Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

"Dear Mister Beck, Thank you for being our guest. We welcome you with flowers from our garden and wish you a pleasant stay.  Please let us know if we can make your stay even more special. Your Engimatt Team" I do like Hotel Engimatt in Zurich   in case you haven't noticed yet . Very friendly atmosphere.

It's hot. 35+C outside, and over 30C inside. A perfect weather for short cake, whipped cream and fresh strawberries, topped off with coffee.

While the FiNescale modules took up a lot of space in the gym, there was plenty of space for the N-RE arrangement, too. N-RE is more prototype operations-focused with more or less unmodified rolling stock. I originally planned to spend the afternoon with that group. However, due to a shortage of operators on the FiNescale side, I stuck with FiNescale for running trains.  Mariensee station with the line schedule. Pretty busy. Kaltental is a nicely done module with great scenery There was an abundance of little scenes in fantastic detail. Keeping paperwork organized is even more important in N than in HO, since recovery from a dropped back of cards, or cards that are not kept in sequence with the cars, will require quality time with a magnifying glass... Only when I went through my photos the next day did I realize that I didn't take any photos of the ingenious movable flextrack bridges used in several staging yards on the layout. The Alternative is the more traditional staging yard...

It's the weekend of the spring FREMO FiNescale meet in Waiblingen, Germany, and I happen to be visiting my parents this week. A lucky coincidence. I was able to join the meet for a day. The gym is a good size, 3 standard basketball courts side-by-side. There were two module arrangements, a large FiNescale arrangement with Belgian and German modules with operations across the border, as well as a Fremo N-RE arrangement operating a rather dense branch line schedule. Fremo arrangements are operated with scheduled trains following prototype practices and a fast clock. The schedule is created for each meet based on the modules that have signed up. Here's an example schedule from a few years ago . I spent most of the day operating on the FiNescale arrangement. My first assignment was a railbus out of Wasserburg am InN . The module is an exact to scale rendition of the Wasserburg/Stadt station, obviously a work in progress, but looking great already and it operates well, too. A littl...

It's important to have an appropriate selection of rolls for breakfast.

We went for a walk this afternoon when it cooled down to stretch our legs and shake off my jet lag. First, we went up the hill to the top of the old quarry, and then looped around it down to the river Rems. To cool off, upstream some boys and girls associated with the local youth fire department were jumping into river in their work clothes with lots of screaming and splashing. That and the occasional bicyclist were the only noises disturbing the concert provided by birds and insects. The old mill on the opposite bank was nicely framed by trees. Yes, it's very green here. I'm just not used to trees this green and this dense anymore.

On the way to the bakery to pick up freshly baked goods, I took a small detour to use the morning light for a photo of the old townhall ("Altes Rathaus"). Across the street, the "Don't poop here" sign has been upgraded, too.

I'm home for the weekend.  The transfer at LHR Terminal 5 went through with no issues. I still don't like how Heathrow provides gate information only on short notice. My boarding pass had door closing at 15:20, but the departure signs in the main hall didn't show a gate for flight 920 until 15:05 and it takes about 20 minutes to get from security to gate B39 at the very end of the B gates building. I later found out it was because the plane arrived late, but there was no information readily available in the departure hall. ... and the obligatory arrival photo in Stuttgart.

Time for the next trip. I'm trying out British Airways flight 278 from San Jose to London. So far, so good. I got to the airport early enough to grab a salad for early dinner. There will be food on the flight, but I expect that they will serve 1-2 hours into the flight, which is still several hours away. ... and when I got to the gate, there was a film crew doing ... something.