New Books - German Narrow Gauge Railways and Modelling

[Lobethalbahn2]

I have just received the following new books on German Narrow Gauge Railways after ordering them through Amazon last week. I thought they might be of interest to some so here is a brief review. NB - the text of all the following books are in German

L Kenning & A Reichelt, Kleinbahnreise uber die Insel Rugen (Band 2 - Strecken und Stationen), Verlag Kenning, 2017.



Kenning and Reichelt's second volume of their 'Narrow Gauge Journey through Rugen' deals with the three lines of the narrow gauge network on Rugen and its stations and sidings (The first volume [published 2014] covered locomotives and rolling stock). This is a very comprehensive survey of the Rugen network and includes drawings of all the station track layouts supported by a broad range of images of each location in operation. Even for the non-German speaker this is primarily an album of wonderful images that cover the line from its beginnings to the present. However, the majority feature the line between the 1950s-1980s.

Otto O. Kurbjuweit, Die Braunlage-Andreasberger Eisenbahn, Verlagsgruppe Bahn, 2017



Kurbjuweit's book covers the evolution of his fictitious Braunlage-Andreasburger Branch of the Harz Narrow Gauge Railway network. His branch extends the Harz network west to Braunlage and Saint Andreasburg, initially modelled in G gauge - but now in Om (scale 1:45). The value of the book is his exploration of his philosophy of modelling for operations. He is especially good at replicating the operational features of the Harz Railways - which is very useful for those who wish to understand the differences between German Narrow Gauge Operations and those of the Anglo-World. It does require pretty advanced German (or patient use of Google Translate).

MIBA Kompakt, Gartenbahnen, Verlagsgruppe Bahn, 2017



The final book is Gartenbahnen (Garden Railways) a compilation of articles on G scale garden railways that have appeared in the pages of the German MIBA model railway magazine over the last two decades. Topics covered included layouts (indoors and outdoors), operations, track and trackbed construction, scratchbuilding rollingstock and structures, and weathering. Very diverse, well-illustrated articles, but a reasonable level of German required to fully digest the text.

Hope this review is useful and of interest, I know there are a few people on here who are interested in operations and the historical background of German narrow gauge.

 

[dunnyrail]

Interesting review, I particularly would like to get my mits on the Braunlage one, though I imagine all the copying and pasting of Google Translated pages on the iPhone would be a bit of a pain. Have been doing this with another book but taken my foot of the excelerator on that for too long! Perhaps a job for the iMac, but using iPad cooies of the pages. Still a lot of fafing. I have been picking up sundry ways of Operations as they do it Harz style, but often one needs to take ones eye off the Photting and watch what is occuring when visiting. If only I had been doing that in 1981 when I first visited the Selktalbahn. But then I would not have some of the pics I now have! Will look at getting a copy of this.
JonD

Edit this link gives an English translation of some of the Captions plus does a download version, may be the best bet for me!

https://shop.vgbahn.info/vgbahn/shop/die+braunlage-andreasberger+eisenbahn-_3723.html

 

[Lobethalbahn2]

Interesting review, I particularly would like to get my mits on the Braunlage one, though I imagine all the copying and pasting of Google Translated pages on the iPhone would be a bit of a pain. Have been doing this with another book but taken my foot of the excelerator on that for too long! Perhaps a job for the iMac, but using iPad cooies of the pages. Still a lot of fafing. I have been picking up sundry ways of Operations as they do it Harz style, but often one needs to take ones eye off the Photting and watch what is occuring when visiting. If only I had been doing that in 1981 when I first visited the Selktalbahn. But then I would not have some of the pics I now have! Will look at getting a copy of this.
JonD

Edit this link gives an English translation of some of the Captions plus does a download version, may be the best bet for me!

https://shop.vgbahn.info/vgbahn/shop/die+braunlage-andreasberger+eisenbahn-_3723.html

Jon, thanks for the link to the caption translations on the VG Bahn website - it will certainly help me. Although my German is passable, technical stuff eludes me a lot of the time. I guess the ebook pdf might be easier to copy and paste bigger chunks of text through a translator. There are some wonderful German language railway publications, it is a shame more aren't translated.

 

[PaulRhB]

Great find, I've ordered it and downloaded the translation. Thanks both of you

 

[dunnyrail]

Great find, I've ordered it and downloaded the translation. Thanks both of you

You done better than me Paul, got lost with some of the questions asked a sI started with the Book then decided to go Download! Must try again Google Translating with gay abandon!
JonD

 

[dunnyrail]

Jon, thanks for the link to the caption translations on the VG Bahn website - it will certainly help me. Although my German is passable, technical stuff eludes me a lot of the time. I guess the ebook pdf might be easier to copy and paste bigger chunks of text through a translator. There are some wonderful German language railway publications, it is a shame more aren't translated.

Indeed it is a shame, Voi Libre the French Small Railway Modelling Mag understands that and does an English version that I subscribe to.
JonD

 

[David1226]

Must try again Google Translating with gay abandon!

Who is this Brandon and how do you know he is gay ?

David

 

[Zerogee]

Indeed it is a shame, Voi Libre the French Small Railway Modelling Mag understands that and does an English version that I subscribe to.
JonD

For a long time before they actually started printing an English edition of the mag, Voie Libre used to offer free downloadable PDFs of a six or eight page English translation of all the text in each French language issue, so you could read the translation while looking at the mag for the pictures; not as nice as the new printed English edition, of course, but much better than nothing for those non-French-reading buyers of the magazine. I've always thought that if anyone was able to do this for one of the (several) German language G scale mags, it would be very well received in both the UK and USA (and indeed many other places in the world where people may be more likely to be able to read English than German). I have, in the past, suggested the idea to the publishers of both Volldampf and Gartenbahn Profi (while emailing them about purchasing back issues), but sadly they don't seem to think it is worth their while....

Jon.

 

[PaulRhB]

You done better than me Paul, got lost with some of the questions asked a sI started with the Book then decided to go Download! Must try again Google Translating with gay abandon!
JonD

I found it on eBay for the same price

 

[Lobethalbahn2]

For a long time before they actually started printing an English edition of the mag, Voie Libre used to offer free downloadable PDFs of a six or eight page English translation of all the text in each French language issue, so you could read the translation while looking at the mag for the pictures; not as nice as the new printed English edition, of course, but much better than nothing for those non-French-reading buyers of the magazine. I've always thought that if anyone was able to do this for one of the (several) German language G scale mags, it would be very well received in both the UK and USA (and indeed many other places in the world where people may be more likely to be able to read English than German). I have, in the past, suggested the idea to the publishers of both Volldampf and Gartenbahn Profi (while emailing them about purchasing back issues), but sadly they don't seem to think it is worth their while....

Jon.

It does seem rather short sighted to be so dismissive of an English summary for Volldampf and Gartenbahn Profi - and the fact that LGB Depesche has sustained German and English editions would suggest that there is a readership within the LGB-focussed market, never mind the broader G scale community. It would also be relatively easy these days to do machine translations with human revisions of the text.

However, a recent Depesche article (2/2016) shows that idiomatic English is not the strongest suit of their editorial/translation staff. In the article on the background of the Lake George and Boulder roadname used by Charles Small and then LGB, it refers to the 'Route of the Beavers' slogan and how Al Kramer borrowed this slogan for some repainted boxcars with the tagline 'Save a tree, eat a beaver'. However, it speaks with stereotypically German earnestness about the honour of this recognition - while completely missing the double entendre.