Military Train Sets

Mark at the Man of Tin Blog has recently been to Imperial War Museum in London to see the 'Children in War exhibition'. In this connection the museum shop stocked cheap Army Men and a battery powered train set. Since the museum offers products from both Airfix and Corgi, which also has the same owner as Hornby, this has generated some 'chit-chat' in the comment-sections on Mark's blog on why IWM aren't offering Hornby Train sets instead? An argument is off course that the offered train set is more affordable than Hornby's train sets. Then I realized that Hornby actually offers a really affordable train sets in their Playtrains series. They're battery operated, chargable and compatible with OO gauge This is a military museum  and just imagine if Hornby made one of their (Play-) train sets like a military train set with Airfix H0/00 figures and perhaps some of the old Poly vehicles and forts as well. - Arab attack on the railway outside Fort Sahara and the FFL to defend it? Or perhaps German Paratroopers trying to halt and seize the train with the Norwegian gold reserves at Dombås in WW2?? Or a 'Old West' themed set with Cowboys, Indians, Cavakry and Fort Apache???

I really like military trains whatever country or period they're from or scale they're made to. My interests for 'military trains' actually started when I was a kid. Hornby model railways was not very common in Norway when I was young, as Märklin was the dominating brand. - At least in my group of friends. My father was a senior engineer on a ship and used to bring back Hornby train sets and catalogues for me during his trips to Scotland. I was the only one at my school running Hornby trains, and I was happy as they looked about the right size when I ran them in set ups with my Airfix 00/H0 or Esci 1:72 soldiers. Being 00 gauge they were closer to those scales than my friend's H0 trains. In 1982 I remember Dad brought me a new Hornby catalogue with a military train in it:

I immediately wanted this train set as it would work even better with all my small soldiers and all the action features included in the train. Unfortunately my father was not able to find it in any shops on the places he was ashore and I think it was in sale for only 2 years. In the 1983 edition of this train set it seems like the 2 rockets on the tank has been replaced by a giant yellow ball. Probably more child-friendly:

It looks like Hornby's 1982 and 1983 military train set was based upon similar action rolling-stock made by Tri-ang/Hornby available 1966 -71: 

Firing the originally tank rocket launcher and some of the other action features from Tri-ang/Hornby can be seen in this YouTube video:

In 2000 or 2001 Hornby released another limited military train set. This was very different from the 1982 and 1983 releases as it didn't include any of the previous items except for the Class 08 locomotive (but not in the WD livery). In this set you got a couple of tanks, HUMVEES and a couple of Lowmacs to load them on. In the set it was also a handfull of soldiers molded in different colors, a fort and a crane. The pre-ballasted track was by the American Life-Like. The set was clearly aimed for the toy market, and I didn't buy it as it was so far from the 1982 Task Force set:

In 2011 Hornby released another military train set; Codename Strike Force. It was similar to the 'Battle Zone' set from 10 years before, but wit no forts, cranes and with a camouflage painted Hornby 0-4-0 steam instead. A box van was included and the track was by Hornby again. I considered to get this for my sons at the time, but they wanted the Hornby Toy Story 3 set more as this was about the same time the movie came out. I wouldn't get it for my self as it had no resemblance to the 1982-set. I wonder if the soldiers in these 2 sets were the same, and what their origins were?

I've also noticed that there have been a lot of different American military themed train sets. Many are just olive or camouflage painted rollingstock. Among these train sets I think this Bachmann MASH-set from 1983/84 was one of the most interesting ones, being a regular viewer of the show in the 70ies and 80ies.Paper tents and buildings and mountain construction paper. The latter is not very unlike what is offered by German scenic retailers today. The figures was not made for this set, but was regular Bachmann figures in white and green.

In 2019 Bachmann released another military train set in H0; Strike Force. There was no figures, accessories or scenic items in this set:

In 2018 Bachmann Branchline released a more prototypical and less action-oriented military train set i OO gauge. This was a British Ministry of Defense train focusing on military logistics:

Another American H0 train set with more action features was made by COX, later Model Power:

No manufacturers name are listed, but I presume that this set is by COX or Model Power too based on the rollingstock. It included 144 soldiers which mostly looked like Airfix American Infantry in the poses they made for 1:32 scale. These are either 1:72 scale or actual H0 clones:

1983 seems to be a popular year for military train sets. Another action packed military train set in H0 scale that year was by Tyco. In this G.I. Joe set the miniatures seems to be mainly Airfix American Paratroopers. I guess they're clones as all the other accessories in the set seems very cheap. They made a similar themed "H0" slot car set which could be combined with the train set:

The Italian model train manufacturer Lima made a couple of German WW2 military train sets in H0. They didn't include any action features or figures, but the rolling stock was more correctly to the prototypes. The K5 Leopold rail gun was also sold individually, which I actually found for only about £5 on a market.

Check this Video at Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1GusuP69SC/

In the 90ies Lima also offered this military Goods Train set. Perhaps it's supposed to be the munitions-train to the railway gun train above? Again the locomotive was true to the prototype as it was an engine made for service with the German Military forces; WR 200 B 14. 

Nevertheless all these different military train sets, it's the Hornby 1982 Task Action Force R580 which is my absolutely all time high favorite.

Eventually I ended up making my own military train set; One of the very first LGB items I bought was a civilian LGB train set in IIm 1:22,5 scale because the locomotive had an military origin and I thought the rolling stock could be 'militarized' to suit it as well.

When starting on this project I found that the scale of the locomotive was closer to 1:19 scale and therefore 16mm scale/Sm45. The whole process of converting this train set to a military one, the idea behind it and some few words on the prototype can be found on this link: 

From a LGB Starter Set to a 16mm-scale Heeresfeldbahn

Since then I've converted almost 30 LGB wagons into military ones to expand my German military Heeresfeldbahn train rake. All these conversions can be found on this blog under the label Garden Railway . No 'action wagons' like Hornby, just pure logistics. Here are some few of them:

So this is how the train set by LGB should look like I think:

I wonder if LGB will ever make their military locomotives (and rollingstock) in a military livery and perhaps an own military train set? -And I wonder if we'll ever see a re-run of Hornby's 1982 Task Force train set??

Back to the beginning of this blogpost; It would certainly be interesting for the future recruitment to this hobby, if Hornby made this affordable set...

...into something like this...

...or this...

I know many fellow bloggers and wargamers are using ChatGPT to generate (a.i.-) images. The last one in the series above was actually made in Google. Just write that you want to improve a photo in the search field, and search in the A.I. Google tab and upload the photo there. It will generate an A.I. image in something called Nano Banana 2. You can have even more attempts there than with ChatGPT. 

Ironically this affordable trains set range from Hornby costs about twice as much in Norway...
I'll guess I'll have to keep on making my own military trains. -Stay tuned, follow this blog and find out.