Piko 62041 Signal Tower "rosenbach"

idlemarvel

idlemarvel

Neither idle nor a marvel
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I guess many readers have a signal box on their layout. I just acquired and built the above mentioned PIKO kit. I have to say I am very impressed. I have been building plastic models of various kinds for around 50 years and for the quality of mouldings, design, finish this would be hard to beat. The end result is quite impressive out of the box (no painting required). It's a bit of a monster compared to the Airfix kits of my youth! The box is 600mm x 400mm x 100mm and must weigh best part of 2 kilos. I had great pleasure putting it together. The instructions are very clear. My only advice would be to look out for the two door handles when you open the box before you throw away the wrapping; they were detached from the sprue (in order to be hand painted I guess) and where hidden in some scrunched up paper inside the box. Also note that the 4 short concrete wall sections are not the same, make sure you dry fit before gluing. I made the bespoke signage by scanning in the supplied signage sheet, edited it with MS Paint and substituting my station name. I used MS Gothic font which seem the nearest equivalent, printed that and laminated it. Doubtless somewhere there is an official DB font but if you apply the "one metre" rule you couldn't tell.IMG_0563.JPG
 
Very nice job,

this is the modern German font.DIN 1451. You can find a free download into office if you look on Google.
din1451.png
 
I'm currently building the corresponding train station and I like it a lot, too.

qdTjUhz.jpg
 
Hi guys, this is a very timely post as I am just about to begin building both of these 2 PIKO models, so thanks for the suggestions.

I was also trying to find some photos of the real Stellwerk Rosenbach (stellwerk = signal box in German) for weathering ideas, and while extensive googling came up with other German stellwerks I really couldn't find the Rosenbach one. Does it actually exist? Or do you think this is just a fictional model?

In the same way I have been trying to locate pictures of the real Deutsche Reichsbahn 99 5015 loco (see my avatar) for weathering of my LGB 99 5015 starter set model, but cannot find it at all! I've browsed many many Google images and many Flickr images, the closest I came across is 99 6001 and of course many of the larger DR locos which give something to work from. Is the 99 5015 a real loco, or just a pseudo loco created for starter sets?
 
Wow! Thank you so much Nigel, you've made my day. I should have googled 5001 then!
That's brilliant, you're a star :rofl:
 
I was a bit miffed with the Rosenbach station I had, I found it a fiddly construction with poor detailing/pre-painting etc. I mounted mine on Pola baseplates then put seats and figures on the platform, of course standing in front of the station you couldn't see anything so the canopy came off. Personally I found the Pola models, admittedly more expensive, but better made and better build quality. But I'm just a grumpy old :mask:
 
Pola are better Pugs - and more expensive. Same old story - get what you pay for.
 
Hi Stockers and Arthur, thanks for those links, very useful, and a couple of extra steps and good advice in there that are different from the original instructions.
Great stuff :)
 
I hope you enjoy your builds of the Piko Rosenbach buildings.

Here's some additional pictures of Rosenbach Station & Signal Tower taken in today's brilliant sunshine. Both were built about 20-25 years ago and have survived well and, until a couple of years ago both permanently lived outside (more associated with an overhaul of the railway that any failures of the buildings).

The station was modified in several respects during the initial build. The 1st image shows the simple adaptation of the end window as a ticket counter with the addition of a service window, a weather canopy, a post box and a post sign.

rosenbach 1.JPG
The 2nd image shows the front canopy made from trimmed sprues from the kit and 2mm perspex. The perspex was replaced two years ago. The original solid canopies were never used and are still in the box. I felt that they were too small and their solid nature obscured the frontal perspective. The other small, but significant change, is the increase in height by the addition of 3 layers of 1/4" plastic strip, one on the base one in the centre join and the last under the eaves (you can just make out the white strip under the roof. The height increase was to offset the apparent reduced scale of the building. The seat comes as a spare form a Pola station kit.
rosenbach 2.JPG

The Signal Tower was fitted out internally with stove, levers, figure etc and glazed with overhead projection film (remember that!) that has survived the original build. It's held onto the glazing base with double sided tape. The stuccoed base was spray painted with BR cream with a weathered darker over paint, which I tend to use on all my building (including the station) as a linking theme, and all the small fittings (down spouts, stair railings door handles etc) are also over painted in appropriate colours to reduce UV damage. Internal and external lighting was added to both buildings.

The only signs of weathering are the faded roof tiles on the sunny side of signal tower which is less obvious on the station building since I experimentally mist sprayed it black and over-sprayed with clear lacquer as an experiment in the original build. Looks like it worked!

The only real failure was to use the internal window fill-ins from the printed sheet of curtains etc. The were eaten by ravenous snails within about a fortnight.
 
Mine has been outside for over five years now, and is still ok, old Trevor had one and he put in a detailed interior , levers and control board etc, very nice

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I like the idea of adding internals to the signal box. Any pictures of the inside of yours?
I did a search in GSC for "signal box levers" and got some useful results :)
 
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I was also going to ask if there were any photos available of the inside - while pictures of British signal box interiors are quite plentiful, my attempts at googling GERMAN ones have been less successful - I've only really found one or two useful shots, but they are enough to show that the lever frames in German signal boxes are VERY different in design from the typical British ones. If anyone has some good pics (or links to pics) of how a German box interior should look, I'd be very keen to see them....?

Jon.
 
Thanks Nigel, that's a very useful link - I had to scroll down quite a long way, but eventually found some excellent pics of signal levers and controls, and though they appear to be of a French prototype can I safely assume that the Germans and other European railways would have used something broadly similar? I'll carry on through the blog when time allows, to see if there are any specifically German pics further on.....

Jon.
 
Thanks Pugs, that's an excellent link! Exactly what I was looking for. :rofl:

I've looked at a random selection of the pics on that page, and though I agree that there is a huge amount of detail differences between the various boxes, most of them seem to have a very similar system of actuating levers - the short levers on disc frames with a much larger angle of rotation than the typical British floor-mounted push-pull levers.

What I'm considering (this idea has been bubbling around since a previous discussion of the same subject a few months back) is making and casting a reasonably generic whitemetal representation of that kind of rotary lever frame, as I've not seen such a thing available in G scale before. What I'd like to know is: 1) does anyone know of anything already available that does the same job - for example from a European small-run manufacturer that I'm not aware of? 2) If I made this, would people here be interested in buying them to fit out the interiors of European-style signal boxes?
As some of you already know, my full-time business is manufacturing whitemetal cast military/SciFi miniatures for the Wargames hobby, so I have all the equipment here for in-house mouldmaking and casting - I've often thought about whether it is worth my while diversifying into making a few G scale products, and this seems like an ideal small project to test the water with..... I'd really like to gauge the amount of interest on here from the Euro (Austrian/German/Swiss etc) fans, while also asking whether a generic representation - something "close enough" when seen through the windows of the signal box - would be acceptable to most folks, or would I just get the rivet-counters going [nasal whining voice ON...] "but it's not exactly right for my finescale model of the signal box at Ober Buttsdorf in 1897......" [nasal whining voice OFF]? ;)

Over to you chaps.... worth doing or not?

Jon.
 
pugwash said:
This seems to be the only signalbox detailing in G over here:
http://www.grootspoor.com/kotsch-stellwerk-satzkorn-vom-berliner-aussenring-hebelbank
Click to expand...


Thanks Pugs! Hmmm, OK, that is very close to what I have been considering - except that my idea would be in metal (that looks like a wood/plastic scratchbuild to me?), in kit form and most likely made as short banks of (possibly 3?) levers that can placed side by side to make as short or long a bank of levers as you need.
Given that the Kotsch model is available, does anyone feel that the project is worth doing?
My origination and mouldmaking costs (aside from my time) would be relatively low so I wouldn't need to sell too many sets to break even - but if only one or two people are going to be interested then it's obviously a non-starter....

Jon.
 
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