Hello from Schleswig - Holstein 🇩🇪

[Charles B]

Hi!
I'm new here, my name is Charles and I live in northern Germany but my native language is indeed English and I'm only 640 km east of the English coast as the pigeon flys.

And speaking of birds they are my other main hobby. Alas I couldn't squeaze my favorite shunting locomotive down far enough for an avatar therefore I'm stuck using my 'Marsh Tit' from my bird forum here until further notice. Haha!

This looks like a nice friendly forum with phpBB in blue which I both like.

I have two point to point layouts mainly for shunting: A big one in N scale which snakes its way through my entire room. Plus a 250 cm x 30 cm shunting puzzle which I built out of vintage Fleischmann H0 track and locos.

I only run analog DC and since I worked in electronics most of my life all my electronic devices are self designed and built. You may ask why I never went digital? Well my fun in the hobby is collecting old things and through tender, loving care getting them as good as new again.

Therefore I don't model any specific era or protype and concider my layout as a 'museeum railway.'
I do have mostly German prototype equipment from Fleischmann but also run my Dapol Terrier now and then and wish to add to it.

I haven't ran my layouts in quite some time as they both are about at chest level and an accident left me with shoulder problems. Therefore I spent many months sitting in the dining room building wooden ship models instead. Then came gardening season and a flock of birds to my garden. But this got me into photography and a Nikon so hopefully I can come up with some nice layout shots.

Best wishes to you all!
Charles

[RogerB]

Welcome Charles- look forward to hearing more of your modelling in due course. R-

[glencairn]

Welcome on board, Charles. A good, friendly crew here.

Glencairn

[bone]

Hi Charles, welcome. I used to live not far from you in Celle.

[Charles B]

Thanks for your thoughtful greetings RogerB, glencairn and bone! Good to be here!

Yes bone, I'm only 80 from Celle as the pigeon flys!
I also listen to NDR Radio Niedersachsen over that way a lot so you probably know it. But I mostly listen to Dutch stations as I speak the language.

[bulleidboy]

A belated welcome Charles - as you have probably surmised, this is a friendly forum, with lots of help, information and fun. BB

[Charles B]

A belated welcome Charles - as you have probably surmised, this is a friendly forum, with lots of help, information and fun. BB

Thanks for the nice welcome!
I have a big N scale point to point layout which I want to get back in service. Alas, it's now full of dust which will take an estimated four hours to remedy. Please take a look at my new posting 'Keeping Dust Away ' and please give me your suggestions! Thanks!
Cheers!
Charles

[Mountain Goat]

Hello and welcome.

I am one that got into DCC almost 25 years ago but though I liked DCC, around a decade later I realized how much I missed DC so when I decided to model in narrow gauge instead, I decided DC was the way to go. But both are good.

[Charles B]

Hello and welcome.

I am one that got into DCC almost 25 years ago but though I liked DCC, around a decade later I realized how much I missed DC so when I decided to model in narrow gauge instead, I decided DC was the way to go. But both are good.

Hi Mountain Goat! Thanks it's good to be here!
I have always loved DC and will stay with it
'until the role is called up yonder!' Haha!

I've always liked things from the 1970's and also wire my layout with either 1 mm2 or 0.75 mm2 stranded wire to industrial electrical codes as much as possible to give it more of a railway feel.

Plus I also use 'Finder' latching, 24 VDC relays for my my control circiuts. I love the robust 'clack clack' they make!

And I built my own routing switcher for one button yard control with homemade hard-wired diode-matrix ROM boards made from handfulls of 1N914 diodes.
Now if that isn't pre-PC era then what is???

[Mountain Goat]

Nice. I have a very simple partly built controller I have not finished yet as the layout needs a bit more building before I finish it. It will be a very simple resistance wire controller to be run from a 12v battery if I finish it.

I have also a few other DC controllers such as H&M 3000 (x2), H&M Clipper, H&M Powermaster etc and I actually prefer simple controllers. (The H&M 3000's are not simple but I had one years ago which I miss, so I ended up with two more).

While electrically speaking, even for DCC I preferred manual stud and proble point control, though I do these days like mechanical methods of point control and manual uncoupling as it gives me memories of working on the real railway. The "No hands" approach to model railways just doesn't feel right and the more computerized things are becoming, the further away from the real railway "Feel" things get.