On the (t)rail of history: Heritage train on one of Norway's most spectacular Railways

My wife took me by surprise when she suggested we should join a heritage train ride this weekend on the Rauma Railway, which is one of Norway's most scenic and spectacular ones. Of course I couldn't resist. I'm not only into model railways, but like to study the prototype as well. Besides this travel is in an area with a lot of WW2 history. She is a keep!

The train ride started in Hamar, which is the town where the Norwegian Railway Museum is located. This heritage train ride was arranged by the Railway Museum, and the motive power of the day to pull the old coaches was a 1958 Nohab Di.3 diesel. A really Classic:

Maps like this was signposted in all of our old coaches, and also presented some few facts about Norway in different languages. It seems like our population was 'less than half' back then:

I've marked our trip on the map; It began in Hamar in the south and went up through Gudbrandsvalley to the mountain at Dombås, before going down the Rauma valley to Åndalsnes, then returning the same way. A trip taking some 11 hours through different and spectacular scenery and changing weather conditions:

Shortly after departing Hamar:

A short stop at Vinstra on the way up to the mountain pass at Dombås:

Dombås is a mountain pass between Southern and Northern and Eastern and Western parts of Norway and an important road and railway junction. Dombås was strategically important during the battle of Norway in april 1940. It was held with combined Norwegian and British forces, but the Germans tried to capture Dombås by using Paratroopers for the first time during WW2. The German Paratroopers landed to scattered and lost the airplanes with their heavier weapons. Even if it came to heavy fighting, the German mission failed and the Paratroopers were eventually captured. Due to this the Germans heavily bombed Dombås and Rauma valley. Since the Norwegians managed to secure Dombås, The Norwegian King and Crownprince could also be evacuated by train passing Dombås.

This train had a bistro-coach:

Our lunch: 

After passing the highest point at Dombås, we continued at the Rauma branch line on our way down to Åndalsnes. Now the weather drastically changed into winter:

Further down the Rauma valley there were less snow again:

There were a lot of battle actions through the Rauma valley in april 1940 as well. The Norwegian gold reserves was evacuated from the Germans from Oslo 1940, and transported by train to Åndalsnes to finally evacuate it by ships. The Germans kept bombing Åndalsnes very heavily and the 'gold train' was withdraw to Romsdalshorn station to get some protection against the aerial attacks by the steep mountain there; Trollveggen. At the station 49 tons of gold was eventually reloaded onto trucks and transported to Molde by road and eventually evacuated by British ships. I've seen the reloading scene modeled a couple of times in H0 on Norwegian layouts:

A couple of photos I took from the 'Gold Train' display at Romsdalshorn station during a motorcycle trip in the summer of '23:

Both these actions could serve as inspiration to create wargaming scenarios. Coincidentally Mark at the Man of Tin blog also made a post about using the evacuation of the King and gold as inspiration for scenarios using his newly painted combined Norwegian 1940 Infantry/ Star Wars Hoth Rebels this weekend. A very interesting project I recommend you to visit and read:

That's the brief history lessons for now. Time to continue down the valley to Åndalsnes:

This is at Åndalsnes Railway station at sea level. The 'Golden Train' in the background is a tourist train taking mainly cruises passengers to Bjorli and back in spectacular scenery and telling the important war history from this area:

Back at Hamar later in the evening:

It's always difficult to film a train in which you ride yourself. -But I've found a YouTube-Channel where the user sthalvardsgt had uploaded 3 videos of this train while running:

Perhaps about time to take a look at the movie Gold Run again. 

From Indiana Jones to Garden Railways

One of my all time favorite movies are 'Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the lost Ark', and I think that's the movie I've seen most times ever (in my youth). One of the best action scenes from that movie, which is also considered as one of the most epic ones and rated as one of the best ever action scenes is 'the (truck) desert chase'-scene. - No CGI and the music is perfectly synchronised to the scenes:

One of the key and main items in this scene is the German Cargo Truck. In my (early) youth I thought it was a 'Germanized' fictional vehicle, like many (German) vehicles from periodic movies were at the time. I've later found that it was closer to it's prototype than I believed. 

The Prototype 

The prototype and inspiration for the truck in the movie was the (actual) Mercedes Benz LG3000.

Years of production: 1935-1938

Overall production: 7434

Engine: Diesel Daimler-Benz OM67 95hp/2000rpm, 

Weights:

Open cargo body: own - 5700kg, gross: 8500kg

Closed cargo body: own - 6000kg

Maximal trailer weight: 2000kg

Maximal speed: 53 km/h

Fuel tank capacity: 112 Ltr.

Fuel consumption (Diesel):

30 Ltr/100km (highway), 45 Ltr/100km (offroad)

Ford depth: 600mm

These trucks were used by the German Wehrmacht and Reichsbahn (and others) and some of them were transferred to Norway and used by the German occupation forces between 1940 - 45. These photos shows a truck being loaded onto a ship in Danzig for transport to Norway 1941:

These photos shows LG3000 trucks in Norway:

The Mercedes-Benz LG3000 was later developed into the more famous 2 axle L3000-series with steel cab, which was produced between 1938 - 44 in a number of 33 265.

The Movie Truck

The earlier 'LG3000' truck used in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the lost Ark' however was a faithful representation mocked upon an American GMC CCKW truck:

3 such 'replica' trucks were made by Charlie Mann in UK, 2 which he kept in his own museum. More photos of them can be seen on the Miliblog:

The Movie Truck from 'Raiders of the lost Ark':

The Model 

Soon the Cargo Truck from Indiana Jones became a popular toy, and an icon to market Indiana Jones toys:

This was supposedly planned for 2025, but cancelled:

Both Kenner and Hasbro later made models of the truck to about 1:18 scale to match their action figures:

Kenner:

Hasbro:

Of the 2 different latter models I think the Hasbro model has captured the 'movie truck' and the original LG3000 best. Anyhow both of them has become 'Collectors Items' and costs hundreds of $$, ££ or €€ (in various conditions)... 

- Especially in pristine condition and with a box.

For Garden Railways 

Being 1:18 scale they're both pretty close to my 1:19 scale military Garden Railways and military train rakes. So it would be nice to have one as a 'car load'. On the other hand; Paying hundreds of $$, ££ or €€ for a single model (to only be used as a load) was out of the question. They are also very unusual in Norway so even more $, £, € would have to be added to the shipping costs. 

One day I was coincidentally browsing a Norwegian online market when I spotted an add with not only one, but three unboxed Hasbro Cargo Trucks. The biggest surprise was that the seller was only charging £ 11,70/ $ 15,59/ or € 13,53 each, which I considered as a real find for these 'collectors items'. I didn't mind if they were unboxed (as I'm not going to use the box anyway). I've initially only wanted one to use as a carload for my military garden trains, but for the price requested it was a no-brainer to buy all three of them:

The seller was really fast sending them too, so it looked like I'd be able to load a car or two with them for our next Garden Railway running session coming up very soon. When receiving them I saw that they were not in pristine condition, and it looked like they had been heavily used as outdoor toys as they're made of durable plastic. I'm not sure if they'd belonged to an extremely lucky kid, or just another adult outdoor military modeller as my self. I didn't mind their condition either as I didn't buy them to collect but to use as military train loads, and these only looked perfectly weathered the natural way:

One of them was missing a headlight, so I sourced a free STL-file for one on Cults 3D and just 3D-printed a new headlight for the truck:

To see if they would fit any of my (mostly LGB) flatcars, I tried to load them on some flatcars I painted earlier this year:

Being used outdoors as toys they haven't aged well, and they show some color alterations. I haven't quite decided yet to repaint them or just keep them as is as such alterations also occurs in real life (perhaps someone has some advice or suggestions in the comment section?). Besides I do have little time for painting and hobbies these days as a little gardening seems required, and there are perfect weather conditions for such now.

Time will show... 

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Blog PostScript 

What a blog coincidence happened today. While I was posting this today Mark at the 'Man of Tin' blog was posting another blogpost on Raiders miniatures used by Steven Spielberg in a scene mock up, and on the Snap-Kit set.

I've found even more photos of MPC's Snap-kit with painted miniatures which can be seen on this Facebook page. 

A photo from the Facebook page