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?