to the cabin ...
| Item | Manufacturer/Provider |
|---|---|
| Etched brass lettering | RhB Modellbau |
| Driver & fireman | Prehm |
| Light rims | Champex-Linden |
| Brass wrought material (railing) | Fiedler |
Contact issues
were observed with R3 turnouts - despite clean tracks, shining pickups and polished wheels. Filth caused the switch blades to be dead. Remedy was found in form of additional carbon brushes mounted on Heidi's leading truck:
Custom-fit holes are drilled in the place needed for the carbon brushes and bushings are fitted in as holders. The whole thing is stabilzed with methacrylic glue.
To keep this effective modification unobtrusive, the changes were adapted to the leading truck's colour before the cables had been connected to the related terminals on the drive.
July 2016 | Archive "Current Affairs" | September 2016
