and today I was most definitely the pigeon.
Yup, it’s not often that Lady Luck, that most elusive of females, turns her gaze in this boy’s direction, but something must have made her look my way today, albeit remotely.
My pal Dzhon was at a Gauge 1 hooley up near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, and was poking stuff around on the members’ sales tables when his eye-trumpet was caught out by the sight of FIVE Maerklin DB passenger cars - the loooooooooong cars that are still in use today. I hasten to add that both Dzhon and I have Aster German outline locomotives - mine is a 1983-built BR01 that many of you have seen on Youtube a few times - Dzhon has the beautiful P38/BR38 ten-wheeler built from a kit by him a couple of years back.
Anyhow, back the the Maerklin cars - not new, and as usual, with steps missing, but only $95 each. Price of new ones here in UK is fast approaching $600 - each.
He called me up to ask if I was interested.
Stupid question.
I’ve just finished cleaning them up vary carefully with some of that crazy foam spunj that you find these days that cleans just about everything imaginable, and boy, do they look good. I’ll be replacing the missing door grab rails with some stainless stuff I have around, and also the missing steps and their see-through treadplates courtesy of some spare bits from USA Trains and K&S Metals. First weekend in May three of us are off to the Great Central Railway preservation group’s annual hooley at Ruddington, where they have a new and massive Gauge 1 track - a bit like the one in Zube Park Houston TX, for those that know it - if you don’t you can see it on Youtube.
The sight of my lovely old Aster 01 at the head of the ten-car ‘Berlin-Warsaw Schnellzug’ is something I’m really looking forward to seeing, and no doubt some of you will be joining me in spirit as I stand trackside with a smile on my face like a quarter melon.
tac, ig, ken the GFT & The Eilzug Boys
PS - pics and movies will be took on the day - promise.
