the MRH Forum

Inspiration in Exotic Prototypes Dream and design
Reply
New member 7 posts NashvilleGuy New member 7 posts
NashvilleGuy

Occasionally I stumble across a prototype that because of it's exotic nature just screams to be modeled. Well it seems exotic to me – I'm sure the locals don't find it to be so! And I might be the only one who hears it scream. Ought to be careful to whom I admit hearing those voices.

My latest discovery was a collection of images of 21st century railroading in Eritrea on railpictures.net website. I can imagine some really great treatments of this subject matter, though I'm hard pressed at the moment to think of where one would find scale camels. You can find the images at this link.

http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?country=Eritrea

What have you stumbled across that made you say wow? Where, when, how did you find it? Did you actually act on the urge to model it, whether it was to create a complete layout, a small diorama or just a piece of rolling stock?

Personally I have yet to tackle anything so far outside the hobby norm -- my modeling skills are just not up to it (yet). I'd love to know what others here might have done.

Dan

 

Update:

I found a little more info here http://www.trainweb.org/italeritrea/index.htm

And then there are always our buddies over at wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrean_Railway

Among other things the guage is 950mm (smaller than 1 meter but larger than 1 yard -- which is 914.4mm)
Reply 0
Dave K skiloff Prolific poster 4,030 posts
Dave K skiloff

I think its cool

That would definitely be an interesting one to model. 

Dave
Playing around in HO and N scale since 1976
Reply 0
jarhead Prolific poster 1,734 posts
jarhead

Neat

What makes it interested is the small engines and odd rolling stock. I love the little manual turntable. It would be nice to model the desert and then the high green mountains area. It would be very diverisified. That would be a layout that would get a lot of attention if modelled.

 

 

 

Nick Biangel 

USMC
Reply 0
marcoperforar Regular poster 351 posts
marcoperforar

A very modelgenic prototype

That is a very modelgenic prototype, especially if one dislikes building/buying trees..... but why does the photographer describe the tank engine as a large Mallet when it is quite small?

Poor Eritreans.  Colonized by Italy for decades, overseen by the English for a decade when they pushed the Italians out in WWII, and then the UN putting Eritrea under the Ethiopians until the Eritreans won their independence.  Since educated Eritreans speak English (taught in their schools beginning in fifth grade), I presume they considered the temporary English rule in not an entirely negative light, leastwise compared to Italy.  Nevertheless, perhaps they (and we) can thank the Italians for the railroad, assuming they paid for it.

Mark Pierce
Reply 0
NashvilleGuy New member 7 posts
NashvilleGuy

RE: Large Mallet

The railroad has (at least) two 0-4-4-0T steam engines, the 'mallets' in question. One is distinctly larger than the other -- though in truth they are both rather smallish locomotives.

Dan
Reply 0
Anders Spor New member 23 posts
Anders Spor

More

For those of you who like to see more here is a link to Richard Grönsted who traveld the line for a week. The site is in Swedish but if you are not familiar with Scandinavian languages you can always enjoy all the beautiful pictures.

It's all together links to 7 pages with lots of pictures. The teksts is fun and informative and  worth reading if you can.

http://postvagnen.com/forum/index.php?id=84502

Narrowgauge, streetcars and shortlines.
Reply 0
NashvilleGuy New member 7 posts
NashvilleGuy

Många tack!

Många tack! Jag kan läsa bara en lite på Svensk men bilderna är mycket bra.

It has been a very long time since I studied Swedish. I have forgotten almost all of it. So many languages, so little time.

Dan
Reply 0
Anders Spor New member 23 posts
Anders Spor

Svensk trening

Då måste du jo gripa anlädningen til å øve up din rostiga svenska.

(Nå kommer alle svensker til å gå løs på meg. Jævla norbagge som knoter på svensk!)

 

Nice to see that there actually are some non-swedish out there who can read it. (except other scandivavians of course)

 

Narrowgauge, streetcars and shortlines.
Reply 0
Michaelj New member 9 posts
Michaelj

Re: Large Mallets

Large in a European narrow gauge sense, where even quite tiny 0-4-4-0T mallets were used on narrow gauge and industrial lines. Conversly there were few "main line" heavy freight mallets in Europe (surely there were some, I can't recall any, although the Nazi's planned some for the German railways, never built). Remember Mallet was a Swiss engineer who designed the first Mallets for just this type of railway, on 600mm (less than 2') gauge!

 

Michael
Reply 0
Reply