In
the christmas of 62, when I was 10 years old, I received the wished electric
train, it was from Payá, (a spanish brand) H0, it worked with 3
rails and AC, and it was delivered with a 2 axles steam loco
and 3 or 4 goods wagons, some time later I purchased my first
Märklin catalog (1966-67) and in 1967 I bought my first
märklin passenger car, it was a TEE, painted in beige and red, since
then I started to replace the whole stuff that I have purchased by the
high quality stuff of Märklin
or Electrotren. My
first Marklin loco was the M 3000, later came some more, 3095,
3021, 3022, etc. You can read more about this in My Collection. Then I
built up my first
layout
, it was divided in 4 parts, a little bit more than 2m long and 1m wide,
this was the classic oval shape, with a through station with 2 or 3 tracks,
a small branch line and a small track to rangier work.Some years
later, in the 81, I got married, changed my home and I got room for my
hobby, (no money) . I designed and built a new layout, it was L-shape,
with a double track main line, mountains and some automatic devices, block
system, and a semiautomatic station, in which, each train, before the turnouts
of the station, detected the free track, if there was any,
and it goes in the station. In the main line the blocksystem worked in
such way that I could have 4 or 5 trains running.
I used a trafo to power the main track and another one to feed
the
industrial area and rangier work. All the rolling stock was Marklin and
Electrotren, also the tracks. I had only a electric loco, the powerful
3022, and I had not got any catenary. In 1983 I traveled for first
time to Germany I moved
to another flat, I lost the room, so I had to wait. In the 90s I restarted
the hobby, and I built a new layout, in a terrace (closed of course) I
built a new layout with dog bone shape, 7 m length and 80 cm wide. Then
I discovered the digital world and I started to digitalize all my locos,
I bought a UC 6020 and a control 80F, besides I read something about hidden
yards and I decided rebuilt the layout.I designed a layout with
2 levels, the bottom level is a hidden yard, with 4 tracks, and a automatic
device to choose a free track. The upper level represents a end station
with the main street, access facilities, as well as a industrial area,
maintenance services
and a small residential area. From the end station start a double
main line that communicates with the bottom level. In the third picture
in this page you can see the the end station, it has 6 tracks and 3 platforms,
also one more platform for goods loading facilities, you can see a DB050,a
steam loco pushing a goods train and beside of it a electric loco DB E18,
with an old passenger train. The tracks are in the upper level mainly
K and some M, and in the bottom level all MI have a trafo to feed all digital
devices and half layout, with a booster the other half, besides there's
other trafo to lighting and accessories, and a small 24 V DC. In this picture
you can see a IC train. I try to group the small people because it seems
to be more prototypical , normally people tend to go together. The layout
represents some inexistent place in Germany in the era III. The background
is made with photo paint pro.
The buildings are mainly from Kibri and Faller, and are painted to
give them a weathered look
3 August 2000
Translation by Antonio Martinez and David Martinez
