Rail Gun

Recently I visited a train show and I found a couple of these little gems.

It is a heavy lift crane, used by railroad maintenance of way crews to lift heavy objects, like derailed train cars.

A long time ago, I found a photo that showed a Soviet railcar from the Second World War that had a cabin like this one but insead of a crane, there was a large caliber cannon inside. I suspect it may actually have been a ships turret moved to a rail carraige.

I have started taking the crane apart but have not made much other progress yet.

In close up you can see the rivets, making this look like a very heavy walled structure. I still have to figure out the cannon and have a lot of other work to do on it. I will follow up when I make more progress, but it coule be a while.

M-47 Storage

M-103 heavy tanks oversee the M-47 medium tanks in my newly upgraded storage boxes.

The M-41 Walker Bulldog light tanks lead the parade.

M-47, M-103, and M-41 light tanks, all from Roco, in their new storage box. The olive fabric really looks good with the olive drab paint and the bare Roco dark green.

My 1950's US Army tank battalions take up a couple boxes like this one. The majority of the M47s are Roco but a few are from AHM and other model railroad companies.

The staff car is a recent acquisition and it goes well with this unit.

Box Lining

In the past I used shelf lining to help keep my Rocos in place in the plastic boxes where I store them.

I use underbed plastic storage boxes to store the collection. They are made by Sterilite and sell at Target stores for about $8 each. A couple years ago I upgraded from cardboard boxes to plastic after finding mouse droppings in one of the boxes and the boxes shredded.


At first, I lined the plastic boxes with shelf lining, but after while, I realized that the lining was reacting with the styrene Rocos and melting them. Not unlike the vinyl tracks that come with the old Airfix kits that would melt the vehicles over time. So I have been removing the shelf lining as quickly as I can.

Once pulled from the boxes, I trim the shelf lining into thirds and place a four inch strip down the center of the box.

I then lay a 14 inch by 30 inch piece of corduroy fabric in the bottom of the box. The shelf lining holds it in place. I use an olive green for American, red brown for German and red for USSR.

It does give a more elegant look to the packed vehicles. The corduroy ribs help keep the vehicles from sliding around inside the box, so they are more organized and don't bang into each other.

New Army Men

Ykreol is not making a new set of WWII German troops. It is another of their sets of German commanders and staff troops.

These 1/72nd scale soft plastic figures are fully assembled and will work for a variety of scenarios. This guy is a likely a motorcycle rider, the overcoat and the gas mask in front is typical of that.

The Germans developed and fielded an infra-red night vision system. It was very successful and was used in the last few weeks of the year. You can imagine the effect of fighting an enemy that can see in the dark, when you can't. A tactical and psychological advantage. As far as I know, this is the only soft plastic figure with this late war system. It consists of a large searchlight, and then a optical device to view the I/R illuminated image. They were used on the MP-44 assault rifle as seen here, the MG42, and mounted on the SdKfz 251 series halftrack and Panther tank.

Here is the whole set off the sprue. They include high ranking officers, a guard with German Shepherd dog, a man mounting a horse, and two figures on parade. There is also a rare female soldier. This set would be good for a game based on the Valkrie movie for example.

A set has three sprues just like this one. The initial set does have a bit of flash, but as you can see from the photos it cuts off okay. Ykreol will probably do the set in several colors of plastic, but so far the only one I have seen is in grey.

The man with guard dog, the men on parade, the woman, and the man from the motorcycle are very useful and I will want several of these sets.