"Spalter Bockl" Train Set

It was once in use all over Bavaria: The "Bockerl"or in Franconian German called the "Bockl", rustic local railroad trains that opened up the flat country with small steam locomotives and good old wooden class cars. In order to make the costly steam operations there as rational as possible, the thrifty Royal Bavarian State Railways developed a quite special locomotive class around 1900. It had a large cab with many windows and a half self-supporting pellet firing for single man operation. These locomotives designated as the "Glaskasten" or "Glass Box" locomotives. They turned in very good results and were soon found on many Bavarian branch lines. They were also found on the "Spalter Bockl", a seven kilometer / a 4.37 mile line in the Franconian hops country stretching from Georgensgmünd Spalt. This "Bockl" native was like its engineer of many years Karl Ammon deeply rooted in the population. According to legends, Ammon is supposed to have even stood on the front "balcony" of his Glaskasten to convey manure to his fields along the railroad. The Märklin model railroaders will certainly not do this with the new detailed "Bockl" train. However, it illustrates perfectly a romantic episode in German railroad history, which came to an end irrevocably in 1962 with the retirement of the last Glaskasten, road number 98 307.