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

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 (after almost 1400km)

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. 

A 'Blitz excursion to Sweden' - Part 3: The Swedish Naval Museum

Today's destination is located on the Swedish south east cost in the fortified town of Karlskrona, where the Swedish Naval Museum is located. This is a place I've been wanting to visit for a long time, so my expectations were pretty high:

They have 3 ships on display outside:

This was the Swedish Navy's main wharf, and the area and town is heavily fortified:

When entering the museum, the presentation is neat, modern and educational:

They show the importance of models in early ship designs and construction:

Some of those models are really large:

The number of models are mostly limited to older sailing ships though. Perhaps because Sweden's naval battles are mostly limited to this period. 

On the other hand they have a very educational approach to Naval warfare with sailing ships; like the ship guns had a very limited range of about 300 yards and were very inaccurate due to roll, pitch and heave and took long time to reload. Therefore 'melee' and boarding of enemy ships were an important tactic. These factors gives a lot of ideas for a naval wargame. I haven't tried that before. Maybe I should?

The diorama of the 'Battle of Svensksund' between Sweden and Russia in 1790 shows how chaotic such battle could be. Swedish victory:

A 1:1 scale display from a gun-deck. Mirrors made a impression how it looked with several guns:

The museum also had a 'gun simulator' where you could 'fire a volley' against Danish (!) ships to see how to aim on moving targets when your muzzle velocity and range is bad:

The hall of 'Figureheads' from those sailing ships were impressive:

A small section of 'from sail to steam':

The 'Cold War' period was mostly displayed by interactive screens and boards and had just a very few models. 

This is probably the very first model of a submarine from the 18th century. It's made by a Swede:

Sweden's first submarine from 1905 is preserved on the museum. It's based on a periodic American design:

And Neptune from 1978:

The museum didn't mention any naval fleet arm, but showed a model of the Heinkel. A similar model is actually exhibited on the Norwegian Naval Museum as Norway had a 'fleet arm'. Perhaps I should make a blogpost from there too as well?

This is an overview of the museum shop. No model kits or Cobi kits (which have gained popularity in military museums lately). Just mainstream maritime products 'your wife could have picked':

Well, except for these 3 models. But the 'cheapest' costed hundreds of £, while the other two costed over thousand (!)

-And their  Café I never had time to visit, as it closed one hour before the museum. Right after they closed the Café, the staff started to close those 3 open ships in photo no. 2 in this post. So a lot was closed before the museum actually closed. 

As initially stated my expectations were high, so I was actually a little bit disappointed by this visit. -But I learnt new things about sailing-age warfare though, and knowledgeis why we seeks museums, isn't it? If 18th and 19th Century Swedish Navy's is your thing, this is the place to go. 

I'm some 570km away from home now, and I'll better start planning my return. I've been taking reservations due to the weather throughout the whole trip as the forcast have been changing every day and hour. But I've been lucky; no rain so far. So if the weather permits, there will be 'pit stops' on the return.  Please stay tuned.

Perhaps I should visit the Norwegian Naval Museum when coming back?

A 'Blitz Excursion' to Sweden - Part 1: Ohsabanan

Last summer I went on a short, but very eventful, trip on my motorcycle to Finland and Sweden to visit military museums, public model railways and heritage railways. If you missed it you can find the blogposts here:

• Day 1: The Finnish Air Force Museum 
• Day 2: The Finnish Tank Museum and The Finnish Railway Museum 
• Day 3: The House of Model Railways and The Swedish Tank Museum 
• Day 4: Miniature Kingdom and the Swedish Air Force Museum 
• Day 5: Risten - Lakvik heritage railway

I did actually plan a couple of more 'stops' and places of interests to visit on my way home on day 5, and possible a 'day 6'. -But it was late in the summer season and several of the places I had in mind was either closed for weekdays or the season, so I didn'tget to visit them.

This week I have some days off from work, so I decided to make a quick mini excursion to Sweden to visit some of the places I missed last summer. I hope you will join this virtual trip, and I'll update the blog as soon as it's possible regarding time and Internet connection the following days. -And if the weather permits. So to get started I had to move out by (very) early dawn. I traveled light to travel fast; not much luggage). I think my wife was wondering why I was up that early:

Some 450km later I arrived today's destination; Ohsabanan, or the Ohsa Narrow Gauge Heritage Railway. The railway itself is made to 600mm gauge and runs 14,5km between the industrial place of Ohsa and the village of Bor, where it connected with the standard gauge railway. Some inclines on the line is up to 4%. Ohsabanan was constructed in 1910 and was in service until 1967. It opened as a heritage railway in 1970 and has since then operated heritage trains on the whole line.

A typical Swedish 'mid summer stake' at Ohsa railway station. The dry brownish colors reminds us that's mid summer is over, and we are slowly moving towards the winter again

There are a lot of inspiration to find when coming to paint and weather G-scale rollingstock:

So, why was this one of my places of interests? They have military narrow gauge locomotives like several Simplex':

Some German counterparts:

But my main reason to visit Ohsabanan is that they have 2 ex-German WW1 Heeresfeldbahn Brigadeloks in running condition. Some 2500 was manufactured, and after WW1 several was sold off to other civilian railways as surplus:

Too bad  none of the Brigadeloks were running this day. The replacement was also made in Germany in 1944, and saw service in East Prussia:

The 'terminus' is at the village of Bor, and it's time to turn the train and have a cup of coffee:

And then it was time to head back to Ohs again. Tender first:

This is a 'modelling blog' after all, and in the ticket office at Ohs I found this non operational H0e-display:

Before leaving Ohs it was time for 'fika' (Swedish for coffee and something to eat). This was another Swedish specialty; Köttbullsmacka (bread with meatballs):

Now it was time to find somewhere to sleep for the night. This is not the hotel where I am staying, but I was passing the 'Old West' theme park, High Chaparral on my way and stopped just to take a couple of photos. They also operates a narrow gauge steam railway made to look 'American' and on a large loop. I didn't go inside the park this time though. 

It's about time to make plans for tomorrow, so please visit my blog again for updates.