P is for Pneumatic

Getting toward the end of the wagon posts, and indeed, there are no wagons in this post, but there is useful stuff nevertheless, particularly for post WWII war gaming. While I went with 'pneumatic' there are also a few towed implements in this post as they didn't go in any of the others and apart from my carded disc-harrow, it's all catalogue imagery.

The box-art for my 912, Hanomag tractor and two agricultural trailers, while it's a post-war tractor, I suspect the engine, wheel arrangement and general layout is the same as the WWII airfield tender/tug and the older body could be scratch-built by someone with more skill than me? No real-life model number is given for the tractor but the current slightly different model in the catalogue is given as an R55, so this may be a first attempt at the same vehicle, or a slightly earlier/smaller engined model?

I've had the kit for a long time, it was an impulse purchase at a toy show (because it was cheap!) back in the early 1990's and I've never got round to making it, but in order to produce better images, I got the glue out!

But, I'm getting ahead of the image order! The parts in my set contain a colour-reverse on the box-art for the trailers, with oxide brown frame body-structure. Codes on the runners suggest the tractor was also available separately as 600, which would put it just ahead of the circus wagon/trailers, a job also now occupied by the R55 in the catalogue.

You'll also notice that I'm short two axles! I'll eMail Preiser and find out if their customer service is as good as Hornby-Airfix's current 'spares service'. It means I didn't make the tractor, and it can wait until we next look at tractors.

Full instructions; note that the runners are here translated as 'shots' (not sprues!). There is nothing to stop you/the modeller from converting these for pulling by draft-animals, a centre-pole attched to the front of the ridged A-frame, where the towing A-frame joins it, with a small wire pin to allow hitching/a bit of movement in the pole?

Made-up, and ready to roll; clearly the pneumatic tyres date these somewhat, and while the towing/draw-bar system is not common in the UK, it is the system used by 'Wagon & Drag' set-ups, operated by some UK hauliers - we had them at United Carriers back in the 1990's and you sometimes see Parcel Farce or Royal Fail dragging them round the M25 in the middle of the night - they are still quite common on the continent.

In Berlin somebody did have these, RE or RCT I think, pulled behind short-nosed, 3-axle Mercedes L-series (?) trucks; all locally purchased, probably paid-for by the Berlin Senate (?) and mostly used for bulk-rubbish runs, getting bulk stores from the BIS and hauling Ammo up from Gatow during Rocking-Horse or Trial-Canter alerts, whether BAOR had them or not I don't know, but I never saw them in use up there.

Current offers show the low-sided trailer with the R55, and the high-sided one in a new set of potato harvesting, I've done this king of potato harvesting and it's back-breaking work, the lifter just throws the spuds all over the place and you have to go along picking them up and raking the soil and stones and crap with your fingers, to find the smaller ones which have been covered up by the dirt or dust!

The shot also shows various other towed equipments in the current catalogue including a horse-box and a rather useful grass/meadow roller which would add that little 'extra' to a large Subbuteo set-up, especially the cricket range?

More trailers from the catalogue, both clean shots and dirtied 'in situ', the ridged draw-bars with resting/manoeuvring wheels shown here are exactly like the stuff you find in the UK and on most modern military trailers and that barrel tanker would look good behind a Roco Magirus or older Jupiter 6x6!

The roller is no longer in the catalogue, but will probably return from time to time, while other animal-drawn equipment (still in the catalogue) includes a single-furrow plough and a small reaper. Note the painting of the cattle back in the 1970's was poor, especially compared with the modern efforts.

Another useful set in the unpainted range, it also contains various things not in the catalogues at the monument, such as the Alpine belled-cows who's attendants match the wagon-teamsters/Alpine-horn chaps we looked at the other day. The plough is also included along with various gardener/gardening 'six-figure' sets and the wonderful peacock.

Loose ends; in the modern agricultural range, include a tractor mounted reaper and some towed cultivation tools, it may be that the reason for the disappearance of the cattle-drawn harrow is due to a move away from 1930-60's steam-era layouts to more modern outline, where tractors are meant to be in the background?

There's certainly a nice harrow here along with what Preiser calls a 'dung-spreader' which looks to me more like a small-farm's fertiliser spreader, but that might be a 'lost in translation' moment? We had a very similar one ('Varispeader'?) with a square-topped hopper; I hate to think what would have happened if you filled it with 'dung', but I suspect it might have involved a custodial sentence!