Three Stations To Enjoy
Above is a model of Bad Bentheim station. It is manufactured by Busch ...
... and will cost you between 90 and 100 Euro! Here is the platform side of the model ...
.... and here it is, for real.
... has been poshed up a bit with a large glazed extension ...
... and new front doors!
Then we have Neuenhaus which once looked like this ...
... and now looks completely different.
But it does have buses stopping alongside.
Both these stations are in Germany.
Then we visit Coevorden, which once looked like this ...
... and latterly like this ...
... but now looks quite different.
Its former car park ...
... has been repurposed as a bus station ...
... with a huge and very full bike rack. The bikes should give you a clue.
We are now in the Netherlands.
Bit if we look at a rail diagram from NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) we note, confusingly ...
... that there is no coloured line between Coevorden (upper left) and Bad Bentheim (lower right) and no Neuenhaus which would be the middle point of such a route.
So what is going on?
Well this is going on - a sample from a list of train times between Bad Bentheim and Neuenhaus.
... along with four intermediate stops.
In case you wondered, in addition to a weekday hourly headway, there is an hourly Sunday service all day with the last departure from Bad Bentheim at 2009.
Explanations and explorations will follow.
Caveat Emptor!
This picture appears on-line captioned as Bad Bentheim station in 1910 celebrating an opening or possibly a reopening.
It is also captioned for celebrations at Neuenhaus! Almost certainly the former.
Thanks For The Tanks
And can you spot the differences?
They are all of the same type f wagon, namely a TTA fuel tanker.
The Shell (grey) and the Shell (yellow) are both Hornby, a model whose design has been unchanged since 1973 and until recently remained in the Hornby catalogue. The yellow wagon was one of several varieties sold without its ladders!
The Fina (silver) is by Bachmann and is a superior model.
The BP (green) is the completely new model from Hornby and is the best for detail by far.
In all cases you will come across several different liveries.
fbb should also mention that the new Hornby model comes with a small bag containing two mysterious pipes ...
... with no instructions as to their function or location on the model. There is also a very finely modelled battery tail light (non working) and there is a bracket on which to position this weeny bit of plastic IF the wagon is the last one in the train.
"The pipes" may be explained in the blurb on the back.of the box, but fbb cannot read it, even with his magnifying glass.
The model is priced at £33.99 on Hornby's web site with postage extra.
The tail light has been fitted!
fbb paid a whole 4p less from Cheltenham Model Shop but postage was FREE - Yippee!
And were TTA wagons ever painted a rather lurid green for BP?
In theory, yes; but they were never kept clean, so green with brown/black adornments.
... but not, fbb suspects, a whole train of them.
More from Bad Bentheim tomorrow.
Next Cross-border blog : Tuesday 30th Jan
Those Citaro buses get everywhere (and I've been on one this morning, too!)
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