including a Tour of the Berlinerwerke-Z.
Here's what the Z-scale Berlinerwerke looked like ca. 1992,
right after I installed the turntable and roundhouse:
(Photo by and © 1992 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
1997 UPDATE ON THE BERLINERWERKE-Z SAGA
[This is the 1997 update to the original story as printed in
Ztrack Magazine, Number 9, December 1990, after adding
the Roundhouse and Turntable and after major expansion of the balance
of the facilities of the Berlinerwerke-Z. It is basically the
text (without editorial typos) of the article published in two parts
in Ztrack on (dates to follow).]
(Drawing by and © 1997 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
ZBWERKE PLAN
This is a 291Kb drawing! It was drawn in AutoSketch 2.1 for Windows, converted to Ver. 5.0 for conversion to DWF format for uploading, and consists of exact track section templates and building outlines. I lambasted poor Rob Kluz for scanning and reproducing it so poorly in Ztrack Magazine and here I had the same problem, perhaps because the line work is so very fine. The drawing is deadly accurate (except for an inexplicable glitch at the turntable spurs, which I have now fudged so it looks reasonably good) and I now have reproduced the AutoSketch Ver. 5 file directly onto the Net (now that I figured out how); as it was, I'd changed from super fine resolution to 150dpi and from *.jpg to *.gif to reduce the byte count so I could fit it in my old site limitations (now relaxed).
The DWF format won't come across without Autodesk's free Whip! plug-in (just one more nuisance)!
KEY to the ZBWERKE PLAN
Because the reproduction is still poor, here are salient features keyed to their location on the above plan
(the extension is shown elsewhere on this site, on the BW-Z Saga and BW-Z Saga Continuation Page 4 pages):
2632 FACTORY Mercerized Bents "NORTH" JUSTICE ARTHUR E.MAYER FLOOD CONTROL PROJECT
Mercerized Bents, Inc. FIT-UP YARD 2635 Berliners Bessere
8990 DIESEL KOHL''S COAL standpipe Biffi Bauerei
SERVICING (trimmed) Coaling Dock standpipe (modified Kibri 6770)
Mercerized Bents 8998 8982 COAL DOCK 8986 FOOTBRIDGE (mod.) 8962
INSPECTION YARD ROUNDHOUSE TURN 8996 DÜRNAU
8983 TABLE (mod.) STATION
{WATER
" TOWER} "
E 2638 RANCH HOUSE W
A Berliners Bessere BW SECURITY DEPT. 8971 FREIGHT E
S Ballast Belastungen STATION S
T und T
" Sams Schöner 8990 {Diesel Loco Shed} "
Schlake Zech
(heavily-modified
Kibri 6750
Schotterwerk
(Gravel Tipple) 2631 2639 BARN 8994 8990 {Steam Loco Shed}
Restinghouse BW Maintenance Shop TRANSFER
Kibri 8950 (mod.) Rasthaus 8981 {Steam Loco Shed} TABLE
2630 PASSENGER
DEPOT
BRIGHT MOMENT 8981 {Steam Loco Shed}
KIBRI ELGIN
Boiler MARBLES
House COMPANY
Kibri 6774 8980 {Diesel Loco Shed}
2633
2634 FREIGHT 8986 FOOTBRIDGE (mod.)
TERMINAL WINTERSDORF 8980 {Diesel Loco Shed}
DD DIESEL DELIVERY PASSENGER CONTAINER
DEPARTMENT STATION KIBRI NEUSTADT TERMINAL
"Dependable Drayage" 8970 (trimmed) TOWER (modified)
KIBRI 8772 FACTORY SCALE (from 8985 {Freight House})
RESTINGHOUSE
AIR BREAK CORPORATION ("We Three Kings of Orion Tar")
"RABCO" "SOUTH" 8972 ORION TAR (mod. K6760)
Here's a photo of the current plan (as of 09 Jan 99); it's not that much clearer, dagnab it!
(Photo of drawing by and © 1999, 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
We'll just keep trying!
O. K. - here we go! I now (as of 26 Feb 02) have a newer image processor (pre-Corel Micrografx Picture Publisher 8) which can convert, however painstakingly and sloooooowly, Windows Metafile format, which my AutoSketch 5 can generate, SOOooo - I converted the drawing to bwerke-z.wmf in AutoSketch 5, then converted the Metafile to GIF format in PP8. As you'll see, the conversion is a bit strange:
(Drawing by and © 2000, 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail image, cick on picture to bring up a 252Kb image!]
Finally! Now, after downloading a 252Kb file,
you can really see the incredible amount of detail in this drawing;
it's as much of a hobby, in itself (a form of armchair railroading),
as the actual layout.
(broken image links repaired 11 Nov 02)
Wow! The Ztrack file in my computer was getting too big, into the 250K range, so I split out 1994 and back from the current file. Then, as it grew some (get it?), I split it again at 31 December 1996. When I started this new article, the new 1997 file was ALREADY well over 100K and it's now over 300K and growing! Also, with all the latest additions, the Autosketch drawing file for the Z Berlinerwerke just topped a monstrous 1 megabyte {as of 07 Dec 98, it's at 2.4Mb!}; I weeded out a lot of extraneous detail, but it is starting to get a wee bit slow to boot and to print. I've switched back from diary-style (is that related to diarrhea-style?) so that I can keep track (ooh!) of where I'm at. I'd better remind newer readers of the original premise of the ca. 1960 HO Berlinerwerke that carried over into the Z Berlinerwerke (edited from the 1992 Ztrack article, which in turn was edited from the original 1974 HO articles):
My mythical great-grand-uncle Wiener Berliner (Vee'ner Bear'leener) founded a small ironworks in Germany. It was moved to the U.S.A., ending up (for now, in Z) near the head of the LIRR's Oyster Bay line. The rationale of the HO Berlinerwerke is to justify fitting the Horseshoe Curve onto one end (in exact scale!), connecting Pittsburgh and the Allegheny tunnels with Sunnyside Yard, the LIRR, and the great railroad bridge across Long Island Sound from Orient Point to Rhode Island (bet you didn't even know it was there).
The BW plant includes a major museum and restoration shop, as well as a heavy erecting facility, so anything can and does run on the BW without chronological or geographical restrictions. There is an excursion RR and a heavy-equipment transport group. All this justifies some pretty weird rolling stock.
Nat "Bud" Taverna was kind enough to let me aquire some of his surplus buildings (he does incredibly beautiful work!). This necessitated shoe-horning of a most serious nature to get things to fit on the already- overcrowded layout (and I'm not done yet!). As of noon, 08 January 96, the left ("east") end of the main was torn out, moved right ("west") 25mm, and back down, without the useless bridge, tested, and running. Ditto the secondary and curved reversing loop bridges. This now allows the new Berliners Bessere Ballast Belastungen (and Sams Schöner Schotter und Schlake Zech) to fit on the layout and even with some rather neat touches - more on these later in this article.
I trust everyone has by now noticed (winced over) my blithe and complete disregard for time, place, country, language, sense, etc. This, too, has a rationale ("rationale", not "rational"), as noted above.
I got Micro Engineering's 80-176 N-scale Tall Steel Viaduct Tower; it's gigantic, some 140' high in Z!. One bent will barely fit in the Mercerized Bents yard, even shortened by one 49mm panel. I'll cut the other and the cross braces apart; what a great source for spare girders for the Mercerized Bents yard. I also got a 2630 Passenger Station (which is so tiny it is perfect for Bright Moment Station, releasing Dürnau to serve the biffie plant), a 2634 Freight Station (which was to be the Mercerized Bents/Restinghouse Air Break Shipping & Receiving but now becomes the Z version of the famed (HO) DD Diesel Delivery Dept.- "Dependable Drayage" - so the 8971 at "West" becomes the Berliners Bessere Biffi Bauerei and Orion Tar Shipping & Receiving), a 2638 Ranch House (for the BW Security Dept.), and the 2639 Barn (to be the BW Maintenance Shop). The 2631 2-story House (Restinghouse Rasthaus - Rasthaus translates literally as Restinghouse) and the 2633 Feed Mill (Elgin Marbles) are still on back order, poor old Rosetta Stone will just have to wait to start producing Z-scale marbles.
The Berliners Bessere Biffi Bauerei factory turned out to be the Kibri 6770, the powerhouse is the 6774 Boiler House, and the factory, with overhead crane, the boiler house, and the 6772 Shedhalle (my Restinghouse Air Break plant) are available, together with fencing, as 6778. Just in case anyone wonders (unlikely), the Kibri Neustadt tower I kitbashed is their 6730 Overhead Signal Tower (OK, Kibri, where are the signals?).
There's a weird tower and "crown" atop the office/elevator tower on the Kibri 6770 factory; it surrounds the flagpole. Luckily, Bud hadn't glued it on. By cutting off the points of the crown and inverting it, it makes a perfect column for a heavy-duty stiff-leg derrick to sit by the main at the end of a roller conveyor from a small door on the front of the factory just to the right of the loading dock. I'll use Plastruct channels (they have thinner flanges than the I-beams) for the base of the conveyor and their smallest tees and clipped segments of fine straight pins for the conveyor sides and rollers. That solves the problem of how the massive biffies get out of the plant, over to the rail line, and onto a pad between the yard and secondary tracks so the two halves of the schnable car can be brought up on two adjacent tracks and the support arms swiveled inward and fastened to the load. They are then jacked up, load and all, brake and signal lines passed under the load from one truck to the other, and the whole shebang towed to the nearest turnout, which is then thrown as the first car passes, reuniting the two halves on the same track. It's quite an operation - I'll do an illustrated article on the real thing and how I'll model it. It's actually pertinent to the 8620 20(if simulated)-wheel Schnable mit Trafo (with transformer) {see note below}.
Since you readers don't actually know anything beyond what I already wrote about Berliners Bessere Biffie Bauerei, you might want to note the following:
Berliners Bessere Biffie Bauerei (Berliner's Better Biffy Builders) is a noted manufacturer of biffies (outhouses) made of depleted uranium so they can't be tipped over while in use. They require unique(!) heavy-duty railcars for transport (in both HO and Z), the Biffisch (Biffi Schnable), a special car made to carry these products.
Here's the HO Biffisch as a teaser (as if it were in Z):
(Photo by and © S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
Turn to the Berlinerwerke Apocrypha page to see the car and biffie details
(you could look at the other things perpetrated on that page while you're at it!).
Märklin's 8620 transformer car is actually a schnable car; it is NOT a "Depressed Center Flat Car", it HAS no center, flat or otherwise - the load, a giant transformer in this case, or a nuclear reactor pressure vessel, bolts rigidly between the two pairs of transporter arms. The arms are hydraulically-operated and can raise and lower the load, tilt it, and swing it outboard or inboard to accomodate tight curves. When unladen, the arms bolt together to make a slightly-less-gigantic car. There is an illustrated article on Schnable cars and their operation on my model railroad page. The world's largest (an 880-ton monster made by Krupp for Combustion Engineering) scales out to 1 meter (39") in HO (that's almost 15½" in Z) and has 38 wheelsets (yes, I have a working HO mock-up)!
If I had gotten the coal yard kit from Bud, it simply would have HAD to be named Koll's Kohl (Koll's is a Z catalog), nein? However, it turned out to be Kibri's 6750 Schotterwerk (Gravel Tipple), which is just as well, or even better. The modified 2635 Mine Head-cum-Coaling Tower will now bear a sign, Kolls Kohl (Koll's Coal), and the gravel tipple will become (are you ready for this?) Berliners Bessere Ballast Belastungen and Sams Schöner Schotter und Schlake Zech - Produkten der Berliner Ballast Bergwerk (Berliner's Better Ballast Loads and Sam's Finer Gravel and Cinders Tipple - Products of the Berliner Ballast Mine)! Some of the German is pretty awful but, yet again, it suits me; a friend born in Nürnberg already reamed me out for mispelling the adjective "besser" (better) without the terminal "e" and adding a terminal plural "n" to "schotter" (gravel).
My current thinking (can you call it that?) is to make the 2633 Feed Mill become the Elgin Marbles Co. ("Don't Lose Your Marbles"). I have a source for 125µm (125 micrometers or 0.0049" or five-thousandths of an inch) nominal diameter glass beads, which scale out to approximately 1-1/8". That makes an only-slightly overscale aggie. A Davis-Hodgkin small hopper with a simulated full load of these (ACC'd or white glued together on top of a filler block to keep them from blowing away or spilling and rolling all over the place like ultra-miniature ball bearings) would make a great load. All I need now is to find a trackside place to place the place. The plant will be under the able direction of Rosetta Stone, a woman of letters who's hobby is translating Egyptian heiroglyphics. Unfortunately, only well-educated readers (no superabundance of such in model railroading) will get these japes. I understand that they make lovely, white jackets with extra long arms for people like me.
I moved the Kibri 6774 Boiler House to the space across the storage yard tracks from the Brilliant Moment Station (2630 Passenger Depot); it looks better there - oops, it interferes with what will be the pedestrian overpass location; that overpass will have to be "adjusted". I still haven't attempted those two. My, my, Kibri does have a lot of little pieces in their kits, eh? Brilliant Moment Station spur houses the smiley-faced blue tank engine with the same first name as an early red-haired president and two stubby passenger cars with faces on the ends, one named a diminutive of Ann and the other after a famous cartoon cow and TV clown. The Grinch - I mean the copyright holder - has threatened me with an injunction for using their images - HA! Remember when the hobby industry made asses out of GM attorneys who sought to enjoin the entire hobby industry from making model Chevvies?
I swapped the boiler house and station for a better fit, but the final locations will have to wait until I build at least one 8986 footbridge.
continued from Berlinerwerke-Z Saga and
continued on:
Berlinerwerke-Z Saga Continuation Page 3,
Berlinerwerke-Z Saga Continuation Page 4,
Berlinerwerke-Z Saga Continuation Page 5,
Berlinerwerke-Z Saga Continuation Page 6,
including a Tour of the Berlinerwerke-Z.
Berlinerwerke-Z Saga Continuation Page 4.
For tall tales of the BW and its equipment and such, visit the Berlinerwerke Apocrypha page.
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
=
of this series of Berlinerwerke-Z Saga pages.
To tour the Z-scale pages in sequence, the arrows take you from the Z-scale index page
to the first page, Z-Scale, then to continuation pages 2, 3 and 4, the Z articles page, the 6 BW-Z saga
pages, and, and finally to the current Ztrack page.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 1999, 2001, 2002 - All rights reserved.
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