These 10 TT scale models of steam locomotives I made by scratchbuilding in the 1980s.

At the time, only a very few models were available in TT scale. In East Germany, where I grew up, even those were difficult to get. So, many modellers were scratchbuilding their own rolling stock. Of course, the model quality is far away from today's standards. However, these models are a nice memory of railway model scratchbuilding almost four decades ago. The locomotive shells were made of cardstock using punch cards, which were used at data centers at the time. It was the best quality of cardstock you could get. The drives were modified from available models from fomer East German manufacturer BTTB, a predecessor of today's company Tillig.

The prototypes of the 10 models are Deutsche Reichsbahn and Halberstadt-Blankenburger Eisenbahn, a private railway in the Harz mountains, which is also known as the Rübelandbahn.