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:
They're not only into model railways in all kinds of different scales and gauges, but also into everything technical hobbies in general.
They are even into Tabletop gaming as they are a GW retailer:
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:
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:
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.
Blog PostScript
The weather forecast was right for once, and I was kind of 'lucky' on my final day of the excursion, as I were driving just a head of the rain. Well, until I came to the Norwegian/Swedish border that was. Then the rain caught up on me, but I didn't mind as it was only 45 minutes left before I was home.
On my final day I passed this interesting place where a Standard Gauge branch line to Strömstad is running parallel to the 600mm heritage railway of Munkedal.
Thanks for following this virtual excursion.
Hello Roger, just working my way through several of your posts, being a fair amount of content to peruse through. Always enjoy seeing examples of Japanese pre-WW2 armoured cars, also liked the medieval siege diorama with Teutonic Knights climbing the ladders. Being in Sweden, you reminded me of a book I was given about castles in the late 1960s, it included a medieval battle fought at Visby, on the island of Gotland, in 1361. Between the Danes and Swedes. I have always wanted to refight it as a wargame, and I might just raise some special 54mm characters for my eventual recreation. Concerning Britains die-cast guns, I bet the springs continue to work as long as they are not left in a pulled-back position. Even some of the old rusty springs still seem to have some real power in them. But I have always found the 25pdr WW2 howitzers are the best for range. Lovely viewing some of the places you have visited. Thanks for the uploads.
ReplyDeleteMichael
Thank you for reading all these posts I've made recently and taking your time to write such a long comment on them Michael. I'm delighted if you found something of interest. Regarding that Japanese armored car, it's not only a nice model, but there something about the 'cartoon style' it's make to with 'clean lines' I find pleasing. Think this will work well with classic glossy soldiers from. Between the wars.
DeletePerhaps one of those dioramas made of 'flats' is from the Battle of Visby as it's between Danish and Swedish medieval fighters. Those Swedes may look like peasants perhaps? If you make a similar wargame I hope you'll make a post on it on your blog.
My gun hasn't been stored with a tensioned spring. But on the other hand, it's just a copy, and probably don't have the same quality as an originally Britains one.
Yes, the flats could be linked to Visby. The armour is right, although the Visby peasants wore dated armour so anything goes, and you can see the edge of walled battlements. I have seen some superbly painted flats, and they are very practical for wall and museum displays. But I won't wargame with such, I want to be able to take photos from all sides, and carry out flank movements lol.
DeleteEven if flats can be wonderful, I see your point wargaming with them. I've wargamed with paper flats from 'Junior General' and was satisfied with that, even if I know my game 'would have looked better' with real miniatures. It took me less time to get a couple of armies ready for the game though.
DeleteAnd then you have semi-flats. In the photos from Battle of Narva it's used 40mm molds from Prince August. They're pretty semi-flat.
The Kato and mini track folk were at the big Glasgow model railway show this year. They had activities for children and were very approachable. I picked up their leaflets and bought the catalogue. Very tempting stuff…
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradgardland
Until I saw the H0e/009 Kato tracks at the Kato-stand at the exhibition in Friedrichshafen last autumn, I had only read of them. They were so new at the time that they didn't have any for sale, just to show the public what was coming. At the Kato-stand there were also a small mini diorama modular layout with their N-scale and H0e/009 tracks. These module-kits are also by Kato and are really easy to assemble and scenic and are aimed to engage kids and others into railway modelling. For the future of the hobby let's hope they manage. A photo from the Kato-stand stand can be seen in this blogger-post:
Deletehttps://modelrailsandwargames.blogspot.com/2024/11/faszination-modellbau-in.html
The owner of Minitrains passed away shortly after I visited his stand at the exhibition in Göppingen in 2023. It was later decided that his wife would continue the company, but since then I haven't seen any MiniTrains stands on the exhibitions I've been to, and the retailers stocks are not restocked when empty. I'm not sure if his wife will continue the whole range or just parts of it so I assume that these track had been out of production. Let's hope they reappear in the market. They have some really nice models!
Thank you for reading and commenting Alan.
Cool post, really interesting!
ReplyDeleteThank you Nils!
DeleteWonderful videos Roger 👍
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading and commenting
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