Further info for Exhibition Managers is available on this site or on UKMS directory of exhibition layouts.

Located on a fairly busy mainline in a fictional location in northern Bavaria some time between 1904 and 1914, 'Bahnhof Breitenfurt – Ost' is situated on the edge of a medium sized town. The station serves both long distance and stopping traffic and is the terminus for a small branch line that heads into the hills. Primarily a passenger facility, only occasional freight traffic is handled with remaining sidings used variously to store excess rolling stock and to act as temporary home to a small railway museum with replicas of some early German trains. The small (static) locomotive servicing yard is also used as a museum housing several early Bavarian locomotives as well as turning the occasional loco.
        Although the layout represents the pre WW1 era (as far as possible), the trains themselves also cover the inter war years and are generally of particular historic or technical interest.
        To reach its full potential the layout really requires two operators. However, for exhibition purposes it is usually controlled by a single operator (me) which limits its versatility. Depending on their lengths, up to ten trains can be accommodated though only eight are usually available.

March 25th – Photos from the Dundee, Elgin (partial) and Moray exhibitions are on line (open in new window).
        Also, here are a few photographs (down to my usual standard!) of details around the layout. They had to be taken using telephoto due to limited access. I might try again once the layout is returned to its bench in my room. If they are any better I will replace these.

March 22nd – Moray MRG exhibition is now behind us. It went well but with the usual problems of locos getting to the end of their tether. Report to follow. Report from last year's Dundee expo is now on line. I'll try to be quicker with the Elgin and Moray ones. Some pictures to follow.

March 14th – Been chaotic these last couple of days what with one thing and another not going as it should. One of the platform lights is broken and a couple of others are a bit too dim. Parts of barrow crossing are still missing and need some work doing on them. However, tonight I took some more night time shots of the layout (four with and one without, moonlight), so here they are. That's me pretty well ready to load the car tomorrow.

March 7th – Bahnhof Breitenfurt – Ost by moonlight.
Well, I've been experimenting with the camera and here is the first of several photos I intend to post during the next week or so. [Dark room, 100ASA/60"/f22/ white balance: tungsten, one flash aimed at the ceiling above camera.]

March 2nd – Finished off the lighting in the row of houses except for one that didn't have a hole in the baseboard to feed the light source through. I will leave it dark for now and see what the effect looks like. As I mentioned earlier, I am working from behind the scene so can only see the effect through a couple of rather grubby mirror tiles. Even like that it looks pretty good; viewed from the proper side it should look much better.
        That's all the work complete for now so am hoping to move the layout downstairs this weekend, or early next week. Once it's there I will be able to take pictures.

March 1st – After messing about with various resistors, I have come up with formulæ for 1, 2 and 3 LEDs. So, that is three buildings done and seven to go. If all goes well, I might even change out those two lamps on the branch line platform.

February 29th – During the last couple of days I have been experimenting with house lighting. Using an 8Vdc supply, I started with a 3k9 ohm resistor feeding two LEDs. Although there was a dim glow, probably about right for candle light but overcome by the external lighting. Next I went for 20mA (60mA shared by three LEDs using a 100ohm resistor). This gave a good bright light but it was possible to 'see' the lights shining through the roofs and walls. The problem is that I cannot get into the building to do anything about this. For the third building I used two LEDs with c.10mA. This was better but still too bright and still giving a certain amount of leakage through the roof in spite of fitting a shade over the top of both LEDs. Next move will be to go for 5mA. Another problem is that, because there are no floors in the buildings, it is not possible to blank out lighting from parts of the buildings. No pictures yet as I cannot get round to the front of the layout until it is moved downstairs.

February 25th – Thank you Spiratronics – 20 new LEDs arrived by return of post and yesterday I managed to get the roof back to 'serviceable'. Today I fed the wires through the bridge, platform and baseboard, again. This time I made sure I had the resistor already in place, ready to receive the wire.
        Now, there is one problem with my layout that is a pain in the neck. Normally I can only work on it from the operators side, especially if I want to work on the wiring, and turning it is an absolute pain and requires two people and a trip to the other end of the house and back. This means that most of the time I have to lean over the control panel and the background to get at the layout itself. Very unwieldy. I had already managed to knock off one of the railings from the steps but I was sure that the canopy was in the right place and weighted it down with a reel of solder while the glue set. It wasn't until I looked at my photos that I saw the gap. I can only hope that I can fix that once the layout is downstairs and I can access both sides.
        Usual apology re the quality of the photos. It's difficult looking through the viewfinder and taking pictures leaning over the end of the layout, especially with all the junk I have on the floor!

February 22nd – Disaster. Having assembled the canopy with its lights and tested them using a current limited power supply, the next job was to wire up the assembly, pass the wires through the bridge, platform and baseboard and then attach them to the lighting power bus. Finally, the roof was to fixed to the bridge sides.
        All went fine until I turned on the power. The layout was tipped away from me so that I could work on the under-board so when I turned on the power I could not see what was happening. By the time I got to the end and looked round it, the LEDs were glowing red and a moment later there was a loud Crack! and that was that: seven dead LEDs. And no suitable spares.

February 15th – At last, some activity! Having been asked to attend the Moray MRG's exhibition next month (link above) I have been working on the lighting for the station. Gone are the chunky N scale platform lights and in their place we have proper lighting suitable for the layout's period. (They are not, strictly correct as they are the design used in Baden, but they look OK.) Sadly these lights are no longer manufactured so I spent a while buying up old stock. They are now all connected up and fed from an 8Vdc supply, giving them warm orange-yellow glow suitable for gas lighting. At the time of writing all but one work and make an impressive sight. I will take some photos later.
        In addition to the station platform lights, the canopy of the footbridge is now fitted with lighting. The next task is the attach a couple of power leads and fit the canopy in place. The problem is having to drill a 3mm hole down through the bridge, platform and baseboard to take the wires. Finally, I will have to select a suitable resistor to get an appropriate level of light.