Beautiful model railroad of steam locomotives and steam trains used in East Germany (Saxon IV K)

Published on January 28, 2024

After World War II, rail transport in East Germany was characterised by steam trains and steam locomotives operated by the Deutsche Reichsbahn (“German Reich Railways”). In rural regions, especially in the state of Saxony, narrow gauge steam engines built for the Royal Saxon State Railways with a track gauge of 750 mm (2 feet 5½ inch) were in use. In the state of Saxony, there were also many narrow gauge lines, including one that never ceases to fascinate, namely the “Pressnitz Valley Railway”, which once ran between the villages of Wolkenstein and Jöhstadt.

Steffen Spittler, the builder of this model railway layout, travelled from Jöhstadt to Wolkenstein for the first time as a child in the mid-1970s. He was immediately impressed by the landscape of the “Pressnitz Valley Railway” and, above all, by the special steam locomotive, namely the “Saxon IV K”, once named “DRG Class 99.51–60”. In 2012, as an adult, he began to build a section of the “Pressnitz Valley Railway”, namely the train station of Grossrueckerswalde.

After 18 months of construction, his modular model railroad layout was finished. In addition to the absolutely prototypical train station, he also built a fiddle yard with sidings and passing tracks in the hidden part of the model train layout. The modular model rail layout built in HOn30 scale (9 mm track gauge) covers an area of 3.6 meters x 1.2 meters and was presented for the first time at a model railway exhibition in October 2014.

Unfortunately, Pilentum Television was unable to film Steffen Spittler’s beautiful model railroad layout in detail during the model train exhibition “Train Model in a Hotel” because of the enormous crowds of visitors. The short video film does not come close to doing justice to the beauty and authenticity of the magnificent design of the narrow gauge model rail layout - especially as you have to bear in mind that one of the steam locomotives built by the manufacturer BEMO costs around 800 EUR, approximately 1,000 USD.

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