Oysterperch Bay Narrow Gauge Obscurer

Until late-2006, LGB made a range of feldbahn, or field railway, equipment that forms a very useful resource for large scale modellers, yet seems to be much neglected.

The range subdivides into four parts:

1) Wagons that are vastly over-scale for G-scale (1:22.5), but seem ideal for 7/8th inch = 1 foot scale (1:13.7). These wagons include a skip, a flat wagon an a skip chassis, a wine barrel wagon, and variety of box or stake-sided wagons on the same chassis. Personally, I have no experience of these vehicles, but there are some nice conversions and detailing jobs shown on various websites.

2) An 0-4-0WT steam locomotive, based very directly on an Orenstein & Koppel design; an 0-4-0 diesel locomotive based on the Deutz OME117 or OMZ117 type; and a very wide range of small wagons using a four-wheeled rectangular frame. The scale of these items is a bit elastic, but the average of the scales used on the three dimensions seems to work out at about 1:18 (although i'm open to debate on this). In Germany, the two locomotives are known as Dampf'chen and Diesel'chen, the "chen" being a diminutive term applied to small, cute things, and used here to distinguish these from more typically chunky LGB models. 

3) A gable-bottomed side dump wagon that fits well with a whole range of scales, simply because the prototypes were produced in a great range of gauges and capacities. I use mine at 1:18 scale, but they look equally well at 1:13, and would probably be OK up to 1:10, given that some very tiny 500mm gauge ones were used on salt extraction railways in France.

4) Four-wheeled coaches, vans and a caboose. These do actually seem to be close to 1:22.5 scale, so are of no great use in this context.

As a side-thought: might all this rubber-scaling and seemingly limitless product diversification have had some bearing on LGB's demise?

Steam

The basic steam locomotive is clearly based on an O&K 20hp standard design, broadened out to suit the unusually wide gauge, most of the prototypes having been for 600mm gauge, although there is at least one 1000mm gauge prototype, so 45mm gauge at 1:18 scale, which equates to 810mm is not totally fantastical.

LGB first produced this loco in 1996 as Nr 20140, in black livery, with a plain chimney, then as Nr 21140 in an ornate green livery, with spark arresting chimney. There were also versions Nrs 22140 and 23140 in black with spark arresting chimney and different decoration.

If your interests extend to American prototypes, then the two 0-4-2 locomotives, one based on an Hawaian machine preserved in the Smithsonian Museum, and the other on Walt Disney's rather lurid "restoration" of another industrial machine can be included, although I suspect that these may be to a smaller scale.

Diesel

The diesel locomotive is a slightly over-fed Deutz OMZ117, or its single cylinder sister the OME117. This is a very useful prototype, having been produced under a variety of model designations (Deutz were serial re-designators) from the early-thirties to the mid-sixties. Among the last were the KS28B machines supplied to Bord na Mona in 1965.

LGB first introduced their model in 1996 as Nr 20910, in red livery, with enclosed cab. It then became 21910, in green, with an open cab, and has subsequently been 22910 (blue liveried "Jonny", ready fitted with MZS decoder), and 23910 (wine red DDM livery as preserved). It has also appeared in enclosed cab in yellow livery in train-pack Nr 29145, and in open cab version, with no mechanism, as a load on a bigger flat wagon. The open cab version uses a different moulding for the cab interior, and represents a chain-drive, rather than rod-drive, machine; to me it seems to be a less accurate model, but there maybe things I don't know.

With a few midifications to the cab roof and the coupler, and a repaint to Deutz factory finish, the locomotive makes a very passable impression of the prototype, although it will never be a "millimetre perfect" model of the OMZ117.

Mechanism

All of these locomotive have, at the core, the same four-wheel mechanism. It has a fairly small motor at one end, driving through a bevel gear to one axle, which is coupled to the other via a toothed rubber belt. this mechanism is not as strong as the larger LGB mechanisms, as befits the tiny prototypes, and it is very easy to mess it up by getting the interior toothed-belt out of phase with the exterior (cosmetic) rod drive; one cog out of phase is enough to sap the drive of power.

The wagons usable at 1:18 scale are very much modular, and are easily converted and modified, as in the picture above. These wagons all use common components, as follows:

- chassis mainframe with W-irons and axle-boxes;

- wheel and axle sets;

- axle bearings;

- floor;

- end balcony, together with associated brake column and handrail, these parts are only fitted to some types of wagon, and can easily be detached or added.

To these common components are added other parts to make specific vehicles, all of which can be swopped around or modified:

- body and door parts for gable-bottomed dump wagon;

- wooden ends and sides to make open-wagon based on WWII Heeresfeldbahn type;

- stakes to create sugar cane or small-timber wagons (these are devilish difficult to find, but can easily be made from scratch (if you have any scratch in stock!);

- a cradle to hold oil drums (which seem exceptionally large);

- slatted sides and ends, which UK modellers seem to mistake for sheep wagon parts, but are actually very typical of German peat wagons;

- an upright gas tank, which is based on prototypes used in natural gas fields;

- a cradle to hold a cable drum;

- a demountable, open-sided container box of the kind used to carry aggregates;

- a very nice little hand operated crane (rather rare);

- a mess and tool hut body, which comes fitted with either road wheels, or on one of the "even bigger scale" skip chassis, but which looks far more realistic on one of the chassis discussed here. Below, you can see such a conversion, painted to resemble a vehicle on one of the Freisian Island coastal defence railways, hence the sea-rust. These railways have a touch of the salty sea dog about them, being submerged at high tide.

The bolster set below was created using LGB chassis, scratchbuilt bolsters, and a pile of sticks (carefully selected sticks!).

And these wagons are simple modifications of Nr 40170 opens.

It is relatively easy to build further locomotives and items of stock from scratch, to match the  LGB models. In the past, I built a coach and van, but am currently working on a model of a petrol-engined works loco, inspired by a former Eggerbahn HOe product. The prototype was a Krauss-Maffei machine, but photographs of it are elusive, and drawing unobtainable. The link in my mind between the LGB feldbahn products and the Eggerbahn models is strong; the concept is entirely similar, but the big ones run much more smoothly!