Auhagen Building Kitbash; Part 1

Auhagen is a German company that makes some really inexpensive buildings and detail kits.  I've had the Aughagen 14 464 "2 Wohnhauser" kit for a while I thought it would be a good candidate for background/facade building behind the new terminal.

The kit comes with the two building sections already assembled, so some cutting was in order.

I wanted to take advantage of the balconies, but given that these are facades that need to be fairly shallow, I went with an approach that will stagger the walls with the balconies back from ther street.

This building is meant to be a fairly boring apartment building, but I wanted a bit of color as well, so I painted the balconies some alternate colors of blue and green to capture some of the look of what have seemed cool back in the late 1950's or 1960's when this building would have theoretically been designed.   The building itself was painted in a Testor's 'Dark Aircraft Grey' and the window frames were painted with an "aluminum plate' color.

The ground floor sections provided with the kit didn't really work for me in the more commercial/urban environment this building would occupy, so I am scratch-building my own ground floor area using clear acrylic sheeting.

The next step in this project is to add the glazing (window plastic), block out some windows and add 'drapes', add lighting, and complete the exterior and interior commercial facades on the ground floor.  Finally, I will probably add some lighting and signs to the roof top as well.

New Buildings from...Minitrix?

I got a surprise today...Minitrix is making buildings!  Apparently laser-cut structures (which implies card stock rather than plastic) focused on real prototypes in Hamburg Germany!

The main feature is this incredible looking Hamburg station - with that awesome canopy!

Update!  Start saving now as this building does not come cheap.... €329, or about $440 USD at today's exchange rate with the dollar! Yikes!  More info on the Trix site in German.  It is planned to be released in the fourth quarter...so a very expensive surprise from Santa perhaps?

And not to be over-looked are these 'viaduct sections' which seem like they could be incredibly versatile!

There are also several city apartment buildings.  I like the unusual shapes of some of these, although I have no idea where to use it!  I can imagine using many of these to kit-bash into either 'flat fronts' or maybe some taller structures!  Cool stuff!

 

It would have been nice to see a couple of more modern structures in this mix, but I sure do like having a few more choices as the current offerings in this realm have been around for a long time.  Good to see some fresh new faces!

What we don't know at this point is the price!  I'm hoping that there is some economy in the laser cut production process so that we're looking at $20 dollar structures rather than $40 (I sort of expect the large station to be above $100 due just to its apparent size), so not quite convinced yet on how many of these I can take.  Time will tell!

Update:  So the buildings are going to be pricey (sigh, should have known).    For example, the 
66145 "Bausatz Eckstadthaus aus der Gründerzeit" (second from bottom) will be €69.95 ($93 USD) to €59,95 for the more plain 66144 (second from top).  The buildings are planned to be released in the second quarter.

Locomotive Roster: Piko 94207; Ille De France BB 25600

Another video review, this time of a locomotive I covered a bit last month in my post on the "Sad Tale of the Ille de France".    I don't have any new photographs of this locomotive to accompany the video, so it'll be just the presentation of this video review this time.  But I also thought I might use this post to share other thoughts.

Anyway, overall this locomotive from Piko gets a score of 4 out of 5.   There are still plenty available if your are interested.  As an extra bonus, if you are looking for the IDF color scheme these seem to be offered at blow out prices as well!

One thing I don't mention in the video, which I later discovered as I was editing it together, is that it seems that the "Ill de France" livery is being replaced by the "Transilien" brand and livery.  I'm not sure how to feel about that as the 'red, white and blue' are sort of iconic in my opinion (even if not particularly flashy) and having rode at least one line under this color scheme (RER line C from Champ de Mars to Versailles) in (I believe) a Z20500, it will have a special place for me.  The below photo is from 2010.

 

Any rail traveller (in fact, any visitor!) to Paris will likely notice this color scheme.  Here a couple of the BB 25600 'cousins' sit North of Gare du Nord which I shot coming in on the Eurostar from London back in 2004.

In 2011, my son and I had the unique chance to visit Europe to meet up with my parents (my Dad's life-long wish to visit Normandy and a chance for both of my parents to visit Europe [Rome, Venice, Brige, Frankfurt, Paris, and then Normandy] which they have never been to before.  Well, my son and I spent a few days doing some train-spotting in Paris, mostly at Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon, which is honestly a lot of train action for most Americans!  It was a pretty awesome day.  At Gare du Nord another BB17000 (cousin to the BB25600) was captured!