Model Modeling

While I had the big camera out,  a few pictures were staged on Wassen....

Re 4/4s with etched pantos, the lead one superdetailed, the others have been partially done.

Three Levels at Wassen

Peter Bertschi gets his shot at the Command Post (he was a rail photographer I met up here at this very spot in 2016)

Included for scale...

Scenicking through the Lockdown

With most of the world (including here) on Coronavirus lockdown, one might as well visit the train room to fill in an hour or two here and there.

Over the past few days I've made up some brass catenary masts for the middle level (finally!).

There are a few missing out of shot to the right but things are coming together and the layout is beginning to look more complete now. I placed my 1:300th PostBus on the road bridge for these pictures - it looked good in a forced-perspective-kinda-way until the upper level train was placed behind it!  

Interestingly, on the real Middle Meinreuss bridge, there have been two layouts of the masts in recent times. The bridge used to have two sets of masts spaced out on the main span, but since the bridge has had concrete walkways added, it has had one set in the centre. I didn't include the concrete walkways as they don't look quite as nice as the old style to my eye. 

Here is one of my prototype pics from August 2016 with the sticky-out concrete walkways (as not modeled!) and the posts in the centre of the span (as modeled!)

A tunnel portal has been installed at the left side of the middle level - my cliff face is necessarily steeper than the hill that the similarly shaped portal burrows into on the real planet Earth because it conceals the top level balloon loop.

And some trees have grown around and above it on the 'South Hill' tidying up this end of the layout a lot.

My tree supplies are running low though, so I need to pace myself...

The Re 460 pt 2

Finishing up the Re 460, I added some air hoses on my new lower chin, put a dab of red and white paint at the top of each hose to represent the operating cocks.

I also added a 'p' shaped fold of fine wire as a coupler and folded up some pantographs (remembering at the last second to put the 'up' one at the back). Yes, while the 460 originally had this style of panto, they have over the last decade or so been fitted with single arm top halves rather than the split arm  triangular style on most of the other stock that I had etched up.

Not too shabby. The white window blind is quite visible on the front-on pic. I suppose it should have been a slightly creamier colour.

While looking at these pictures taken with my 'proper' camera - as opposed to the pics from my 8 year old iPhone that usually populate these dispatches, some impressive details on Marklin's model revealed themselves. Not only is the correct name 'Säntis' clearly visible in the full sized pic under the driver's side window, but the Pininfarina logo is also in place on the other side.

Neither of these I've seen with my naked eye before, so I must say, well done Marklin, this is a far better model than I expected it to be.

At some stage I might fit some lead weight into the top of the body in the hope of going it a bit more grunt on the hills.