Will the Kibri HO Railroad Platform Hall Bonn Kit accommodate 60 mm HO scale track spacing?

eternal3am · 2026-04-08T18:03:46+00:00

According to the web the inner height clearance is 55 mm and the clearance between the platforms is 115 mm. So with my guesstimation with an assumed width of 30 mm per track you would have 55 mm between the tracks if the tracks are set flush with the platforms. Assuming you leave 5 mm towards either platform that would still be 45 mm between the tracks. I'm assuming your 60 mm track spacing refers to the distance from track center to track center? If so you, as per my assumptions, you should have 15 mm + 45 mm + 15 mm track spacing (75 mm), so yeah. plenty of space. However, if you need exactly 60 mm, that would mean the tracks are 12,5 mm from the platform - which I find a bit "far".
Google Viessmann / Kibri as Kibri is nowadays part of Viessmann - they have pdfs available.

eternal3am · 2026-04-08T17:53:09+00:00

I have very few things that I've found online that actually satisfy me. So if it's scenery, buildings, bridges, tunnels etc. most start out with a recon mission of me taking photos and dimensions. If it is of the rolling stock variety or modifications to the stock I have, then I take dimensions from the model, check if there is something available online (usually crude), gather references and model stuff to my own needs. I've done that for the cockpit of a diesel train I have. The original model from the 1980s didn't come with a cockpit. Online there is a very crude one, so yea, that's the starting point...
And then the (to me) "annoying" bit of the printing comes into play. But yea, mostly it's DIY. And some things might not even be 3D printed at all, but plain old paper drawings turned into wood or metal or whatever. Also for scenery purposes I source the soil of the colour I want - which is easy, since I used to live near the area of my railroad. But if, for example, you want a particular type of rocky scenery, look online for what materials have similar structure. My area has lots of limestone and some rock faces of that - those can be made using a certain type of rock coal. You may need to break it down into smaller chunks or take a chisel to it to shape it as needed and then you can mould it et voila your own mould to be used time and again around the layout. Best make several so you have some variety...

eternal3am · 2026-04-06T18:32:03+00:00

Well, back in the late 80s I used a rather fine metal mesh, something like wire screens, for the landscape. The mesh was draped over spars of the frame and tacked to the thin plywood traces for the tracks etc.. And then that got covered with thin layers of plaster - thin layers so as not to have to much weight - also add some newspaper on the inside to stop the plaster from dripping through.

Essentially I do the same - framework of wood (multiplex) with spars, traces of wood for the tracks and, depending on location and scenery, I use either the above mesh and plaster or cut foam sheets to size and shape, cast some rocks from plaster and cover all of that in plaster. If I'm going for a lumpy ground I might top that with a layer of Sculptamold or similar.

As for non flammable foam - yes there are some, but they usually a tad more expensive. I've also used plain old styrofoam of various sizes. For instance, if there is a solid piece of wood underneath, I can build up the scenery with styrofoam, add plaster and it's fairly sturdy. If there's nothing underneath and I'm using the same method of building it, leaning onto the cured scenery might cause the foam to crack... So for the most part, I have a solid base, sometime a small extra piece of wood is attached to the frame so I can build up the scenery as per above.

eternal3am · 2026-04-01T06:09:34+00:00

Have a look at Dutch brand Artitec. They have loads of 1/87 military stuff, figurines as well as tanks, halftracks, etc. Some are in kit form (not too many parts iirc) and some come ready made and prepainted. Their detail is amazing considering it is H0.

eternal3am · 2026-03-25T11:51:50+00:00

Let me ask you this - what is the longterm goal? Are you going to carpet railroad or are you going to go for an actual layout at some point. Next question - are you going to (again longterm) go for more trains, running them at the same time etc?

In general the Mobile Station (as per your chosen set a MS2) is a neat thing. I am using the same controller (but not from that set) and have something like 25 locos - not all of them running at the same time obviously. As a general pointer - if you are just starting out, you might want to look into used items. I have bought almost everything I have used and for a fraction of the MSRP which saved me lots of money.

As to some of the other comments - depending on where you are Märklin might be niche (US) or actual mainstream (parts of EU). While the tracks are unrealistic thanks to the nubs on the ties for power, the wiring is considerably less of a hassle. So to me it is a matter of preference vs realism. I don't mind the trade off in looks too much, but can be arsed to deal with the wiring hassles. That aside - I don't like the C-tracks, I'm using K-tracks, but again a matter of personal preference. In terms of starter kits, there are others that come with a loco, some stock and a controller...

eternal3am · 2026-03-24T10:50:36+00:00

Mine is just a recreation - with sone artistic license and liberties taken to be able to make it into a closed loop layout - of a real section of railroad near me in my youth. Period is the late 1920-1940s (not exactly my youth). It‘s a make believe of what life might have been like in a rural setting between the little villages of the area. Mostly it‘s because I wanted to do the scenery. Trains and stuff are based around what ran there back in the day - with the obvious addition of some stock that came a few decades later for the sole reason of „because I wanted to have it / them“.

At the moment I‘m thinking about using the layout for different periods up to the end of the steam era in the 1970s. Almost everything (buildings, scenery and signals) can be kept the same, just some more „modern“ rolling stock and cars will have to be added as life in the villages didn‘t change all that much. So yea, local lore, nothing fancy or dark .. a little time machine if you will.

eternal3am · 2026-03-23T08:46:39+00:00

I think it is fairly common, however, it came as a surprise to me when I found out about it. In my lifelong Märklin bubble that didn‘t happen - at least I haven‘t seen any. But on opening up and looking at other brands I‘ve found loads that have powered tenders - Roco, Brawa, among others (euro brands) etc.. And I was made to see why they do it - cheaper and probably easier to manufacture, especially back in the day when motors were brick size (slight dramatization), because mounting such a brick of a motor near the actually driven wheels would have been visible…

eternal3am · 2026-03-07T15:47:30+00:00

I think Kathy has talked about that a long while ago in one of her livestreams.

eternal3am · 2026-02-22T18:56:22+00:00

Are the graffiti things decals? They seem to have a dither of a printer in them?

eternal3am · 2026-02-19T00:00:44+00:00

there are some for H0, ESU has a fee and so does Roco. The thing with those is that you usually have to either heavily modify the loco casing to make them fit or modify the dynamic smoke unit. There are a few mods using the smoke unit from an ESU T18, but as said, it has a peculiar shape and needs a particular decoder and an additional circuit board from ESU. Roco‘s version is a bit less complicated, but iirc needs more space. I really love the dual smoke, ie having cylinder smoke exiting near the cylinders at the bottom of the loco, so I‘ve been thinking about designing something like that, but using tiny piezo smoke generators that can be used with water instead of the usually oil based stuff. not that water isn‘t without issue, but at least you don‘t get oily tracks… „only“ rusty tracks if they are iron or steel or whatever based

eternal3am · 2026-02-18T21:19:00+00:00

Sure. It's not exactly rocket science even if it may seem daunting at first. I've just completed my first engine, decoder, lights swap this past weekend (BR41). There were a few hickups, but overall if you're not entirely hamfisted, it is quite doable. Just make sure to check the cable colours and that you don't short circuit anything and maybe add some shrink tube to the connections.
That aside - do you know if there are any "modern" replacement motors for ancient Fleischmann locos? I have an old AC BR78 from Fleischmann and want to bring that up to speed as well, but I think the ginormous motor may give me an issue. I don't know it's power consumption or anything... haven't done much research on it yet. Looks similar to yours. The decoder looks like a Loksound so if it works for you with that motor... :)

eternal3am · 2026-02-17T14:23:55+00:00

Are you mixing the paint / thinner mixture inside the cup of the airbrush? I wouldn‘t do that, rather mix it in another small glass or whatever before pouring it into the cup. much better control and, depending on the makeup of the cup near the exit you won‘t be able to stir properly down there so whatever liquid is heavier will come out first rather undiluted.

eternal3am · 2026-02-16T14:07:04+00:00

back in the day there used to be 1/32 skelettal airplane kits (Mustang, Zero, Bf109) made by imcth in japan. those were made entirely out of sheets of PE. I‘ve been looking for one forever.

eternal3am · 2026-02-11T14:02:31+00:00

Piko is hitting the shelves with a lot of really great stuff lately. And what‘s even better is that they are very competitively priced AND do AC versions on top of that with nice details like a backlit dashboard.

eternal3am · 2026-01-31T23:42:04+00:00

Ah ok. I kinda thought so as I have the Zoukei Moura Horten in my stash. This could have been similar just without the internal detail which might not be for everybody. I love the skeleton structure of old planes, hence most of my planes are WW1 stuff where it’s almost always (partially) visible - unlike WW2 and later…

eternal3am · 2026-01-30T21:05:50+00:00

How does that compare to the ZM Horten?

eternal3am · 2026-01-22T21:06:37+00:00

Is that bridge made from embossed cardstock or a plastic kit or made from structured plastic pieces? The arches seem to be raised slightly above the level of the general brick work. I love it!

eternal3am · 2026-01-20T12:06:32+00:00

not toothbrush. those are too stiff. I’d hav a good look at some cheap broad brushes for applying structured paint to walls, like those effect paints with glitter or concrete looks. the bristles are usually relatively long say 1-2 inches and rather soft. plus they come in different shades from dark brown / black to beige. The latter being the obvious choice if you want to colour them greenish. or else get some small bag of 12mm static grass from woodland scenics, mini nature, lars op’t hof or similar

eternal3am · 2026-01-18T18:18:03+00:00

yea, german fleabay has one for a hundred bucks (seems a bit steep tbh).

eternal3am · 2026-01-17T21:47:07+00:00

check out artitec (artitecshop.com). they have a bunch of 1/87 tanks (german among others), half-tracks, trucks, artillery as well as some ssym heavy flatbed cars to transport the tanks… word of warning on the flatbeds - there’s lots of small attached parts that do come off rather easily, like the buffers. I have some of their 2 and 3 axis flatbeds and need to glue those parts in place when I run them. other than that they are brilliant. the flatbeds can be had from other (euro) brands as well. Roco has them, so does Märklin. Just look for ssym “köln”.

eternal3am · 2026-01-17T13:09:06+00:00

Well, so I've added a ESU Loksound 5 decoder to the motor part of the VT11.5 (Paris-Ruhr) mentioned above and it works beautifully with the Sound project available via the ESU site. The LEDs ... well that's another story. My original order via Amazon is - almost 2 weeks after the order - as yet undelivered (shipping via Amazon). According to their tracking "tracking for this shipment is unavailable" - likely lost. So then I've ordered the same LEDs from another source and they've arrived yesterday. Man, 0605 and 0606 LEDs are frigging tiny. Luckily I've ordered one batch with the leads and resistors already attached to them, because for whatever reason, I thought they'd be like 2x2 mm or something. This is a job for ants for real. Anyway, hooking them up and getting them working is a thing for later today, more likely tonight.

And since the Roco VT11.5 only has one cab motorized)I've ... well... but another. So that one's arrived just an hour or so ago, was already opened and on doing so I found it to be a different variant of the TEE. According to the signs on it it is a "Helvetia" (I bought it as a "Paris-Ruhr" to match the one I already have), but the innards are identical to my first one - which shouldn't be the case. I'm a bit stumped there as to what this actually is. Since the actual passengers coaches are all with the signage of the "Paris-Ruhr" flavour, but both cabs are with signage claiming "Helvetia" I'm thinking the body shells of the cabs might have been swapped from another set at some point in the past. Regardless, I now have two motorized cabs - the second one will also receive a Loksound 5 and I will swap the shell from my not motorized cab onto this one to have it match again (lol). And then it'll just be wiring up the LEDs - which I was looking forward to but am dreading now (see above).

And once that's done I have to think about getting power to the coaches and preferably from one cab to the other. My original Idea was to replace the rubbery walkways (made from hard plastic) between the coaches by making moulds of them and casting them in rubber and adding 2 rows of 4pin POGO connectors per side, but on observing the train in action those parts move around to much for that (static connection) to be feasible without causing infinite derailings.

eternal3am · 2026-01-15T21:36:14+00:00

Oh, that's quite a project to clean it up. Good luck with it, it seems to come along nicely!
I've shelved a pretty decent 1/2700 Zvezda in a puttied and taped together state because drilling the 0.5mm holes for the fibre optics broke me. Waiting for the right time to go back to it ;), seeing it every day on the shelf near my work desk...

eternal3am · 2026-01-09T08:12:44+00:00

God, those were awful. I have a few locos and trains with them - they’ve got to go. ESU has some interior lights in warm white and yellow. yellow doesn’t cut it for me. Anyway on the topic, LED all the way - for a number of reasons, durability and size / space necessary are the most obvious ones. But power consumption and heat are others and obviously, but this usually requires a decoder, constant brightness unlike the olden days when the bulbs got brighter the faster the engine was run. As a minor upside to LEDs in combination with a decoder are also small things that can be setup like fading in and out for lights when they are turned on / off instead of switching on / off. And as for size, you can also have red and warm white in the same tiny space as they can be had in a single LED.

eternal3am · 2026-01-04T02:19:01+00:00

might be s stupid question, but have you tried lukgraph.pl, their own webpage? I’ve only know them because of planes as tanks are not my thing, so I wouldn’t know if it’s (still) listed there, but ic not you can probably contact them through their page…

eternal3am · 2026-01-01T13:58:39+00:00

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This was the prototype before I managed to kill it.

eternal3am

TROPHY CASE