Bahnhof Friedrichstraße

Thought I'd share this postcard I just got depicting the lovely P8/BR38 heading out of Berlin's Bahnhof Friedrichstraße.

A sign on the left indicates that this was taken during the renovations and expansion of the station that started in the late teens and went into the twenties.

And here another Berlin BR38 amidst the ruins of Weimar's downfall and the war... A Hamsterfahrt about to head out from Anhalter with Berliners heading out into the countryside to barter for food. Image by Margaret Bourke-White for LIFE magazine.

Cleaning and first time running in a loooooong time

Due to bookish (bookbinding and writing) projects my layouts have languished and Shelob and her offspring have run amok, dust built up, and trains stopped running smoothly. Contributing to this were also ongoing accessibility/mobility issues on my part that made areas unreachable. Thanks to lots of quality time at home (almost 2 weeks) and familial help, Shelob succumbed to "Sting" and trains are now running again. I even enjoyed the experience and am looking forward to more and ongoing modeling projects. At one point I had toyed with "flattening" the layout, metaphorically and in reality to make it easier to reach. That thought was banished when I realized that rebuilding would be much harder than begging more regular "donations" of time for dusting...

While cleaning, took some time to explore areas I detailed but that normally are hidden due to facing the (removable) backdrop. Yes, there was "road work" to be done, in part to help the trolley run smoothly.

Let's run some trains!

E 19 der DB

Decided to put my E 19 / 119 of the DB on the tracks again. Beautiful runner and super smooth.

You can see the prototype in the same green livery at Ulrich Budde's Bundesbahnzeit website here. That picture was taken in Nuremberg in 1966.

Feeding heavy industries in Duisburg

While coal required to power the steelworks was domestic, mined from the depths of the Ruhr Valley, iron ore was often imported and brought to the world's largest inland port of Duisburg by barge.

Family painting showing steelworks along the Rhein in Duisburg ca 1920s/30s

Here a view from above. Of course things have changed...

And below a short documentary about a load ore arriving from Sweden on a barge, the barge being unloaded and then reloaded with Ruhr coal for some other place. Includes a little railroad related activity such as a coal car being unloaded...

Diese Dokumentation gehört zu den seltenen Filmdokumenten, die eine längst zu Ende gegangene Epoche besonders interessant wiedergeben. Der Film zeigt den Duisburger Hafen in den 50er Jahren mit den seinerzeit eingesetzten Schiffen und Verladegeräten. Die Geräte, die vor einer Verschrottung verschont blieben, stehen heute als technische Denkmäler in den Hafenanlagen und können bei einer Rundfahrt durch den größten europäischen Binnenhafen bestaunt werden.