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Introduction First of all, this is included in the Armor section because we don't have a Model Railroad category and in the IM "scheme of things", putting it in Armor was the most logical choice. Like most young American boys growing up, I was introduced to model railroading via my parents, specifically a loop of track running around the Christmas tree. Back then there were two major “scales” – Lionel, or O-gauge, and HO-gauge. Turns out my parents introduced me to HO. My interest in model railroading waxes and wanes, usually depending on the time of year (we still try to have some type of model railroad up and running around Christmas time and I have introduced my own son to it). However, I found a way that I can combine my primary hobby – plastic model building – with model railroading. Since I primarily build WW1-era vehicles and aircraft, I found out the US created some narrow-gauge railroad in France during the war. It wasn’t “standard” narrow gauge, either. It was an even smaller width between the tracks. Standard gauge railroads have a distance of 4 ft 8 ½ in between the rail. “Standard” narrow gauge in the US was 3 ft, or 36 inches. Some went even smaller with 30 inches between the rail, which was also 2 ½ ft. So, using this the US narrow gauge in France during WW1 was 30 inches (actually a little smaller at 60cm), or in “scale parlance”, HOn30 (sometimes also referred to as HOn2½, since the “other” narrow gauge is known as HOn3). There is a whole book on US narrow gauge, Narrow Gauge to No Man’s Land and in there you can see a number of cars, engines, buildings, etc. that were used by the US during WW1. Note that with HOn30 you can run the HO-scaled cars on N-gauge track. Even though the reviewed car isn’t exactly what was used in France during the war, I’m hoping that I can convert one of the cars to those used during that time. The Kit
There are two kits in this release. It was done this way to show model railroaders that working with resin kits is not much different than how they perform their day-to-day modeling, which is usually on injected plastic. The only thing different is the glues used (as most plastic modelers know when working with resin). The kits aren’t complete, and they’re not meant to be. You’ll need to purchase separately the trucks and couplers from another supplier and these are spelled out in the instructions. There is not much clean-up with the parts. There are three parts per car – the main body, the “bed” and the sides. Once you remove the thin skin from the pieces then construction can continue. One item the instructions mention I’m unable to do. They want you to actually tap the holes for the screws to attach the trucks and couplers to the body. I don’t own any taps, so I’ll just drill a pilot hole, screw the trucks in (using CA to hold it together) and hope for the best. Also included in the package are lengths of thread to use for the truss rods. Conclusion This should be an easy build, aside from acquiring the couplers and trucks, and adding those to the body. The flat cars come with weights imbedded in the resin already (necessary for the cars to “roll” right) so that’s not needed. With the proper washes and drybrushes you’ll be able to pop out the molded in detail. My thanks to Railway Recollections for the review sample. You can either contact them through the site, or: Railway Recollections Price of this Beginner's Kit is $29.00 for the two-pack. |
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