Magyar Modellvasút - One of the most brilliant private HO scale model railroad layouts from Hungary
Published on December 25, 2024
Rail transport modeling, also known as model railroading or railway modelling, is a popular hobby in Hungary too. In particular, the Hungarian model train layouts presented so far at Pilentum Television are characterized by loving details, by absolutely precise landscape design and by true to the original, authentic railroad operations.
Another master in constructing superb model railroad layouts is Gábor Tolnai who lives in Hungary. His miniature world in HO scale depicts the fictional railway station called “Fenyvesvárad”. As you can see in the first seconds of this video, Gábor’s model railway layout is 285 x 160 cm in size (9.3 x 5.2 feet). Despite these small dimensions, his model train layout offers an incredible number of rail traffic.
He started to build the model railway layout in 2019. In 2023, he had completed most of the construction work, such as the perfect overhead line (catenary), the background and the digital control of locomotives, signals and points. Of course, he occasionally has to do some fine detailing. Those details include the fact that the buildings in his miniature world were created by using a 3D printer. Furthermore, a light system was installed on the model railway layout to switch between day and night atmosphere.
In order to create a fascinating night atmosphere, it was necessary to equip the passenger carriages with interior lighting as well. Almost half of all scale models currently have self-installed, flicker-free interior lighting, as you can see in the corresponding video chapter. Gabor Tolnai has attached great importance to being true to the original. He has not only used locomotives and trains from those rail companies that frequently operate in Hungary (“Magyar Államvasutak” = Hungarian State Railways, “Österreichische Bundesbahnen” = Austrian Federal Railways, “České Dráhy” = Czech Railways), but has also installed special sound decoders to generate the original sound of locomotives and railcars. Instead of using ESU sound decoders, for example, he uses sound decoders made by DigiTools, a local Hungarian manufacturer.
The control of the rail traffic is just as true to the original as the operating sounds. Gábor’s model rail layout is digitally controlled (DCC) with the help of the Roco Z21 Command Station which is very popular in Europe. Furthermore, he uses the model train software “TrainController” to automate multiple rail traffic and multiple rail operating processes. However, the trains can also be controlled manually to enable shunting operations.
By the way, if you are looking at Pilentum’s website (https://www.pilentum.org/submit-video), you will find a note that any model railway enthusiast can publish a video of his model train layout on Pilentum Television. Gábor Tolnai took advantage of this opportunity and shot videos of his model railroad layout, which Pilentum edited into this video presentation, absolutely worth seeing.
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgNqQQiRg00
Overall View
Picture Gallery at Day
Picture Gallery at Night
Special Picture Gallery
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