Oh, what do you mean, 'late'? Hah! Five days is plenty!

So, what is the contest this time? Ah: "Take a car, old or new, (the junkier, the better) and bash it into something else."

A car to begin with - check. An old, junky passenger car from some old train set.
Something else to bash it into - this will be an improvised signal box. Something else, after all, doesn't limit this to running cars, right?

What has been done: Disassembling the car, building a structure for it to stand on (random block of wood and bits of styrene) and stairs to reach it (scratchbuilt from bits of styrene). Painted a little bit.
What next? Detailing, painting, installing lights, adding a sign with the name of the accompanying station.

Love it!
Ralph

The photo is a bit dark, but from what I see, the paint on the sides looks good just like it is! Old and weather beaten...

The BR94 pulls a pair of cattle cars past the signal box up towards the Irgendheim sausage factory. Or something.

Although it's daytime, someone thought it'd be a good idea to turn on the lights inside. (the varnish made the windows a bit more opaque which nicely hides the big LED inside).

An interesting fact is that at the moment there is no signalling on the layout. That will probably follow eventually when the crews get tired of the crashes.

As for the history of the signal box - earlier Irgendheim had a beautiful old signal box built in the 1890's when the town got it's railroad. You know, the classic German fachwerk-style everyone loves. Well, due to unfortunate circumstances in recent years the upper part was damaged irrepairably, so just like in many other places an old car was put into use as a temporary signal box. Coincidentally, the honour fell upon this car which happened to have visited Irgendheim since the line was first opened.

Lovely! A minitrix car from a starter set I think, I used to have a few of them, as a matter of fact, somewhere in my attic is a box with all my mostly german prototypes N scale stuff, time for a dusting off to see what still works.... :-) I model HO US now.

Verrrry Eeenterrresting, but I think it's trying to "signal" something....

Now that is inventive! That's absolutely 8-)

Thanks.

Indeed, Minitrix it is. I have three sets worth of these cars and thought that one could be sacrificed. The rest happily waits to be used for repaint experiments and such. A shame that there is room for only so many converted old passenger cars on the layout.