German Model: All she needed was a little lovin'

jon-monon

Active Member
Looky what came in the mail today! They said it didn't run, as you may recall, which is why I got the bid on it, I guess. It wasn't pickin up the juice, because the wheels were all scummed up. Looked like she was put away wet. A little clean and lube and she purrs like a kitten.
 

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jon-monon

Active Member
Hey, what the, hey get off there you weirdos! Geeze. They sure learn how to sit around awful fast.

Usual question, are you ready? Anyone know what the proto is???
 

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jon-monon

Active Member
A is a little spring loaded button, looks like an electrical contact? Wierd. It goes to chassis, and it's very close to the wheels with the pick-up, the ungeared ones that are not chassis. The geared wheels go to chassis, like an athern, where the chassis is "hot" electrically.

B are just little prongs that stick down, about tracks width.

Both look like a good way to short out the tracks, but must serve some purpose on European layouts?
 

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jon-monon

Active Member
Oh, ya,this is the box car that came with it for no appearant reason. Don't know what's up with the birdhouse? No caboose? I dunno.
 

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Vic

Active Member
A & B

Hi Jon, I think that A & B are some kind of trips used to activate accesories. A maybe for signals B maybe for lineside like crossing gates. The German mfgs. were famous for all kinds of schemes to make things operate.
 

Vic

Active Member
Now that I see it upside down the round silver contact is to allow the Fleishman loco to operate when using Marklin type track. Marklin did not energize both rails for loco power. Instead they had stud contacts in the ties. This allowed them to keep one rail open for signaling circuits like Lionel three rail!!!
 

jon-monon

Active Member
ahhhha gadgets. I see. Cute little bugger, eh? I don't see why they are expensive tho. Maybe e-bay bidders are just palain stupit. Maybe they got plastic brains too.
 

eightyeightfan1

Now I'm AMP'd
Hey jon...looks like those two were taking hints from Pete......
I noticed on the "box?"car was the word "Bayern"(Pronouned Bye-yearn). Thats the German pronunciation of Barvaria. Must be a beer car.....looks like those two fellas are really gonna be enjoying themselfs.
 

RailRon

Active Member
Jon,
the little prongs B are track cleaners. In Europe (at least in Germay and also here in Switzerland) small locos didn't have a cowcatcher or pilot like US locos. (Not so may cows on the loose over here!) Instead they mounted a sturdy iron prong just above railtop level to clean away stones and other small debris lying on the rails.
That's what Fleischmann modeled on his 'Industrial Switcher'. On the model it served no other purpose, such as triggering some device like Vic supposed.
But Vic is probably right concerning the silver tab A. Trix had also three rail track in H0 for quite a long time - running on DC, and not AC like Märklin. As far as I remember the center rail was common, while left and right rail were isolated from each other and fed power to the locos. So you could run two engines independently on the same track. (Now try to wire a reversing loop this way!! :( )
 

RailRon

Active Member
Just did a little research on the freight car:
This is a beer reefer! 'Reichelbräu' is a Bavarian brand of beer (Bavarians are famous for that!)If you look closely, you see that the car has insulated doors.
The doghouse on top was for a brakeman. In the late 19th and early 20th Century there were several brakemen on a train who had to tighten or loosen the handbrakes on the long ramps of our mountain railroads (the loco gave whistle signals). Unlike in the US there were no roofwalks, so every second or third car had its brakeman. At first they stood on open platforms, but after some of them literally froze to death on winter trips, railway management was so human to mount small 'brakeman huts' on the cars. The elevated ones were a sort of 'luxury edition' of the simple huts - from there you could watch the whole train. Insofar it had the same purpose like the caboose cupola.
BTW: Your little car must be quite old and perhaps even has some collector value.:)
 

jon-monon

Active Member
Vic, 88 and Ron, thanks for the information!!!

As I was reading through, I the story unfolded in my mind; Old Man Knudsen as a teen, towards the end of the century, swiped a whole bier car full of that frothy delight, from the Germans and brought it to Denamark. So when after he came to the US and made his fortune, he locatedthe car on his fathers estate and had it imported for nostalgia. ;)

As far as the birdhouse goes, I can see a future for at least one unemplyed gandy dancer, at least for the winter months when noone else wants to ride back there! :eek:
 

60103

Pooh Bah
Jon: I don't think the tab is for Maerklin track; it looks too far off to the side. If the loco operates on 2-rail DC it's probably incompatible. I go with your first idea that it runs some sort of accessory or signals.
The shoes (or skates) for Maerklin's stud contact have to be an inch or more long so that they contact at least 2 studs at all times -- extra length for switches and crossings. That itty-bitty little disk would stall between the studs.
 

mykroft

New Member
The 3 rail stuff is AC, 2 Rail is DC. The Stud/Switch is used in combination with a contact treadle/guard rail to activate accessories, usually signals. The european manufacturers are fairly big on active signals. Fleischman uses a rectangular sprung slider for AC 3rd rail pickup. The other 2 knob's/protrusions are prototypical.

the Reefer is a Era II/Era III car with brakeman's cabin, as previously mentioned. It's accurate for pre WW2 (Era II) and transition (Era III), but a bit old for era III. According to my handy Fleischmann catalog, it's not current production, my may be as new as the early 90's.
 
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