Søren's Model Railway Pages

About model railways in H0

NAVIGATION

Railway.zone at the Annual Danish Model Railway Show

This weekend I took the exhibition layout to the Annual Danish Model Railway Show in Køge, Denmark. A friend and I were there to show the visitors some of our German models and to chat about model railways, digital control, landscape construction and much more.

A model train
The Railway.zone booth

The layout was set up so visitors could walk around it. That way some visitors could enjoy the landscape, while others could enjoy the technical stuff on the other side.

Many people had questions about the Märklin Digital system that ran the layout. We had the Central Station 2 (Märklin #60215) run the layout automatically with an automatic fiddle yard and lots of trains going in and out.

A model train
The fiddle yard with automatic control of trains.

The fiddle yard is separated into two parts, one south bound and one north bound. The two can be controlled together by the Central Station, in mixed mode with us controlling the one and the Central Station the other, or completely manual.

From time to time we demoed the mixed mode operation to show the possibilities of the system.
 
I had brought the latest Märklin Digital components with me, so we could demo the new feedback modules S88 DC (with optocoupler) (Märklin #60882) and S88 Link (Märklin #60883) with the new CAT.5 cables and main bus connectors. We also included the accessory decoders m84 (Märklin #60841) and m83 (Märklin #60831) in our setup.

A model train

The Central Station had a prominent position so curious visitors could have a peek at the screen. We also had a laptop with the Central Station 2 software for demonstration purposes and to be able to show the action on a larger screen.

A model train

Setting up the layout as an island you could walk around, was a great success. A lot of people took the opportunity to study the digital setup as well as the landscape, or simply enjoy the trains going by on the mainline.

A model train

My models got to run quite a few rounds those two days.

A model train

We also brought a banner for our Danish model railway forum - we are always looking for new members!

Here is a video showing the Central Station 2 running the exhibition layout.

All in all two very good days! If you were there, and stopped by our booth: Thank you! :-)

Happy Modelling!