Small Scale Military Headquarters

In my never-ending quest to link my trains and my XD collection, I have been hunting on the web for information on US railroad equipment shipped to France following D-Day. Generally, railroad information is easy to find. This has been surprisingly hard to find much on, and pictures even worse.

Anyways, today I found a site that showed something I’ve been hoping to find. Bachmann makes the following engine in 1:20.3 scale. These were built in the 40’s, which is why I figured they would have shown up in France, but needed to prove it to myself.

http://www.miba.de/neuheit/03/07/bilder/bach1m.jpg

According to this site, they were used on the Continent during the war:
http://www.gregoriou.itgo.com/custom4.html

“5. GE 45 ton, 380 h.p. diesel electric locomotive (wheel arrangement Bo-Bo) This was also a central cab design. Most of them saw service in Europe. Some were shipped to England first; some were shipped directly to the Continent. Mainly they were used for switching, although occasionally they were used to haul freight and ambulance trains. After VE day most of them were crated and shipped back to the U.S.”

So, for anyone wanting to add a train to their dioramas, here’s some fodder for you. The 45-tonners were made in a single body style, and the trucks were changed to accommodate different track gauges. So, laying some track to the gauge you want, and modifying the trucks, you could have a locomotive that is only slightly undersized in scale (but, trust me, these models are big. If anyone is interested, I can take some comparison photos of this model next to some XD equipment.) to work on your diorammas.

You do realize if you keep this up that you could charge admission to your backyard.

Mark

Yes please,pics would be great. I believe there is 1/16th scale rail available ,I think its called G scale. I have bugged all the model railway enthusiasts/clubs I can find over here with a view towards building a combined railway/ww2 tank battlefield setup,but no luck yet!
I found a pic of a tank/rail combo in the BTN;Battle Tank Netherlands site
http://p214.ezboard.com/fbtn32359frm3.s ... ID=6.topic
although the railcar looks even bigger than 1/16th,given that the tigers outer roadwheels had to be removed and special transport tracks added for rail transport;nice anyway.

I would love to see some picture with XD for size. I'm doing a custom of a Tiger with transport tracks and have been thinking of doing the railcar with it. Maybe a train down the road, because I need to finish the project I have already started.

Also if you have any other good links with information and pictures of armored trains, 40&8, and other stuff that would be cool to. I haven't been able to find much myself, but I could be searching with the wrong key words. Thanks
momaw nadon

I love the idea of tying in a railroad with our XD addiction, but I believe that G scale equals out roughly 1/28-1/32 scale. I'm not 100% sure but I think thats what it works out to be. ( I sure hope I'm wrong! I would love to have an excuse to tie my two favorite hobbies together. )

-Rob

The Tiger on the rail car does have narrow tracks on it. Compare the size to the track laying under the Tiger.
Very cool!

http://www.csgnetwork.com/modrrscaleconv.html

G, or "Three-Foot Gauge on Gauge 1 Track" (whatever that means) is supposed to be 1:20.3

Probably as close as we're gonna get...

I've posted this before but I use Pola G scale buildings with my XD and they work great. The detail on the buildings is awesome, although they could be a bit bigger. If you check out my website it should bring you to my albums and there is one showcasing the buildings.
Moral of the story - look for this stuff at your flea markets, garage sales, etc.....

I have some Pola buildings as well. Here is a picture of one, which is a water powered mill. I haven't used it in any XD Diorama yet, but the scale is perfect! The detail is incredible, but one can also see that the 21c playsets (which were far cheaper and only depictions of ruins) were of comparable quality.





I also have a couple German-looking Pola train stations and a coal refill station, but they are on the small side for XD.

On thing I've seen before, but forgot about. Train people generally have an aversion to military equipment, even trains. You very rarely see train people who do any modeling related to military equipment, and military modelers generally don't do much regarding standard train equipment.

And some quick clarification on G-scale. G-scale really only applies to the track. The scales that use it are 1:20.3 (meaning 3-foot gauge track), 1:22.5 (meter-gauge track), 1:29 (long story on this fubar scale, but standard gauge trains on slightly smaller track), and 1:32 (standard gauge).

Now, some manufacturer's have started delving into standard gauge track for 1:20.3. Nobody makes any cars or engines I've seen, but I would expect to see that within the next few years.

Also, there is 16mm scale. This is generally 1:19 scale trains running on O-scale track, simulating the various 2-foot track gauges on the British Isles. This was one of the reasons I had posted about the 2-foot gauge lines the RAF used at several ammo facilities from WWII until fairly recently.

For building manufacturer's, Pola, Piko, and Playmobil all make buildings generally used for LGB trains (1:22.5). But, these generally either don't look too bad, or can easily be converted to work 1:18 with just some modified doors. I currently use Playmobil for background buildings. Aside from needing repainting, the size is fine.

I'll post some pictures this weekend. This week has royally stunk at work.

Love the Pola building,Im in luck,Pola and Pico have a distributor here,I'll go check out what he has on monday.Anyone got links to the Pola or Pico websites? I snagged a playmobil sportsmans cabin,now to paint it up,I'll post pics later.

Finally have some pictures

http://community.webshots.com/album/292939711rBNXwL?114

The biggest problem with this engine is they really don't have any cars out that match it in size. The flat car I have the Sherman on in a shot or two is an LGB car, and you can see how small it is. I've found some plans for a flatcar that would work well with the engine and my vehicles, but its way down on the list.

Also, since I just hung them, I thought I would add a few photos of the XD planes now flying over my Junk Room.

I like how you painted your ceiling with sky and clouds. It kind of displays the planes with more depth and motion!