I spent way too much time in June and July doing this…

…and not enough time finishing up models for St. Louis RPM.

However, summer is a great time to travel in Europe, and a couple of weeks before St. Louis RPM I visited the big Deutsche Bahn Museum in Koblenz, which is about an hour north of where I live. 

Koblenz lies at the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle Rivers and has always been a major transportation center.  The Deutsche Bahn, or “DB” for short, runs along both sides of the Rhine River here.  A large, retired shop complex on the south bank now hosts the large national museum.  Here’s a Google view, below.  

After you pay the whopping three Euro-bucks to get in (U.S. $3.50), here’s the view you get.  The old shops contain nicely restored steam and electric engines, along with nice displays of signal equipment and other neat stuff.

This little beauty was chopped in half…

…but the other side shows how the steam engine worked.  I’ve seen quite a few displays like this in Europe. 

A side room had a nice display of restored clocks, signs, and some huge LGB-size models.

Here’s a modern 0-10-0 Dampflok (steam locomotive) tank switcher, below, in the shops in immaculate condition.

Outside, the museum was absolutely chock full of passenger cars, diesels and electrics–many of which still operate in excursion service.  Too many pieces to count!

The museum grounds include a number of large-scale model railroads as well.  I visited on a Saturday and was hoping the model trains would be running, but like elsewhere in Europe in the dead of summer there’s not a whole lot going on.  Just drinking parties–not too much else.

The museum ground also include an old roundhouse site and a brick-lined turntable is still in place and in use.  The German museum site mentions about the area, Im Zweiten Weltkrieg waren die Bahnanlagen in Lützel häufig Ziel alliierter Luftangriffe  which loosely translated means during the Second World War the railroads here were frequently attacked by air.  

The engines above and below are stationed on the old radial tracks.

Near the turntable, on the adjacent main lines, today’s trains keep rolling silently by.

Other engines on the radial tracks included this thing, which kinda looks like a steam engine and a diesel—and a little bit like an electric too—all in one…

…and this very sleek-looking switcher.  This one looks a little to me like an RSC-2, or more specifically an SCL RS-2C.  

There weren’t many freight cars on the property, but this auto carrier caught my eye.  There were many more freight cars on the other side of the active DB mainlines, not on display.  Personally I’d like to see a lot more freight cars.

The summer sun was right on top of us, hence the yellow glare.

Among the few freight cars on display was this rebuilt flat car, which looked all about like an American-built car except for the buffers. 

A closer inspection the trucks are marked “US Patent, Gould, 1943”.  Assuming these trucks and the carbody are original, does anyone know the lineage of this car?

Next to the Americanische flat car is this German coal wagon, which has markings indicating it was used during the 1940s around the time of the Berlin Airlift.  This is a neat car–open top with side doors and no hopper bottom. 

There’s a good Wikipedia site that covers the museum and it’s history online at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB_Museum_Koblenz. 

I hope you enjoyed the side trip.  Next, St. Louis RPM Meet Report, Part 2.  – John G