Trumpeter 1/35 Baureihe 52 mit Steifrahmentender By Chris Banyai-Riepl

Overview

Well, this is new ground for me. While I am familiar with aviation, and somewhat so with armor, trains are a completely different subject. I know they run on rails, and while modern examples are generally diesel or perhaps electric, they used to run on steam. I did a bit of digging around on the Internet and I discovered that this particular engine was a mid-war design aimed at increasing the number of engines available. This meant simplifying construction and increasing production, which resulted in over 6,000 built by war's end. While many were destroyed by advancing Allied troops and aircraft, some survived and soldiered on long after the war.

The Kit

Simply put, this is one impressive model. Over 700 parts in total, and a finished size that will leave little room on the mantle for anything else. The kit is mainly injection plastic, with a few small bits in other media. The kit comes complete with a section of track bed to display the finished model on, and that's as good a place to start as any in describing this kit. The roadbed is made up of eight main pieces, with four sections of separate timbers. Connecting all of this are six sections of rails, with separate joiners. When you are done with the whole base, you have cut the parts count down from 710 to only 680. Whee!

The actual assembly of the train and tender is very straightforward, though, even with that large part count. The breakdown is logical and the engineering of the kit appears to be well thought out. The chassis assembly should result in a very sturdy piece that the rest of the vehicle can rest on, and with careful painting as you progress, the final result should be quite dramatic. The level of detail in the cab is beautiful, with all sorts of steam fittings and controls nicely portrayed. The boiler itself, while large, should go together nicely, and with the seam positioned top and bottom, only one seam will be readily visible. Of course, it will be running along the top of the train, so it will be very visible, but some careful sanding should take care of any problems.

The tender will be a welcome calming point after assembling the engine, as it is quite a bit simpler (and understandably so). The chassis is quite simple, as it is little more than a box that traps the wheels and axles in between. The box on top is just that, a box made up of individual sides, while the coal station has a nice insert with molded coal. This might be better to replace with a sheet of styrene and instead of plastic coal, pile on some more accurate looking material from your local railroad model shop.

The painting and marking guide shows one example in black and red, and another in a splinter camouflage of field gray and brown. I am sure there are other options out there, but it appears that the only real difference between engines is going to be the numbers on the front and side. Check your references accordingly and have at it!

Conclusion

This kit is definitely not for the faint of heart, but realistically there should be no areas of surprise here. I just wonder how long it is going to be before we see one of these pulling a Leopold at a modeling contest. My thanks to Stevens International for the review sample.