One of the most beautiful and realistic East German model railroad layouts with steam locomotives

Published on March 1, 2024

This beautiful model train layout in 1/87 scale is a historically accurate replica of the Royal Saxon State Railways. The Royal Saxon State Railways were well known in German railway history for their large narrow-gauge railway network, which reached its greatest extent in the 1920s with a length of over 500 kilometres. Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structure gauges, and lighter rails, they can be less costly to build, equip, and operate than standard-gauge railways.

Those lower-cost narrow-gauge railways were often used in mountainous terrain, where engineering savings can be substantial. In the state of Saxony in Germany, narrow-gauge railways were built to serve industries as well as sparsely populated communities where the traffic potential would not justify the cost of a standard-gauge line. Since 1881, narrow-gauge railways have been built in the state of Saxony in Germany to integrate more and more peripheral towns and villages into the railway network.

In 1911, the village of Jahnsbach near the Saxon city of Thum in the Ore Mountains was also connected to the railway. This small railway station had a platform, a waiting hall with luggage room, a goods shed and even a loading road. In addition to the main track, the track system consisted of two sidings. The railway line between the city of Thum and the village of Jahnsbach was one of the first narrow-gauge railways in Saxony to use rollbocks, sometimes called transporter trailers, allowing a standard gauge wagon to piggyback on a narrow-gauge line.

After World War II, the network of the Royal Saxon State Railways was taken over by the German Reich Railways (“Deutsche Reichsbahn”) in East Germany. For over 40 years, rail transport was characterised by steam trains and steam locomotives in East Germany. Finally, this period of East German railway traffic offers a rich repertoire for model railroading. This is why many railway modellers specialised in modelling these narrow-gauge railways. One of these modellers is Jens Petermann who started building the station of Jahnsbach with his team called “Bimmlbahner” in 2013.

Although passenger services were discontinued in September 1974 and freight services in January 1976 and the tracks in the village of Jahnsbach were dismantled, all the buildings have been preserved to this day, which made it much easier to build an authentic replica. Jens Petermann and his buddies have built a modular model railway layout on a frame made of multiplex panels which contains eight modules: Three modules for the station, two modules for the surrounding landscape, two modules for curves and, in the background, a large module for the fiddle yard.

The model railroad layout impresses with its very high level of detail. Everything is built in museum quality. Buildings have been measured in the original and were reproduced exactly using laser technology. What immediately catch your eye on the model train layout are these beautiful model trees! Jens Petermann has developed a talent for making beautiful miniature trees, almost small masterpieces, from twisted wire mesh. All these model trees are unique. Over 450 of his trees are set on the model rail layout.

Finally, the steam locomotives and rail cars are also made of extraordinary quality. Because each steam locomotive has individual characteristics in reality, no ready-to-run scale models (“out of the box”) are used on the model rail layout. The rolling stock has been weathered and modified exactly according to old photos. Modification includes, among other things, the application of new lettering, the installation of add-on parts, and color touch-ups with the aim of improving the appearance of model trains.

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