BlueBrixx Train Humpback Dining Trolley Rheingold DB Set 101344

BlueBrixx's Humpback Dining Car Rheingold DB is a BlueBrixx-Specials model built from 513 blocks. Age 14+. No stickers or prints. Instructions are supplied as a free download after registering.

The hump is the kitchen

The raised section in the roof is what gives the Buckelspeisewagen its name, and it sits over the kitchen rather than over the dining saloon.

A railway kitchen has a problem no restaurant kitchen has: it is in a sealed steel tube moving at speed, with coal or gas ranges running for hours. The heat and the smell have to go somewhere, and opening a window at 100 km/h is not an option.

Raising the roof over that section creates a plenum — a volume of air above head height where heat collects — with ventilators along the top to draw it out. It also lets the cooks stand upright under extraction hoods, which a normal carriage roof does not allow once you have fitted ranges and a serving hatch.

The stepped roofline is therefore a plumbing decision made visible, and it is the fastest way to identify a dining car in a photograph from the period.

Check the length before you build a train

BlueBrixx has made Rheingold carriages in two sizes. This one belongs to the shorter series with sets 101341 and 103049. The four-axle cars marked (8w) — sets 104284, 104286 and 104287 — are 50.5 cm long and will not sit correctly alongside these.

In the BlueBrixx range

Sets 101341 and 103049 are the passenger cars of this generation. Set 104287 is the dining car of the larger series.

Specifications

Pieces: 513 · Series: BlueBrixx-Specials · Age: 14+ · No stickers · Instructions as free download