Category Archives: Books

Archistories 110181 + 111181: Railway Buildings

Archistories: 111181 (Makeshift Yard Tower)

Archistories new releases as of late Spring 2019 include 2 very interesting railway buildings: Makeshift Yard Tower and Distant Railway Office (Milepost 271).

Makeshift railway structures are a common feature of many railroads, they may include a recycled boxcar, repurposed building, or even a revamped “Donnerbuchse” (thunderbox) coach constructed by Archistories in kit form for Z. Built in the 1920’s thunderbox coaches were built entirely of steel and iron owing to their virtually indestructible nature and long life. Comfort was a secondary feature of these open coaches: rail and coach noises were amplified due to lack of sound buffering which led to the nickname “thunderboxes.”

A modification to the prototypical coach includes a bump-out which widens the mid section of the coach for viewing station. Further recorded in the model building are rivet heads along steel sheeting sections and heavy steel open frame steps and platform structure. This is a small building model, but it is packed with details and all edges are crisp: precision planning and implementation. Superb kit and remarkable achievement in a very small building. Light air-brushing to suggest dirt and grime is all that is needed with this perfectly pigmented kit.

Note: building kit presents two challenges: curling the roof section and assembling the stairs. Roof section: An un-tapered dowel, paintbrush, or other round implement is all that is needed to careful round out the roof section. Stairs: assemble one side of stairs at a time applying a small drop of glue with a toothpick followed by great care and patience with other side. Magnifying goggles, tweezers and toothpicks are required along with glue.

Distant railway offices are unknown in the United States in the form of this German example with 2 mechanical levers comprising a very small interlocking plant. Signage provided with the kit is lettered “Milepost 271” suggesting a particular point on the railway far from urban center. Perhaps the building further served as mail post. Kit includes two sets of signage with no hard-fast rule about placement.

Note: easy build kit comprising well made parts. Even with this tiny building no parts arrived damaged, distorted or missing: excellent kit!

MBZ Pump Station and Water Tower: 16092 + 16093

MBZ Pump Station and Water Tower are good examples of those used in Germany, both feature brick construction and tile roofs. Built alongside rail yards and residential buildings water towers are abundant and variously designed throughout Germany. Pump stations provide the water and water towers pressurize the system through gravity feed.

The pump station by MBZ is the only one of its type offered for Z scale, it is a very good kit with construction challenges due to its small size: corners are a little tricky to join. Other manufacturers’ kits start with stiff cardboard frames glued to finely detailed outer wall and roof parts, MBZ kits rely on thick side walls and roof parts to be all-in-one parts which are much more difficult to secure and finish with sharp corners as with examples in this post.

MBZ Water Tower 16093 is of a rather plain construction but features nice brick embellishments. Corners do not go together easily with this kit otherwise it is an easy kit to build.

Available at Reynauld’s 16092 (Pump Station) $16.84 and 16093 (Water Tower) $33.23

Siding: MBZ HO kits may vary greatly from their Z gauge kits featured in this blog.

MBZ Rural Structures: 16133 + 16175 (Apiary and Brick Oven)

Accessorizing MBZ’s farmsteads and rectory might include their bee house and bake oven: 16133 and 16175.

These great little stand alone structures and very easy to build, but you will need tweezers and patience. I pre-painted the parts due to the small size and followed up at the end with some touch-up painting.

The bee house is accessed by a door on the back wall, but it can be married to a barn if desired: many were. Stone foundation was painted with dry brush.

Brick ovens were built for large houses or production baking of other sorts including the commercial enterprise of a local baker. Although it could be used for general baking and roasting they were generally used for bread baking. Building a fire to heat this large oven was impractical for a small farmstead, but infinitely more practical for MBZ’s Rectory (R16089) who’s retired priests and ministers could find comfort and reflection baking loaves of bread for their community.

Available at Reynauld’s 16133 (Bee House) $7.39 + 16175 (Brick Oven) $16.16

MBZ Rural Structures: 16088 (Hohenberg House)

Hohenberg House designed to be a multi-family dwelling or shop and dwelling with stucco construction and mansard roof further extends the MBZ rural offerings.

Kit was easy to assemble with the exception of the dormers which were challenging to seat in roof panels. Note: imperfections are part of the charm of MBZ kits and wonky dormers are part of that charm.

Available at Reynauld’s for $41.62

Marklin 88001: Museum Edition Class 80 Steam Locomotive

The recent release 88001 steam locomotive continues Marklin’s limited release Museum locomotive series this time based on the class 80 steam locomotive in Bochum-Dahlhausen Museum’s collection.

Housed in a wooden box the locomotive comes with a numbered certificate with stated limitation of 499. Locomotive features photo-grey paint scheme with operating number 80 030.

The class 80 locomotive is a tank locomotive: coal bunker is behind the cab with water tanks welded to the sides. The model features the new generation brush-less motor and finely detailed running gear. Locomotive features metal construction with fine detailing, glazed cab windows and LED lights.

Marklin 88001 leading train of 8661 cars variously lettered SMI’s

Built in the late 1920’s for switching/shunting work, class 80 030 was built by Hohenzollern, its service life extended nearly 50 years retiring as an industrial switcher for the coal mining industry.

Marklin 88001, Marklin 8661 SMI cars variously lettered, and Archistories “Makeshift Yard Tower (111181)”

Marklin 88001 leading train of Marklin SMI 8661 car types produced in 1996

MBZ Rural Structures: 16071 (4 Piece Barn Set)

The large building kit 16071 includes 4 buildings including barns and farmhouse. This very interesting MBZ kit includes 4 buildings also available separately with open frame/stucco construction farmhouse, stucco barn and two random rubble stone foundation barns. Two barns: one small and one large stored hay, feed, equipment and the occasional member of this farm’s livestock community. Roof color was applied with dirty sponge and pigments. Stone foundation was painted using dry brush.

Multi-generational farmhouse with shuttered windows and flagstone open porch is at the center of this farm complex. Stucco was painted with white pigment mixed with yellow pigment followed by light dusting of dry gray pigment to weather and age stucco.

The small storage barn or shed is comprised of stucco, its use was determined by what needed to be stored whether equipment, feed or ciders. This kit is less detailed than the other three so details could only be suggested by paint. Stucco treatment included few areas of repairs to show age, it would have been slightly less maintained than the main house structure thus keeping it water tight was enough maintenance. Presumably the first building erected on this farm perhaps starting out as a barn/farmhouse combination, it may have been used for numerous activities long before the large barns and farmhouse were built.

Available at Reynauld’s for $158.96

MBZ Rural Structures: 16100 (Granary)

MBZ’s ‘rural’ structures include houses, barns, farmstead out-buildings and granary. It is an extensive line of rural structures based on German prototypes which in some cases can be adapted to fit an American themed layout. In some cases German prototypical barns moved to the United States with little variation from those found in Germany. The long history of European immigrants settling in the United States have expressed influence in many ways and combinations thus looking for interesting buildings for American layouts could thus be found within MBZ’s line-up.

An older design granary used for storing animal feed or grain is a striking example of a rural German structure used for the same purpose as American grain elevators, but this one based on a late 19th century structure stored bagged grains and feed versus silo storage featuring automatic chute feed. This granary was a centrally located storage facility located near a siding supporting numerous local farms.

Built using MBZ ‘Pigment Starter Set’ (R72217) and Noch Laser-cut glue.

Note: smokestack was not included with kit, I made it using polystyrene tubing. I did not install dormers, I liked how it looks without them.

Available at Reynauld’s for $99.55.

Marklin MSI 8661 car type: 4 from 1996

Collecting Marklin MSI’s is a slow enterprise requiring patience, they are available every once in awhile or maybe not, this year I added a few more 8661 car types to my collection with advertising for firms that sell/sold building products, mineral water and carbolic acid. German and other European advertising has often been displayed on these cars which are privately commissioned with the assistance of Marklin designers. Identifying these cars is easy, they display ‘m’ on both sides which signifies Marklin.

Several reference numbers identify these cars including Marklin’s catalog number, Koll’s (collector books) and Miba/Monk (Miba and Gilles Monk).

KERN HOLZBAU- 8661.006, Koll’s #96703, Miba/Monk #970, produced in 1996, edition: 100

Rommenholler Kohlensaure- 8661.016, Miba/Monk #1022, produced in 1996

Remstal-Sprudel- 8661.018, Miba/Monk #1024, produced in 1996

Remstal-Quelle- 8661.020, Miba/Monk #1042, produced in 1996

MBZ Laser-cut Kits: Practical Notes

Two buildings from MBZ’s large farmstead kit 16071 comprising farmhouse and 3 barns including one with an apiary.

MBZ building kits are German inspired architectural forms available in multi-scale kits including an extensive line-up in Z. Building and finishing a kit has unique challenges that are quickly overcome after constructing a kit or two. Included in this post are a few notes I hope are helpful for successful building.

MBZ kits are automatically age old buildings with history time-stamped into their design and fabrication. Giving a model building history through weathering and aging is easy with MBZ, each kit starts out with a baseline moment in time at least 50 years ago. Adding more use and age to the look of a building is up to the modeler: perfect kit buildings for Era I, II, and III.

Cardboard used in MBZ kits vary from other manufacturers, its natural color is gray/brown thus painting is required after the application of a solvent based primer.

Prepping the cardboard requires priming with MBZ Primer R72214 (pre-mixed) or R72211 (unmixed), I recommend the pre-mixed version. Priming is required due to future mold issues as suggested by manufacturer. Flattening parts after priming and before gluing is required: large parts including roof and sides warp heavily after priming, but rolling parts against the warp flattens them easily. Manufacturer suggests painting with pigments applied with sponge. MBZ pigments are water soluble, and they can be mixed together for custom colors. Consistency of paint should not be too wet or dry, it is applied with a wet sponge but avoid caking pigment. Air-brush masking tape should be used to isolate sections to be painted with sponge application. Dry-brush, air-brush and fine brushwork can be followed up later in construction for fine tuning. Pigment paints dry matte, and I recommend a light air-brushing of matte water based lacquer as a final protective coat.

The manufacturer suggests UHU ‘Hart’ glue which is fast setting but I find it messy to work with, I recommend Noch ‘Laser-cut’ glue which is fast setting and quick drying. Note: other fast setting white glues or wood glues should work well, but a fine applicator bottle available at craft stores should be considered. The few parts that are not always included in MBZ kits are ramps and steps which must be built by the modeler. No partition walls are designed in many of these kits thus requiring custom masking for interior lighting. I nice feature of these kits are stone-laid interior floors which can be exposed in a diorama through open doors with perhaps a wagon parked within the barn.

Note: barn buildings illustrated in this post used dry brush technique to highlight and paint stone foundations whereas sponge application of paint was used for uneven authentic weathering of paint. For glazed terracotta tile roofs I apply a light application of Renaissance Wax (micro crystalline acid free wax) which gives a gloss surface without being too glossy or too thick looking plus it is a non-yellowing museum quality wax available at library supply houses and fine art supply shops.

Three painting kits offered by MBZ will get you started, I recommend ‘Pigment Starter Set’ (R72217), it includes numerous pigments, primer (unmixed), and sponge for $55.49, it was more than enough for painting 13 kits. The kit includes a very high quality sponge, but other sponge shapes and sizes are available at art supply shops, they fall within the category of pastel sponges which are tight cellulose sponges which can be used wet or dry, pastel artists use this type of sponge dry only which readily allows mixing of charcoals and pastels.

Note: MBZ kit builds are best treated with a loose approach without worry of precise paint application: using a dirty sponge gives much more depth of color than a clean one between coats of paint.

Siding: Reynauld’s in Illinois is the exclusive USA dealer of MBZ, they have in store examples of finished kits as well as paint and accessories.

Marklin 88040 + 88041: class 42.09 Franco Crosti locomotives

The German class 42.09 steam locomotive from era III was realized in 2005 as another interesting Marklin Z featuring the Franco-Crosti modification of a class 52 locomotive, a collaboration between two Italians included a system modification which made use of exhaust steam as well as exhaust gases incorporating a main boiler and secondary boiler to effectively utilize more of the energy produced by the BR 52. A second boiler/smoke gas pre-heater below the firebox was thus coupled with a chimneys attached to each side of the boiler, this system modification would be identified as Franco-Crosti boiler.

Attilio Franco and Dr. Piero Crosti designed the first such boiler nearly 20 years before class 42.09 was built . Modification to the wartime class 52 locomotive by Henschel in 1952 resulted in reclassification due to increased axle-weight resulting from the added 2 ton weight of modification.

Referred to as economisers (Abgasvorwarmer) the Franco-Crosti modification of 2 class 52 locos had a relatively brief service life of less than 10 years, but another 31 class 50’s were rebuilt by Henschel with Franco-Crosti boilers by the end of the 50’s.

Marklin’s release in 2005 of the 88041 was preceded by another Franco-Crosti locomotive (88040) for Insider Members in 2003. Painted in photo-grey for Henschel’s builder photographs 88040 with operating number 42 9000 is based on prototype retired in 1959 (Bingerbruck, Germany).

Painted and lettered for German Federal Railroad (DB) Marklin’s 88041 includes Wagner smoke deflectors and tub-style tender with operating number 42 9001 thus based on prototype built in 1952 and retired in 1960 (Oberlahnstein).