Trains 'n' Boats

It's about time to move from 1:1 scale military logistics into miniature military logistics again. I've been re-painting some LGB wagons this winter, so they would look more in place behind my large scale German Heeresfeldbahn Diesel or British War Department Light Railway steam engine. On these links you can read more about these repainting and remodeling projects:

• A simple conversion gone complicated
• More flatcar conversions
• Making more rollingstock for my Heeresfeldbahn and WDLR garden trains
• Give and Take - Combining 2 LGB wagons

Even if I have more wagons in the pipeline, it was about to take these out of my workshop and take them for a test run. Coincidentally Heine invited to a spring 'kick off' running session in his garden. Here are some impressions of our day out:

Here are all the 'new' wagons behind my German Heeresfeldbahn Diesel:

...And here are all the very same wagons behind my British WDLR engine. I guess they work good behind both of them:

Here are some of the other trains on the line this day:

We also improvised a small 'Steam Gala' and Heine and I fired up a live steam locomotive each. It's not very often Heine has time to run his own trains when he arranges running session in his garden, so it was very nice that he took the time to run his 'Silver Lady':

Heine's 'Silver Lady':

Here are some 'Close Ups':

My 'new' low sided gondolas was also the perfect size to carry my contribution of bags of coffee to todays 'pot luck':

Thanks Astrid and Heine for inviting us over for another great day out in your lovely garden.

Some Boats

These days it's also a 'kick off' for the RC-boat hobby as the ice is about to melt away from lakes. So the day after the day out at Heine's, I visited a RC and model boat show at the 'Oslo Fjord Museum':

Naval ships are always among my favorite RC-boats:

And especially Norwegian ones like these Fast missile/torpedo attack crafts:

Hauk (Hawk) - Class Missile and Torpedo Fast Attack boat

Storm Class Gun and Missile Fast Attack Boat

Tjeld Class Torpedo Launch. This Norwegian design was so successful that they were bought by US Navy for service in Vietnam. Some claim they had Norwegian crew members too. 

There were most civilian RC boats exhibited:

Same ship, but in 2 different scales. Both models are radio controlled though:

Some of the radio controlled ships did not have electro motors, but had real (live) steam engines:

Norwegian paddlesteamer 'Skibladner'. My Grand Uncle was Chief on this ship a period

There was also a stand with speedboats. These are propelled by RC plane fuel engines and are extremely fast (and noisy!).

There were also a couple of 3D-printed boats on show. STL-files for these 2 ships can either be bought or found for free online:

At Oslofjord Museum they also exhibit real leisure and sport boats. Among them was this 'Loppe' ('Flea'):

...and this is a 1:15 scale model of the same boat:

There were also some static plastic model ships from kits on display:

The German Cruiser Blücher was sunk by Norwegian Coastal artillery in 9th of April 1940. The wreck is located in the Oslofjord not so far away from this museum. A movie of this battle recently premiered in Norway, and can now be streamed.

1:72 scale kits of VOSPER boats by Tamiya and Airfix:

There was a small basin to run models in too. It was not so large so I guess small scale and slow models would work best:

When visiting museums I usually check out their museum shops (for models). This did not have any plastic kits, but had several craft kits from Billing Boats however:

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Blog PostScript

Here are some close-ups of the French experimental boat mentioned by Alan in the comments. It was stikker a 'WiP':

A 50th Anniversary reissue - A post 1st of April update

Breaking News!

This year it's exactly 50 years since Airfix released their 1/32 scale 'Modern British Infantry', and therefore announces a limited reissue of the set as it can be used alongside Airfix' new 1/35 scale British vehicles from the same period (Alvis FV622, Alvis Stalwart Mk.2, Ferret Scout Car Mk.1 and Mk.2 and Alvis FV 603 Saracen Mk.5):

It's weird to think that this 'modern' set is turning 50, while their WW2 counterparts was only some 30+ when I grew up. This set will later be followed by other limited reissues of 'Modern' Cold War troops like the 'Modern German Infantry'...

...and 'Modern US NATO troops:

There will also be a reissue of a set of 'modern' opponents:

The release dates are not set yet, but all of these sets can be pre-ordered from April 1st. (only)

A post 1st of April update:

Ok, these 'breaking news' didn't seems to fool any readers of this blog. While 'working' with these ChatGPT generated images I was about to fool my self as these are old Airfix figure sets I'd really wish to see re-released again. I wonder if any others felt a slight excitement when seeing these images?

I'm not sure why Airfix has never re-released these figures. I've seen the 'Modern Russians' being sold for over £100 secondhand. Perhaps these are some of the mold which were lost or destroyed after the 'Heller period'?

I did not fool 'Messenger' today either. When writing the URL in a message for my son, this is what the link preview showed:

I really hope that Airfix will re-release these sets one day. If they can.

Give and Take - Combining 2 LGB wagons

Last year I bought several G-scale LGB wagons cheaply second hand for turning them into military rollingstock to run in my 16mm scale German Heeresfeldbahn trains or British WDLR trains. Some of these wagons were pretty 'scruffy'. For this project I pulled 2 wagons out of the pile of well used wagons. Both of them actually belongs to LGB's 'Toy Train Series':

Firstly I couldn't keep that colorful livery on the tank car in a military train where most cars are grey-ish. Besides I didn't like the tank's off center position on the wagon nor the brakeman's platform. -I already have a tank car with a brakeman's platform and wanted this to be different:

The second wagon is actually one of those I least like from the LGB-range and I actually bought it just to get the metal wheels it came with (as they costs about twice as much new than whole this purchase together). I toyed with the idea to replace the wheels with some plastic ones after I removed the metal ones and keep the wagon, give it a repaint and use it. But it was in a very sorrow condition covered in thick house paint, missing a coupling, buffer and it's brakeman's platform railings + one step:

While I was working on this project I found a drawing of a similar wagon in a book about German Heeresfeldbahnen in WWII, and decided to try to get it back in running condition again and use it with my Heeresfeldbahn trains:

As I wrote earlier, both these wagons are from LGB's inexpensive 'Toy Train Series' originally aimed for children's entry to this scale/gauge. I guess LGB made these wagons based upon the same chassis or parts to keeps things 'cheap'. This means that the chassis are interchangeable between the two wagons, meaning that the open plank wagon can be placed on the chassis with the brakeman's platform and steps and the tank car vice versa. Due to this I decided to keep the open plank wagon and remodel it. First I painted both 'tops' in 2 different gray shades...

...before assembling them on the their opposite chassis:

The tank could easily be moved and fixed in a position more to the center of the wagon:

Then I painted the details and gave them a light weathering:

Ironically, while working on this project LGB/ Märklin re-released the same (Toy Train) tank car in grey as one of their 2026 news after been out of production for a while. It has nice lettering and numbering, but costs about 4 times more than my own project. 

On the open plank wagon I picked out some individual boards in different colours to give a hint that some of them have been replaced. Bars, frames and hinges were painted black and everything was given a wash of black and rust and finally drybrushed to look aged:

Since this is the wagon I was initially least found of in the LGB-range, I decided to add some load to it to make it more interesting. It had to be some kind of military cargo and preferably some German ones as I found a German prototype for this wagon. The load was not to be permanently fixed as I wanted it to be interchangeable. A German tank would make a spectacular load, but this was wrong kind of wagon for that. - Besides loads like that are way too heavy and large for narrow gauge railways. But what about parts for a tank that would need to replaced from time to time? Parts like an engine? The Maybach HL230 engine was used in Tiger I, Tiger, II, Panther, Jagdpanther and Jagdtiger tanks and on Thingiverse I found a free kit I re-scaled to 1:19 scale and 3D-printed:

I made 3 kits as this is how many this wagon can carry in both volume and weight (max 5000 kg):

I made a cargo frames for them so they would sit level and fit snuggle into the railway wagon:

Then they were secured to the frame:

I guess this load depicts well used engines going back from the front, or newly overhauled engines going back to the front. Perhaps for a coming (panzer)  offensive? 

So by combining these 2 'Toy Train' wagons by LGB I didn't just get more prototypical wagons for my growing collection of military railway cars, but I also did so in the most budget way possible. So can you, as these Toy Trains wagons are usually very available and cheap second hand. 

If you have rollingstock from LGB, have a look what chassis are the same, how they are 'altered' from the factory and what kind of wagons they fit for. This will allow you to very easily alter and personalize your own LGB stock. What I did in this case was probably the most simple of them.