[MOC] Karlsruhe park railway - minifigure scale

[Asper]

The "Schlossgartenbahn" is a small 600mm narrow gauge park-railway running in the park of the castle in Karlsruhe. It was built in 1967 for the "Bundesgartenschau" and is still running during summer. From the original trains, only the "Porschelog" is active (again). But there are two other engines: one steamer and a Diesel. (More information and images can be found on this german wikipedia page)

Years ago I built the railway in a rather large scale. In the meantime circuit cubes and trixbrix tracks became available and so I did it again in mini-figure scale.

coupling rods are from bricks-on-rails.de

Both trains are powered by a circuit cubes motor - the receiver/battery is "hidden" in the first coach. Additional weight is needed to get enough traction to move the coaches with the small LEGO wheels. They do no run a smooth as standard LEGO train wheels.

I tried to hide the wheels of the coaches completely to have the same look as the original.

Video of both trains - they both handle R24(!) curves.

Last summer I tested the steam train on "rough terrain":

 

[CCSG]

Great designs! Thanks for sharing. Are those washers that you use for weight, attached to Technic pins? I like your link and pin couplers and may adopt them on my railway. 

[bogieman]

Wonderful job! Those Circuit Cube motors are terrific.

[Paperinik77pk]

Spectacular trains and very interesting transmission/power solution! Pity that those small wheels are not so smooth, but I see you mitigated the problem with some additional weight to increase traction!  

I love that white backround you are using for the photos , but also the "garden track" is really really nice!!! 

Ciao!

Davide

 

[A_Forest_of_Lego]

They look great!

[Ferro-Friki]

Absolutely adorable, both trains are amazing. I genuinely believe that the smaller the model the more impressive its execution is, even more if they can run by themselves! The cowcatcher on the steam engine is particularly striking.

[Feuer Zug]

Superb recreation of the Karlsruhe park railway. The size makes the minifigures almost look perfect for this.

[Darkkostas25]

Adorable trains! I spend my childhood on those kinds of trains riding and spectating them

[Man with a hat]

Oh, nice. Brings back memories to the small park railway in the city I grew up in.

But apart from that: well done! Quite impressive to get everything cramped in such a small space. And it still looks great.

[Asper]

Thank you all for the kind feedback!

On 2/5/2023 at 3:45 PM, CCSG said:

Are those washers that you use for weight, attached to Technic pins?

yes, but the pins are always part of the part, (e.g. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=2476. or https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=2458 )

To secure the washers, I used double-sided tape between them.