Friday, August 1, 2025

A 'Blitz excursion' to Sweden - Part 4: Big and Small Narrow Gauge

Skara Lundsbrunn järnvägar. Heritage Railways in Sweden. Habo Hobby. Kato H0e track. Kato Unitrack for H0e and 009 gauge

Due to few models on the blog yesterday, I thought I should compensate for it today, as my route homewards coincidentally just passed by Southern Sweden's largest Hobby shop; Habo Hobby:

Skara Lundsbrunn järnvägar. Heritage Railways in Sweden. Habo Hobby. Kato H0e track. Kato Unitrack for H0e and 009 gauge
They're not only into model railways in all kinds of different scales and gauges, but also into everything technical hobbies in general.
Skara Lundsbrunn järnvägar. Heritage Railways in Sweden. Habo Hobby. Kato H0e track. Kato Unitrack for H0e and 009 gauge
They are even into Tabletop gaming as they are a GW retailer:
Skara Lundsbrunn järnvägar. Heritage Railways in Sweden. Habo Hobby. Kato H0e track. Kato Unitrack for H0e and 009 gauge
I guess they must be into mailorders as Habo is not a very large place. With their broad offers in different hobbies, this was a shop right up my alley. Their prices are reasonable too. So did I find anything interesting enough to bring home? -Sure! Now I had to 'pay the price' for the decision to  travel light and fast; I didn't have room for much on my motorcycle. But I found items so interesting that not buying them was not an option. Place for them on my bike or not. I just had to impovise, adapt and overcome. Let's hope The Mrs. is not reading about my 'hoarding' on the blog. I found the new Kato Unitrack in H0e or 009 (9mm gauge) as a 'set' and some 'out of production' MiniTrains track in same scale and gauge. None of these can be found in Norway. Perhaps I'll do a blogpost on the Kato tracks, as actually is the same s their N-gauge Unitrack except for that they have sleepers made for H0 or 009 scale. So this was the 'small narrow gauge' in the blogpost title:
Skara Lundsbrunn järnvägar. Heritage Railways in Sweden. Habo Hobby. Kato H0e track. Kato Unitrack for H0e and 009 gauge
The 'big narrow gauge' (according to the title) did I find i the town where I was going to spend the night; Skara. Which is also one of the oldest towns in Sweden. Back in the days Skara had a station for 5 different railway lines in 891mm (3 Swedish feet), making it to one of Europe's largest narrow gauge stations. Another coincidence today; I'm staying at the old 'Railway hotel' by the old railway station with just a short walk to a preserved line where Skara-Lundsbrunn järnvägar are operating a heritage railway:
Skara Lundsbrunn järnvägar. Heritage Railways in Sweden. Habo Hobby. Kato H0e track. Kato Unitrack for H0e and 009 gauge
Skara Lundsbrunn järnvägar. Heritage Railways in Sweden. Habo Hobby. Kato H0e track. Kato Unitrack for H0e and 009 gauge
Skara Lundsbrunn järnvägar. Heritage Railways in Sweden. Habo Hobby. Kato H0e track. Kato Unitrack for H0e and 009 gauge
Skara Lundsbrunn järnvägar. Heritage Railways in Sweden. Habo Hobby. Kato H0e track. Kato Unitrack for H0e and 009 gauge
Skara Lundsbrunn järnvägar. Heritage Railways in Sweden. Habo Hobby. Kato H0e track. Kato Unitrack for H0e and 009 gauge
This preserved railway passes a private house with the 'largest garden railway' I've ever seen. It's a 600mm narrow gauge line, and the owner runs small industrial locomotives and rolling stock on it. Too bad there was not traffic today:

The weather forecast and clouds outside suggests that's it's soon about time to head back home again. Thank you to all of you that have followed me on this 4 days (virtual) excursion to Sweden.

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