Spur1 Unterwegs Januar 2024: Neues aus Alfeld Teil 6

Infected with the Gauge 1 virus, the proud owner discontinued his H0 activities and, starting in 2009, built a 10m x 6m room behind his garage. Due to his former residences in the border area and West Berlin, the owner has a penchant for the East German Democratic Republic (DR) and therefore planned a layout with a station located on the inner-German border, where locomotives could be exchanged between the DB and DR. This resulted in the Alfeld/Leine station, the owner's birthplace, on the north/south line between Elze and Kreiensen, from which a line branches off into the GDR, both imaginarily and notionally. The layout is spread over three levels, the lower level being a staging yard at a 70 cm level with nine continuous staging yard tracks, one of which serves as a through track, and eleven dead-end tracks for stabling. In addition, this level also features a simple turntable with four sidings for reversing DR locomotives. Two ramps with a gradient of approximately 3% lead to the main viewing level at a grade of 100 cm, where the five-track Alfeld station is located. It has three platform tracks and two freight tracks for locomotive changes and freight handling for local industry, the freight shed, and the post office. The sidings of the Fagus company (shoe lasts and machinery) and the Hanover Paper Factory are partly served by factory locomotives (steam accumulator locomotives). On the other side of the station is the depot with a turntable and three permanent sheds, actually far too small for its current purposes, although the current boundaries were unknown during construction. A single-track branch line branches off from the station to the third level at a grade of 112 cm to Gronau (Han). It used to lead to Hildesheim, but now ends here. There was also room on the layout for a 750 mm narrow-gauge railway, where only the Segeste siding station is shown, while the shadow yard provides space for three trains and one railcar. The layout offers the possibility of running trains from the shadow yard through Alfeld station back to the shadow yard, thus demonstrating varied operations. Overtaking and passing operations can take place in the station, and, as already mentioned, locomotive changes can take place, particularly between DB and DR. The station is also served by local freight trains for the local freight yards and industry, which further facilitates interesting freight traffic. The steam depot and the diesel locomotive refueling station also add considerable play value. The layout features 44 turnouts and approximately 150 meters of standard gauge track. Only semaphore signals are used: 12 main signals, 5 distant signals, 12 track-lock signals, and 4 hold signals. The layout is controlled with the Märklin CS 3 and the Uhlenbrock Track Control as the route controller. The shadow yard is operated via an old Märklin Memory route controller. The narrow-gauge railway has approximately 35 m of track and 10 turnouts. The model dates from Era 3 and 4, but the owner isn't too particular about that. The vehicles are from all well-known manufacturers and have been weathered, visually improved, or equipped with different sound. The cars are all plastic models, as brass models are too heavy for five express train cars and ten to fifteen freight car trains on a 3% gradient. Building and playing with the model railway is clearly the owner's priority. Gauge 1 is particularly interesting for him when building, as the size and detail often require DIY, as the market doesn't (yet) offer everything. Even operation on a not-so-small model railway always requires compromises, e.g. For example, when it comes to radii and consequently the choice of couplings, he prefers system couplings rather than screw couplings. However, operational processes are more important to him than aesthetics. "Everyone has their own priorities and should be tolerant of others, which is often lacking in our and other hobbies."