Perports to be a track level video of the hans Pieter Porsche layout. Haven't had a chance to look at it myself yet, so don't know what the quality and content is like. Around 25 minutes long, if you have some spare time ...

Hi John. We agree 150% about the signals. There's nothing more Un-profi to me than a train roaring thru a red light! Well, the driver should be fired

immediately! I never noticed that about the K-track. Quite true. I'll have to put this place, I believe it's near Munich?, on my list for visiting too. Thanks, Peter.

People in Porsches don't worry about red lights do they?

Maybe my 28 years working on the 'real' railway has made me jaundiced and picky and I am sure that when, and if, I ever get my Marklin railway fully up and working, the technicalities will be perfect and the scenery will be rubbish. This railway is the opposite - the scenery is wonderful and the scale is unimaginable to the average modeller but the technicalities, from my point of view, let it down.

Seeing it almost from track level is very challenging and any layout will show some deficiencies when taken from that angle, never mind one on this scale. Also, I doubt that the average visitor to this venue will notice anything that I and the other contributors have had reason to comment on but here are the observations of this 67-year old 'grumpy old man'.

Like some other commentators, I am into signalling. From what I could see some effort has been made to put signals in the right place, it is just a pity that so few were doing anything but showing red and the few that were in the clear position were mostly showing the wrong clear aspect! Also what happened to the Vorsignalen (distant signals)? I saw one in each direction for the whole 25 minutes and yet no real railway could possibly operate without them.

There were several instances where the train had to push points over because they were set in the wrong position. While this may be deliberate to save a point motor on a set of points that will never be approached in the 'splitting' direction it doesn't look very professional and could be a derailment risk.

Generally speaking, it looks as if the signalling, comprehensive as it is, is just left with signals in a random mixture of stop and go positions with no relationship to how the trains are actually operating.

I too noticed the rather abrupt transitions between sections of track but strangely the train did not jolt too badly when it encountered one. There was far more wobbling about when the loco's pantograph (I assume) became snagged on the overhead wires (although it might have been the camera that was 'out of gauge').

There was a mixture of Viessmann/new Marklin and Sommerfeldt overhead wires and masts. While each has its plus and minus points and neither looks truly prototypical because you just can't scale it down by a factor of 1:87 and expect it to have any strength, my view is that overall the Viessmann/Marklin looks better because I don't like the soldering that goes with Sommerfeldt. However that it purely a personal opinion. More importantly in the context of this critique, is that the person responsible for providing the wiring should have gone on course Overhead System Design 101 because there was so much where a fundamental lack of understanding of how it works in the real world was apparent.

There seems to be a common view that masts are always placed the same distance apart. This gives difficulties, particularly on curves, and there were dozens of places on the layout where the overhead wire took a graceful curve to follow the track. This is of course impossible in reality where the wire is under a tension of several tons - it always goes in a straight line and registration arms and pull-off's are placed to keep the wire in the correct place above the track. This means that where there are curves the spacing of the masts is always shorter than on straight track. Both Viessmann and Sommerfeld have all the accessories to allow this to be modelled correctly so it is not a case of having no choice as with the old Marklin kit. And as for section overlaps (where one run of overhead wire meets the next), some inconsistent attempts had been made to model these but they were all the wrong way round.

OK - End of rant!! Let me finish by saying that if my railway looks half as good as this I shall be well pleased. It is just that I feel that someone with so much money and resources at his disposal could have done better.

Just my opinion!!

Here's an article I published in our Club magazine, which was written by one of our members who visited 'TraumWerk' (as the layout is known).

TraumWerk.pdf (1,822kb) downloaded 66 time(s).

Have mercy with the technicians, please. While I visited HP Traumwerk in January, 2nd 2017, they were searching a new technician with special knowledges for a digital model railroad layout and its controlling. Just for fun, I asked, if I should apply for this job. They answered me that they really have a severe problem. They employed already several technicians for this job. But after a short time they all quit. The digital control of the layout were to complicate to them. I understand it and I think this red signal problem is not really their major problem, as long as there are no crashes. Of course it is not align with the real life, but it is a MRR. And Perhaps till your visit, they solved the problem.

The complete layout was designed and built by BRIMA.

Brima general:
http://www.modellanlagenbau.de/

Taumwerk layout
http://www.modellanlagenbau.de/anlage-287/

pictures of the weekly report, while the layout was under construction
http://www.modellanlagen...287-wochenberichte-2013/

I had a chance to talk with Brima at the IMA days 2015 in Goeppingen, where they had a large fair stand. They told me, that for the Traumwerk they only used K-tracks from Maerklin with special cork forms. There at the moment I use C- and M-tracks, it was not my top priority to get detailed information about this cork construction. But they also will do constructions in C-tracks, if somebody prefers them.

Perhaps the pictures may help you for K-tracks constructions. Please be aware that behind each “weekly picture report” you find many more pictures about the construction.

Indeed, from the central station Salzburg/Austria to the Traumwerk by car it is 20 kilometers. From the central station in Munich to the Traumwerk by car it is 130 kilometers.

But here you find a description, how to get there by train.

Hans-Peter Porsche Traumwerk by train

As I understand it, very late in the build HPP took the decision to change the digital control system that controls the layout, and this has lead to a lot of problems with the layout.

For me the layout is well worth the visit and is excellent, not perfect, but then name a layout which is....................

And now another shameless plug of my video of this great layout for those who have not seen it