Fantastic Model Railroad Layout with Bucket Wheel Excavator - TT Scale Mine Railway Model Trains

Published on April 19, 2026

In this video, we discover a true masterpiece of rail transport modeling built by the members of a German model railway club in TT gauge (1/120 scale). The members have rebuilt a former open-pit mine (surface mine) that operated in East Germany from 1985 to 1996 with remarkable attention to detail. These details include, for example, a large bucket-wheel excavator, conveyor belts, mine railways, coal trains, loading stations, and much more.

This miniature world, which measures 5.50 by 0.90 meters, is modeled after the open-pit lignite mine east of the city of Hoyerswerda. In Germany, the area is known as the “Lusatian Lignite Basin”. The model railroad layout consists of two levels: The upper section depicts the loading of raw coal onto coal trains. The lignite is mined using excavators and then transported to the edge of the surface mine via conveyor belts. From there, the coal trains transport the coal to power plants and industrial facilities for further processing. The lower section features a railway line of the “Deutsche Reichsbahn”, which was the state-owned railways in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

A special feature of the model railway layout is the large bucket-wheel excavator. It is a 1/200-scale model from manufacturer Revell whose lettering has been changed to “TAKRAF”. That was the manufacturer of heavy machinery in East Germany. In addition to the bucket wheel excavator, there are other attractions, namely the electric mine locomotives LEW EL2 for open-pit mines. These electric locomotives were manufactured in the East German LEW Hennigsdorf plant from 1952 to 1988 for industrial railways. These locomotives were so powerful that they were also exported to Poland, to the Soviet Union, to the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, and to the People’s Republic of China. The scale models of these industrial locomotive were manufactured by engineer Michael Klunker.

The railway signals also correspond to the real-life model, as they are special industrial railway signals featuring two blue lights arranged horizontally side by side, as was common in the mining industry. Because the coal trains were pushed and the locomotive was coupled to the end of the train, the train driver could not see the standard red signal on the track. Therefore, this blue signal was installed at a distance of one train length before the red signal. This allowed the train driver to use the two blue lights as a guide without passing the red signal with the front of the train. The coal loading system is, of course, also unique. It is a faithful replica of the coal loading system that was used for a decade at the open-pit mine. The brass kit was soldered together according to original plans.

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr2wJvX_eyg

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