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This may seem like a strange place to post this but I stumbled upon another model railroad forum (here) based in Germany that is devoted to American model railroading. I was doing a Google search looking for images of old signs and came across it.  If you took high school German and remember anything (I did and I don't, or at least not much) you can see the great interest there is in Germany in modeling our railroads. I always thought of this hobby as being pretty provincial but I guess not. For some strange reason I have found this forum fascinating to look through. Looking at the dates posted it's not super-active, but apparently there is a contingent of Germans who are really unto us.

 

So anyway, supposedly on this site there is a link to pages upon pages of old sign imagery that can be downloaded and printed out. I haven't found it yet (my German is very rusty) but if anyone knows of a source, let me know. I seem to be zeroing in on the early 1960's as the era in which my layout will be set and signs from that time period would be helpful.

 

Last edited by Former Member
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I just have been going through the site. They had over 400 vistors or guests and 56 members on line today.  Posting a link on there forum will be easy. Athough most are into N and HO which would be expected for Germany. I did come across G scale. So I am sure O Gauge is in there. My German is not so rusty having been stationed  and lived on the economy in  Germany for 15 years with the Army(I returned to the states in 2009) and still watch some german tv stations through my laptop and get the German football league on cable.so I am good. I also found that some of their members have posted many links to US sites. tommorw I will explore it more from my laptop.

Doug

There was a large scale sub-forum on there which covered basically everything bigger than HO - all the way up to 7 1/4" gauge outdoor trains.  Almost all the O scale posts that I saw there were related to On30, except for one guy who was looking for a place to buy O standard gauge 2 rail flex track.  When I was last in Germany, in 2012, I found a hobby shop in Duesseldorf that had an assortment of O scale - both Euro and USA.  That would be Menzels Lokshuppe.  I bought a few things there, but the shipping back to the US almost exceeded what I paid for the goods (one item was heavy).

Originally Posted by xrayvizhen:

This may seem like a strange place to post this but I stumbled upon another model railroad forum (here) based in Germany that is devoted to American model railroading. I was doing a Google search looking for images of old signs and came across it.  If you took high school German and remember anything (I did and I don't, or at least not much) you can see the great interest there is in Germany in modeling our railroads. I always thought of this hobby as being pretty provincial but I guess not. For some strange reason I have found this forum fascinating to look through. Looking at the dates posted it's not super-active, but apparently there is a contingent of Germans who are really unto us.

 

So anyway, supposedly on this site there is a link to pages upon pages of old sign imagery that can be downloaded and printed out. I haven't found it yet (my German is very rusty) but if anyone knows of a source, let me know. I seem to be zeroing in on the early 1960's as the era in which my layout will be set and signs from that time period would be helpful.

 

 Are you looking for US signs? There was a longrunning thread over on the model railroader forum a while back that featured tons of old US commercial signage. I'll see if I can find it.

Originally Posted by ddurling:
Originally Posted by xrayvizhen:
Yes - US signs. If you find it, let me know.

 

 Are you looking for US signs? There was a longrunning thread over on the model railroader forum a while back that featured tons of old US commercial signage. I'll see if I can find it.

 

Last edited by Former Member

Ditto on finding old U.S. signs...I, too, look for those, if free...and for a better variety

than many of the commercial ones.  I know enough German to get around the country

in a car and stay in zimmer frei (bed and breakfasts), but that would not be enough

to hack it on that website.  Since I like exploring Europe, I always am glad to see

Europeans exploring America as good international relations.  I have encountered German tourists on a backroad in Death Valley, have read of their interest in American western history, and of a German family vanishing in Death Valley, which is best visited this time of year!! when we, in much of the country, are all standing in snowdrifts.  I would suspect they mostly model western American railroading for that reason, but????

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