Armoured Trains, by Paul Malmassari

[jjb1970]

Just been reading this book:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Armoured-Trains-Illustrated-Encyclopedia-1825-2016/dp/1591146070/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 

Apologies for linking to the Amazon page but other sellers are available. I'd always thought the concept of the armoured train was a bit bad as all you have to do to disable them is sabotage the track and even on good track they are restricted to railway lines but reading the book there was a sound logic to it all. This is the most comprehensive book I've read on the subject, which seems oddly neglected given that armoured trains played a pretty important role, particularly on the Eastern front, for both Germany and the Soviets. An armoured train would be a nice modelling project, there are enough 1/72/76 military kits to use as donors to build a OO armoured train. Oddly, it'd probably be easier to do a German or Soviet train in OO than HO since there are a lot more military models available which would be suitable for OO than HO. Liliput modelled some of the German armoured trains a few years ago and did a nice job of it. It's odd, given the popularity of TS and military modelling, and the popularity of model trains, that there is so little cross over between them.

[Tony Cane]

Hi

There are a few of us that model armoured trains in various scales.

A number of the resin kit manufacturers produce models in both 1/72, which is the common military vehicle scale, and in 1/87 scale, notably both Wespe models and Artmaster for the later.

Attached are pictures showing some of my models.

The British armoured train is 1/76 scale and produced by converting kits in the same way that the prototype was made from existing vehicles. The German train is 1/87 scale the main part from an Artmaster kit, the 4 wheel wagon is a Roco chassis with a T34 tank body from a plastic kit mounted on top. This model was actually running round the test track at the Farnham MRC open day today.

Regards

Tony Cane

[PannierTanker14]

Armoured trains came before long tanks and since the world at the time was connected by rail they had connections everywhere, which is what made them so powerful during their time. True that destroying the track is a definite weakness in the armoured trains and with the trains themselves breaking the track under their armoured bulk, some trains could never get to where they were needed. 
I always found that armoured trains were quite brilliant in scare tactics if not actual service. The thought of a massive armoured beast certainly spooked the people of the First World War. (The train on the game Battlefield 1 is certainly a sight to behold!)
 

I’m currently planning to build an armoured train in 7mm (O gauge) as a side project based off of the locomotive used to push the Zaamurets armoured railcar around.

I don’t think there are many modelled in this scale, if any.