Models and Miniatures exhibition on the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology

What's nice with the Holidays this year is that I finally had some time off for several days in a row. I find visiting museums both interesting and relaxing, so this was a good time to finally visit the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology in Oslo and have a look at their new temporary 'Models and Miniatures' exhibition. I've kind of missed such an exhibition in Norway after Mark wrote about his participation in the exhibition 'Come as you really are'.

The dollhouse in the background is a full size model of the dollhouse in the front. It was large enough to allow kids to play in it 

The original model of the Norwegian Royal Palace as it was planned. Due to economic challenges in Norway at the time only the centerpiece (with a wing each side) was built.

Norwegian toys from the 50ies and as they were made long into the 70ies. The Bobsleigh is still in production in it's original form. I got found memory of these. 

Now we're moving away from the toy-like part of the exhibition to the more model like. Here is a couple of old Airfix kits

The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology has a large collection of models. The airship is a model of the one used by Roald Amundsen (the first guy on South Pole in 1911) to fly over the North Pole in 1926. The Gloster Gladiator is the fighterplane in service when Norway entered WW2 the 9th of April 1940.

Kids (and grown ups as well I suppose) could race  on a pretty large Slot-car race track.

Old Scalextric cars, scenery and catalogues was displayed next to the race track

There was also a display with old and new (er) model railways rolling stock in different scales collected from the different layouts the museum has had through it's history. Too bad many of these layouts doesn't exist anymore

The Nohab H0-model in the foreground is a model from one of the museums 'old' layouts, but is not a really old model. The model of the O gauge steam locomotive in the background on the other hand is a really old one, as it was scratch built for a O gauge model railway at the museum in the mid 50ies. Too bad the layout was scrapped when the museum moved in the mid 80ies, and these items are some few of it remains.

This was an interesting corner of the exhibition as it was dedicated to wargaming in different periodes and genres like historical and fantasy

How wargame miniatures are mainly made with tin moulding at top, plastic injection in the middle, and 3D-printed at the bottom

From the historical display...

...the miniatures looked like to be Prince August in about 40mm

They also had a small display of more modern miniatures in 15mm and 28mm. I actually thought '28mm' was closer to 1:56 scale than to 1:64 scale as the sign states

Ancient miniatures. They looked really good. It was difficult to get good photos of the fantasy miniatures due to bright light and reflections.

When I finally got to visit the Science and Technology museum, it's well worth to look at their other more permanent exhibitions as well:

In 1954 there was made a (not to scale) model of a typical Norwegian industrial society. The model was trafficked with old H0-trains from Märklin. The tracks have been changed, but this layout has actually been in service more or less ever since it was built:

The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology has also bought a 'new' large H0-scaled layout (from a closed automobile museum):

The layout has several different cameos:

I'm not sure which movie this actually is...

Seems that someone's been a good boy or girl this year.

I'm not sure how this exhibition is compared to 'Come as you really are', but perhaps Mark can give a clue? 

The 'Models and Miniatures' exhibition is just a temporary one, but the museum actually plaans to have it open through 2025. -Perhaps even longer....

So if you're in Oslo this year and have som leisure time, I really recommend you to pay the 'Norsk Teknisk Museum' a visit.

The Model, Military or Railway tour of '24 - The Epilogue

It's about 4 weeks since I went on a week and 2600 km tour with my motorcycle visiting air force museums, tank museums, heritage railways and exhibited model railways in Finland and Sweden. If you didn't follow the blogger posts from my trip, I'll add some links to them here:

• Day 1: The Finnish Air Force Museum 
• Day 2: The Finnish Tank Museum and The Finnish Railway Museum 
• Day 3: The House of Model Railways and The Swedish Tank Museum 
• Day 4: Miniature Kingdom and the Swedish Air Force Museum 
• Day 5: Risten - Lakvik heritage railway 

It would be nice to finish off and visit the Norwegian equivalents to them all, but in Norway there is no own Tank or Armored Vehicles Museum. The Norwegian Defence Museum just stock it's collection of vehicles in a store not open to the public. So when there was arranged a military vehicles exhibition in the old camp of the Tank Corps last weekend,  I decided to go. Last time this was arranged in 2019, The Norwegian Armed Forces Museum opened their stores and exhibited their hughe vehicle collection. It was sunny and a nice day for a ride again....

Tankfest '24

When I arrived Trandum camp I was very disappointed. The Armed Forces Museum had just brought out and exhibit some very few of their own vehicles.  The rest of the 'exhibition' was just various military associations displaying thei private military vehicles...

A 'found' reunion with an old acquaintance from my own service

This is a modelling blog, so here is a couple of models too:

A 1:6 scale (RC) Leopard 2 tank in the livery of it's service with the Norwegian Army

A drive able 'model' of a Tiger 1, based upon half a chassis of BV206 tracked vehicle. This is not a model for the 'Rivet Counters'

Not too impressive this time, so I'll ad some photos from the Tankfest '19 instead, as this was far more interesting:

Perhaps Michael at Wargaming with 54mm Toy Soldiers can find some inspiration from these Jeeps when super detailing them?

Luckily the Norwegian Air Force Museum is located just right by this camp, so I decided to go there instead. 

The Air Force Museum at Gardermoen

The Norwegian Air Force Museum did not start off in very impressive premises nor collection:

A 1:72 scale model of the original Air force Museum from 'back in the days'

Today they're located in a brand new building and have a large collection of aircrafts and models related to Norway. They have recently started to display some few vehicles from the Museum of the Armed Force's collection too.

Let's take a look at some of their models too:

Several German aircrafts was left behind after WW2 and entered service in the Royal Norwegian Air Force 

A larger diorama of the base of the Norwegian squadron based on Iceland during WW2 for maritime operations. One of their missions was allied Convoy protection 

Norwegian pilots did not only serve in Norwegian squadrons, but also served in British squadrons during WW2

They also have an own re-make of a old larger diorama that used to be exhibited on the Norwegian Armed Forces Museum in Oslo, which was kind of inspiring me to go into model making when I was a kid. The diorama shows a lot of different scenes from a WW2 forwarded airfield on the continent:

These markings were based upon Norwegian pre-war markings, but were not approved during WW2. 

Ground forces on the firing range...

...and during basic training.

This is a model of 'Little Norway' which was training facilities in Canada for the Norwegian Air Force during WW2.

Too bad I forgot to take photos from the Museum Shop this time as they have several kits there, mostly of aircrafts, but some Cobi armored vehicles as well. I bought a couple of 'pencil sharpeners', as they looked about appropriate for wargaming with my miniatures. The figure is for reference only:

So this is how far it's possible to find the Norwegian equivalents to those museums I visited in Finland and Sweden, and I'll guess this concludes my travelling reports this summer. I hope other military modellers, railway modellers and perhaps also wargamers found something interesting in them, or wanting to go seeing some of these places.