In no particular order:





Electrical connection for headlamps. There is a plug removed to separate the boiler from the frame. You will see the connector in another picture below. The front of the smoke box is a plastic casting that can be removed. Edit: There is a plastic washer between the front boiler screw mount and the frame. Be careful so it does not go MIA. I held it in place with some Trix grease. A simple trick to hold such items in place until reassembled. Also be careful of the black and grey headlamp wires, they are easily pinched.




Electrical connection to cab light. Two springs on a circuit board inside touch these two contacts.




The smoke unit connects differently. You remove the smoke stack (a plastic casting) remove a piece of skrink tubing they stuffed into the hole and then insert the smoke unit. Once the smoke unit is in, place the smoke stack over the smoke unit. The black and grey wires are for the headlamps. There is a connector at the end, but not seen in this picture.




Electrical connection at the tender's circuit board has changed. Now it is a plug and socket and not wires soldered to solder pads. The speaker is now held in place with a foam square that interferes between the back of the speaker and the tender circuit board. No more plastic piece across the back of the speaker.




The boiler removed. The springs top left are the connections for the cab light.





The smoke stack removed so the smoke unit may be installed.




Boiler with smoke stack removed and shrink tube waiting to be removed.





Smoke stack installed.




There is now a cab footplate to bridge the gap to the tender. It is attached to the boiler and is hinged.





Footplate held up with tweezers.















Apparently there is something poisonous in the tender. I guess it is bad to eat coal.













They have done quite a few things different from their norm. Overall it is quite well made. I have not run it yet but for a lap around my track to prove it works.

Thanks Tom, now I see it better "nein trinkwasser".

Thanks for the review.

I note the front of loco bit open at last picture.

On picture 4 in post #1 you can see two holes. Maybe the two small pegs should be in those holes - and the gap will be closed.

That was fast Tom, you saw and posted even before my edit of post #6 timed out and showed as an edit at the bottom of the post.

Removal is part of the instructions. I am not sure why it is there, you are looking into a black hole and the headlamps are LEDs that would not leak light into the boiler.

This is a beautiful lok, Matt, and so great to see the details,
all the way to the footplate between the tender and lok moving up and down.

I see these DR loks and often wonder if one could get away with this livery if modeling the DR in the DRG around 1955.
Would they have written out the name in full at that time, or ever lettered in capitals; "DR" on the loks as they did on cars.

- Mark

Hi Mark, I was going back over the first post and saw "Deutsche Reichbahn" on the side of the cab and freaked out for a moment, I always see Deutsche Bundesbahn on my lokos, then I quickly remembered this is era 3 DDR and not the DRG. I am not sure how the DR lettered their wagens since this is my first, but it appears wagens, both freight and passenger, got "DR" and the lokos received "Deutsche Reichbahn."

There was a simple political reason: after WW II the allied forces agreed that the Deutsche Reichsbahn was responsible for the railway traffic in all four sectors of Berlin.
If they had changed the name, this would have led to new negotiations - and they might have lost their control of railway traffic in Western Berlin.

I was told at the Treff in September that it would have the old decoder. The new decoders will not come fitted to locos until next year. I expect the new decoder to be a 'feature' of some locos in the NI brochure.

Not everyone wants to run them with smoke.

I find the smoke generated by model locos to be unrealistic and to me it spoils the illusion of reality instead of enhancing it.

We are told that smoke generators should not be run "dry" so if every loco came with one installed I would be forced to open up the loco to remove it before using the loco.

You are right Tom,
meant to say GDR or DDR.
Yes, I am trying to keep things within two to three years either way of 1955 for now.
Although I have several locomotives outside that range, anything that uses a livery that was current or old locomotives or rolling stock that while antiquated still ran on the rails at the time would seem suitable to me, would it not?

I am looking, here, primarily at what East and West Germany would have felt and looked like in 1955 to 1959-ish...
...prior to the wall going up at this leg of my layout.

So yes, the BR 01.5 would have to wait a bit for photos and film clips of the layout if I follow my own system.

Very interesting fact, btw, about the DR running locomotives in the four sectors of Berlin, and the reason for keeping the name in full.
However, there were more modern locomotives with DR on them. When, or what date, would it have changed to DR initials?

- Mark