F is for Follow-up - Model Power Train Sets

Another contribution from Brian, and another follow-up on a recent post here at Small Scale World, in this case the lose Model Power train set I purchased at a recent Sandown Park toy fair, and which has already had one follow-up!

Original article:

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2022/06/t-is-for-triffic-train-set-for-troops.html

First follow-up:

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2022/06/f-is-for-follow-up-khaki-runnings.html

The box is a bit shot Brian explains, but he managed to coble-up a couple of 'shop-stock' images which I've collaged into one. This is the other set I mentioned at the time, with the more modern looking diesel locomotive -  a Dial Drive GP9, a common design still in use but slowly being phased-out/coming to the end of their useful lives, despite many upgrades.

The contents, a larger version of the set (same product code - 1068) seems to come with buildings and stores/accessories. The other major difference with my lose set is that instead of a rocket-launching wagon, the rocket is on a six-legged (six-armed?) field-mounting . . . sextipod?

Brain also scanned the insert sheets, so here it is for people's archives;

If anyone has a spare launcher kicking around, with or without the rocket, I'd be interested. With many thanks to Brian again; another nice addition to the whole picture.

F is for Follow-up - Khaki Runnings!

I managed to grab the Battle Space, at the weekend after all, so managed a quick shoot of the closest Model Power  'twins' and took one of the military locomotive pool while I was at it!

Mobile missiles; both utilising their maker's flat-car, both spring-loaded and both having the large elevation tap-wheels, but otherwise quite different, the Model Power is err . . . underpowered, but as it's a polystyrene model, it would break quickly under the power of the Tri-Ang launcher which packs a serious, pre-H&S punch!

To which end, the Triang-Hornby missile is a rubber-tipped affair in softer polyethylene to take the strain, it also looks more like a Tallboy or Grand Slam (aerial bombs) than the Model Power's Honest John lines. "It'll 'av someone's eye out"!

Tank transporters; the earlier British one being a bogie well-wagon (that is a lower cargo 'well' between the raised twin-bogie (truck)-mountings) which reduces the height of the center of gravity, while Model Power utilise a clip-on set of chocks with a standard flat-car.

In fact, in the West, tanks are chained down with between four and eight chains which are screw-tightened, you only have to watch a few 'funny' tank-fail videos to understand the current Russian failings in Ukraine; while we winch-on and tie down, they rev-up and mount like dogs on heat and drive off, losing the thing at the next roundabout if it didn't fall-off on loading, or crush its own lorry!

Exploding cars; mechanisms were actually quite different (I didn't have time or space for more detailed shots this time, and while both have the look of North American 'reefer' wagons, Model Power go with a 50ft one, we Brits matched our road wagon limit with a  40-footer! Rememeber also HO is also scaled smaller (1:86/90) than OO (1:76/72), so the British model looks a bit 'chunkier'!

I have an old 1970's Walther's or two, and among the pages and pages of transfers for home-builders, mostly for reefers or passenger stock, are quite a few military ones, so you could with the two Q-Cars, this pair and a few kits, build a long, but visually rather boring (if more realistic) logistics train, but you'd need to glue these two shut first!

The loco's; we've seen the two main brands before, but of interest is the one down the front left, which is a clockwork 'cheapie' from Playcraft via Jouef of France. not specifically military, it happens to be the right colour, and adds variety to my fleet!

We loved our 'starter set' clockwork's when we were kids, and used to run them on a figure-eight inside our electrified double-oval, if we were quick we could get four trains moving at once without a crash . . . we weren't always lucky - figure-8's have a crossroad!

It's one of those quirks of toy history that at one point you had OO-guage train sets/lines from/branded-to Tri-Ang, Rovex and Mettoy Playcraft . . . all ultimately Lines Brothers! I should also mention the track, which happens to still be around despite having long lost its usefulness.

It's a sort of resinated or 'Bakelite' treated card (like the ties in old plugs which hold the cable tight), obviously for power-insulation, with the shiny (non-ferrous) rail fasteners (chairs or tie-plates) riveted through the card every forth sleeper (tie), I did have a brand name for it, well . . . it's somewhere in the archive, Hammant & Morgan maybe (our transformer was theirs), Hamblings, or early Hannants? One of the mail-order catalogues in the archive has/lists something which fits the description anyway!

It was the home-fitted rail on our train-set which was bought 2nd hand by Mum at Persons Auctions here in Fleet (long-gone, along with County Tractors and First Inertia), and somehow she managed to hide it (about 6ft x 8ft) from us until Christmas morning, I'm hoping, when I lift the boards in the loft, in the next few weeks, that I may find it's still there with its household gloss 'landscaping', but it may have gone years ago? It was old, crumbly, early (1960's) chipboard.

T is for Triffic' Train Set for the Troops!

Here's a book which needs to be written . . . a look at all the military train sets and the relationships between them? As we'll see, this set bears a lot in common with the old Tri-Ang/Hornby 'Battle Space' sets for instance, and while the modern Model Power branded, seems to be from older AHM tooling, so could be Japanese in origin as AHM worked with a lot of Japanese firms, or Rivarossi from Italy?

Anyway, I haven't got time to do it but I hope someone does, with the O-guage stuff as well as the HO/OO . . . but I might make a start in a while, after getting today's post's star!

I bought this HO rated set at Sandown Park for 30-quid which I thought was a bargain, and although I knew it was a modern (still in production?) set, I was right as Googling has revealed prices from $40-loose or incomplete to $250+ for sets, so £30 for a loose train, with no evilBay global rip-off charges, seems - indeed - to be a bargain.

The locomotive is what I - as a non American - consider to be a typical, even 'iconic' mid-late 20th century diesel unit and the caboose (brake van) is equally typical/iconic of its type, here marked-up as a troop carrier. We'll look at the other two in closer detail.

An Honest John lookie-likee, which rests on a launcher that bears a resemblance to the Tri-Ang one; but all in plastic and with a simpler push-&-click loading action. The real link is the winding wheel, which mirrors the Battle Space (and earlier non-Battle Space) Tri-Ang one.

A nice rendition of an M47 which apparently never saw combat service in US hands, but gave true birth to the M48/60 family, and here on a flat-car. The chocks are a clip-in single moulding, so could be put on civil-coloured (oxide-red) rolling stock, but it would probably have to be the same AHM/Model Power stuff?

In these though we get both closer to the older British models with an exploding box-car and further away with the huge rail-gun, while the one in the middle is a Q-car, hiding a nasty, if rather anachronistic surprise!

I think the mechanism is similar to the UK one, but mine are in storage, so I can't check them, but I'll try and dig them out over the weekend, if memory serves this is harder to get and keep together, but then it doesn't work when you trip the switch! Only falling apart when you pick it up to reset it . . . doh! And obviously because I only got the rolling stock, I don't have the track-side trigger, but the Tri-Ang trigger may work, or be made to work?

The 'Q-Car' has two Flak 18/36 German 88mm guns hidden it it! The Tri-Ang version had a twin rocket launcher, but employed the exploding car mechanism/body, while the Model Power one has simple (and preferable) click-shut, manually-operated, drop-down side panels.

While this beast has no comparison in the Battle Space range! It would benefit from a bit of detailing (stowed stores, hand-rails/guard rails, a breech of some sort, I've stuck a shell on the loading chute which was kicking around (Airfix or Lone Star SLR bullet?) in one shot. It could also use some more obvious support wagons than a cabose!

These are fun things and when I'm settled I'll try to track down some of the other obvious ones (Tyco, Bachmann, even Jakks Pacific) and we'll compare and contrast, one of them does a loaded Honest John on a articulated lorry trailer, there's a pricy three-coach Ambulance train from another and some more realistic ones from Lima, but they are top dollar!