Big 'small military trains' in the snow yesterday - Small 'big military trains' in the snow today

Yesterday I visited a friend and his garden for his annual 'Chistmas run-in', and for the occasion I had prepared my military trains for winter service.

As people starts to prepare for Christmas these days heritage Railways often invites to different "Christmas Trains"  and "Santa Specials". Today a heritage industrial narrow gauge railway , which collects different 600mm rollingstock from all over Norway, invited to such a "Santa Special", and I decided to take my youngest son there as he loves both trains and Christmas.

The narrow gauge railway is called Lommedalsbanen, and they have not only collected stock from pure industrial railways, but from different Norwegian military narrow gauge lines as well. Some of them were running today.

This locomotive was in service with the Norwegian Navy at a an armament depot just across the fjord from where I live. It was probably brought to Norway by German forces during WWII.

A locomotive of the same type has been in service on a coastal fortress in the southern region of Norway.

This is a postwar locomotive which were in service on the same naval armament depot as the one above. I think it was in service until about 1990.

In the shed at a distance I got a brief glimse of this one; A German WWII narrow gauge locomotive which was used on another naval armament depot in the middle region of Norway.

That armament depot is long gone, but I visited it last summer during a motorcycle-tour in the district, and found some few traces of the railway there

At Lommedalsbanen they hava also collected some naval rollingstock with propper loads as torpedoes and mines. It's not very easy to see them now when they're covered in snow.

The 'Up' meets the 'Down'

Another locomotive of the same type used on the naval armament depot mentioned above.

And off course; No "Santa Special" without a Santa:

Making supply-trains for winter warfare

There hasn't been so much time for hobbies like wargaming and model railways as I'd like to lately, and therefore it's been 'all quiet on the blogger-front' for a while. When I was invited by friend and his wife to join their annual 'winter/season/Christmas drive-in running session' in their garden, I decided to use my modelling time to prepare my military garden trains for winter warfare and giving them a season-theme due to the occasion.

The driver in the Heeresfeldbahn locomotive by LGB was given a winter-camouflage uniform. They're seldom completely bright white due to use and making them dirty on purpose for better camouflage effect. He is a 'mirrored' model of the driver in 'Feldgau' I usually use.

Firstly I just planned a kind of 'Santa theme' with red sleigh and reindeer. Then I found that Finnish and Soviet troops used reindeers to pull simple sleighs. I've also found some few photos of reindeers in German service. I found these reindeers in a toyshop.

Since it was not going to be a traditional 'Santa sleigh' after all, I needed to find some more realistic one. This one I found for free at Thingeverse, intended for some 28mm tabletop gaming. I resized it to the maximum my 3D-printer could do. I also added some sacks of potatoes and a barrel of herring for the troops at the front. Being traditional christmasfood some places, I'hope we don't get that to eat during our 'run-in session'. 

Not only bringing food to the troops at the front, I wanted to give them a Christmas-tree/Weinachtsbaum for the upcoming season as well. The hostess remarked that it might look like the tree Norway gives United Kingdom every year as gratefulness for help during WWII; Looking good on only one side....

The soldiers handling the sleigh and reindeers were given (again 3D-printed) braizer. I used a flickering tea led-light for the fire, just about fitting into the barrel. The smoke is some stuffing from one of our dogs toys...

I kind of get of "Where Eagles Dare"-feeling of those soldiers.

Keeping it serious with the German Heeresfeldbahn train, I decided to not take it to seriously with the W^D train. Due to the mechanism there is not so good place in in fitting a driver, so I found one slim enough. Besides he'sin 'Christmas-mode'...

On the wagon behind it that's not a 19:1 scale model of Glühwein for the troops. Thats a gift for the host and hostess opening their beautiful garden for letting us run our trains on their railway.

Here are some impressions of my military trains in action during their winter-service:

Here are some other impressions from the garden and other trains. And yes, there was a lot more crowded than the photos show though.

The HF110C belongs to a friend and the original is also of military origin:

Last year our MRC went to Germany and rode on the original in Harz:

And even som further years ago our MRC went to Switzerland and took a ride with the Glacier-Express:

If you want to read more about our MRC, Gleng Modelljernbane Klubb, please visit our website

Looks like there were no 'potatoes and herring', just hot dogs, gingerbread cookies, waffles, Glühwein and coffee. It don't get more Christmas than this(!)

We were running until it started to get dark (which is kind of early in Norway during the winter)

Looks like my lansers are keeping warm on the braizer as well

Finally it was so dark that some seemed to be afraid of it...

...so then there was time to finish up, and pack everything together. The weather was perfect for a winter running-session. Thank you Astrid and Heine for your hospitality, great time and letting us run trains in your beautiful garden.

The 38th Internationale Modellbahn Ausstellung and Märklin days in Göppingen 2023 - Not just only trains

The model railway club I'm a member of in Norway usually goes on an annual trip abroad to visit some of the big model railway exhibitions on the Continent. This year we went to the hometown of Märklin, Göppingen in Germany to visit the combined 38th Internationale Modellbahn Ausstellung and the 13th Märklin days. As the name suggests it's mostly trains. - So perhaps not so much for wargamers, but slightly more for military modellers. Here are some impressions. 

First some from the mandatory stop at the World's largest model railway layout at Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg. These models are made to 1:87th scale.

It's difficult to get an overview and impression of the total layout due to it's enormous size, but here are some photos of a H0 scaled 'model of the model' of one of the floors:

Here are some non railway impressions from Göppingen (click on images for larger pictures):

The bridge over River Kwai was made to Z-scale/ 1:220

These wagon-loads were made to G-scale in approx 1:29th scale, and FDM 3D-printed 

Model railroaders are not exactly without humor or not updated on the current situation either:

Off course I bought some stuff at the exhibition as well, which will keep me busy throughout the winter. Perhaps some of these projects reach this blog with a  blogpost as well. 

I'm grateful for the friendly members of my MRC and the wonderful  travell companions they are.

Connecting military units of opposing forces

As some of you may already have noticed I've converted some LGB rolling stock into a Heeresfeldbahn rake. All these LGB-wagons are fitted with the original LGB couplings.

I'm also a proud owner of a British Roundhouse 16mm scale Livesteam locomotive in a military W^D livery (a 50 year gift from my beloved wife and kids),  which also runs on 45mm gauge track. It's fitted with it's original chain-link-couplings, and I want to keep it that way. I plan to build own rollingstock to this from kits, but at the same time I want to be able to connect it to my military LGB wagons (with the LGB couplings), so some modification was needed. 

I had a very plastic, brownish and toy-looking LGB wagon which I converted with different couplings in each ends; LGB coupling in one end, and a chain-link-coupling in the other. With this I would be able to connect the 'LGB rake' to my Livesteam locomotive if I wanted to.

The LGB-loop to the right work as a buffer to the lower buffer on the 16mm locomotive. It means it will be able to couple it to other LGB-stuff in both ends as well if desired.

The wagon it self had large DR (Deutsche Reichbahn) markings and looked very plastic and bright as well. To run behind both British and German locomotives I think it needed a more general look to it, so I simply sprayed it with grey car primer, picked out some few boards in another color and gave it a heavy black-wash.

Since it's open it would be nice to load it with some cargo. I had some very bright colored toylike LGB oil barrels (don't trow anything away) I simply repainted and removed the stickers. I also put in a couple of 3D-printed crates I've used for painting samples.