The place is Bacharach, a small walled town on the west bank of the River Rhein (Rhine) in Germany. It is many of the small wine growing towns of the region and is a stop for the boats of both the Köhn-Düsseldorfer and the Bingen-Rudesheimer companies as well as for the many other river cruisers which, together with a great number of freight barges, ply this major waterway along its length between Switzerland and the North Sea.

There is a busy double-tracked railway line along both banks of the river. The eastern side handles most of the freight traffic whilst the other side is given over almost exclusively to passenger traffic. This is traversed by many famous domestic and international 'named' trains.

We now assume a minor incident has occurred on the east bank line and that some of the freight traffic has been temporarily diverted and will therefore make an appearance on the layout.

The layout is based as closely as possible on the prototype and was achieved with the aid of hundreds of photographs shot for me by two members of The German Railway Society namely Steve Mays and Bernard Watkins between 1996 and 1999, plus myself.

All buildings are scratch-built from card, polystyrene or foam board. Track is Peco code 55 and the overhead catenary is Sommerfeldt.