Like many other youngsters I received my first starter train set one Christmas so long ago that I can’t remember the details but for the fact that I still have it. I was 7 or 8 and the bright red box that it came in still holds a special place in my fondest childhood memories. The box set was from Kleinbahn, an Austrian toy train manufacturer who focused on OBB reproductions and this set consisted of a dark green E 1280 Lokomotive, two wagons, a small selection of sectional track (with which to make an oval) and a bright red transformer. That was how it all started for me.

After our family moved into a larger home I managed to commandeer a storage space underneath our front foyer for my very first permanent railroad. With the help of my dad work began on the HiLand Railroad in a small unfinished room with a low ceiling, concrete floor and very poor lighting – I loved it and probably spent more waking hours in that tiny room than any other!

I learned so much building the HiLand RR with my father. What my dad didn’t know or couldn’t teach me we both figured out together. It was a wonderful experience. Below you’ll find my diagram of the original HiLand RR as published in Model Railroader Magazine in their August 1981 issue.

Ikea, cars, girls, university, law school, a wife, children, R/C cars and scale model slot cars proved too much of a distraction to find the time to unpack my Kleinbahn, until now.

Along the way I also collected and built a small european N scale layout as well as a tiny ON30 short line shelf layout. But those together with a G scale garden railway will have to wait until my Kleinbahn is finished. More on all those plans to come…

Kleinbahn Explained

Click here for a brief history of Kleinbahn and relevant links.