Inside the Dresden Transport Museum in Germany, there is a beautiful model railroad layout. It is an amazing O gauge model railway layout measuring more than 300 square meters. There is also a train collection of the finest scale models that were built in the German Democratic Republic. Yes, we are talking about the old GDR, also known as East-Germany.
Then, this railroad layout was built as a teaching system for young railway engineers for learning the rail transport traffic. In a playful way, those railway engineers used the O scale model railroad trains to simulate the railway operation.
They had to learn about the operation of multiple trains on the same railway line or on a large rail transport system. Using model trains they learned about the signalling control, the process by which control is exercised over train movements by way of railway signals and block systems to ensure that trains operate safely, over the correct route and to the proper timetable.
Many years later, when the German Democratic Republic still existed, this train layout was installed inside Dresden Transport Museum. Today, it is a typical model train show which is very popular with the inhabitants of Dresden.
When Pilentum visited the Dresden Model Railroad Museum he used a GoPro Hero 3 camera inside the diesel locomotives pulling freight cars. And, a second camera was installed on the right side of a passenger car. Thus these cab ride video recordings were made.
Normally, the operation of multiple trains on the same layout is made easy due to DCC, digital command control. But at the Dresden Model Railroad Museum diesel locomotives, electric locomotives and steam locomotives do not have a DCC decoder inside. In Dresden, they are using the famous Gahler + Ringstmeier system - a block control system - which allows you to control each train individually. There are still model trains in analogue mode but they are controlled by a computer system.
Today, there are approximately 30 locomotives and 115 coaches, mostly unique models or individual constructions corresponding to the railroad history of the GDR. There are heavy-weight locomotives generating a unique, unmistakable sound.
