About us

Gauge 1 is gaining more and more popularity as heavy metal models with the finest mechanics move noisily and sometimes steaming over realistic tracks. It's not just a "model railway", it's 32 times reduced railway models that come as close as possible to the original. Gauge 1 is perfect for older eyes and stands for true technical fascination.

That's why I decided years ago to go for gauge 1, despite the restrictions that have to be accepted for space reasons. They challenge a model builder to find clever solutions and motifs – apart from financial challenges.

Behind me lies the probably typical career of a railway enthusiast: 1960 the first Märklin railway. About 1969 I switched to more detailed H0 DC models.

In the 1980s I built the Öchsle (Warthausen - Ochsenhausen) narrow gauge line in H0 close to the prototype and partly according to original plans, which attracted attention in German and English magazines. At the same time the first LGB was created as a playground in the garden, before the former importer introduced me to the American 1:29 models of REA, later Aristo-Craft. I introduced their FA/FB engines and some cars on 45 mm gauge in the eisenbahn magazin.

I built filigree H0n3 models of the Denver & Rio Grande Western from American kits for a 10.5 mm gauge layout that was never built, collected a few H0m models of the Bernina Railway as well as American N-models and then built a garden railroad on which standard gauge trains ran alternately in 1:29 and narrow gauge trains in 1:20.3 - a good test field in my work since 2003 for the Gartenbahn profi magazine, which I co-developed and managed as Editor-in-Chief for four years.

I am not only a railway freak, but also a photographer and author. 1969 - I was only 16 years old - my first article about the Trossinger Eisenbahn, a private shortline, appeared in the Fleischmann-Kurier, then I wrote many articles for Lok Magazin, eisenbahn magazin, Continental Modeler, and others.

My administrative diploma thesis at the University of Konstanz dealt with line closures at the Deutsche Bundesbahn. At that time the "economically optimal network" was discussed; one of the many nonsensical concepts of German transport policy.

In 1977 I wrote the first history of Irish railways to appear in German-speaking countries for Lok Magazin. In 1985 I designed and published the illustrated book "Waggons im Werk" about the Bundesbahn repair shop in Paderborn, which is now considered a classic. In 1992 "Modellbahn-Gebäude und Straßen" was published, also in Spanish and French. Cooperation with the eisenbahn magazin and the ZUG-Magazin of Deutsche Bundesbahn, contributions about international railways and models in Lok Magazin, Continental Modeller, Bahn und Modell, Fleischmann-Kurier, Roco Report and Eisenbahn-Kurier.

In 2015 my book "111 Gründe, die Eisenbahn zu lieben" (111 Reasons to Love the Railway) was published with the ironic subtitle "A Handbook for Ferro-Equinologists, Buffer Kissers and All Other Lovers of the Wheel-Rail System". What are Ferro Equinoxes? Lovers of steel horses, vulgo steam locomotives.

My railway photo archive with photos of German and foreign railways, stations in southwest Germany, trams and industrial railways was created since 1966 and contains well over 100,000 photos.

My main occupation was an editor and freelancer with a focus on technology at German business magazines and newpapers such as Handelsblatt, Wirtschaftswoche, VDI-Nachrichten, FAZ, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Focus and MDR Radio and Television - to name the most important.

Today I am still a specialist author for companies in the railway industry and familiar with current and future developments in mobility, from new rail vehicles and train protection systems to digital solutions for networked passenger and freight transport by rail and road.

Spur1info went online in April 2012 and is appreciated by readers from many countries as an up-to-date, truthful and independent online magazine. It is the world's only 1-gauge magazine on the Internet. Since the end of 2014, elaborate articles have only been available by subscription. Every year I publish about 250 articles in German and English as well as 2,500 to 3,000 unique high quality photos. International guest authors also enrich spur1info.

Friedhelm Weidelich
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief