railway Archives - Felix's Gaming Pages

The Mines of Vertigus II

In the entrance hall of Warhammer World is a large diorama of Ultramarines defending an Imperial facility against an overwhelming Necron force, entitled the Mines of Vertigus II.

White Dwarf #456 has six pages on how the diorama was put together.

What interested me was the railway, and this is what the article said about the railway.

The railway is made from the tracks that come on the Tectonic Fragdrill. We used a lot of them! The carts are Munitorum Armoured Containers with their roofs cut off. They were then mounted on the wheels from the Galvanic Servohaulers kit.

Alas due to the glass cabinet and lighting I was only able to make this shot.

More photographs from Warhammer World.

Artillery at Duxford

There are quite a few artillery pieces on display at the Imperial War Museum Duxford in their Land Warfare exhibit.

This is a German 7.7cm Field Gun from World War One.

The gun on the right is a British 18 pounder quick firing field gun. The one on the left an American M1917 75mm field gun, based on the British 18 pounder.

This is a German 21cm Heavy Howitzer or Mortar.

The 21 cm Mörser 10 (21 cm Mrs 10) was a heavy howitzer used by Germany in World War I (although classified as a mortar (Mörser) by the German military).

As well as the guns there was also a trench train. Well a British MM15 War Department Light Railways Motor Rail 40hp ‘Simplex’ Petrol Tractor to be precise.

For use on the two foot War Department Light Railway.

The War Department Light Railways were a system of narrow gauge trench railways run by the British War Department in World War I. Light railways made an important contribution to the Allied war effort in the First World War, and were used for the supply of ammunition and stores, the transport of troops and the evacuation of the wounded.

Steaming along

I am making progress on my Sarissa Precision Old West steam engine. The first part I attempted was the tender.

This went together really easily and is a clever design, turning what is flat pieces of MDF into a three dimensional model. Laser-cut MDF models use to be mainly buildings, or thing with straight lines, however companies like Sarissa Precision have taken it to the next level, using flat MDF to create complicated curved models such as the steam engine.

It has to be said that the tender is more akin to the buildings with slab sides, though I do like the angled tender sides at the top.

It wasn’t the easiest of builds and I found the instructions slightly confusing, but I got there in the end.

Steaming in the desert

At the wargaming show at the Tank Museum I managed to get a pictures of the games on show, but to be honest was distracted by the tanks. One game which did catch my eye was this desert game in 20mm with a train.

This was a very nice looking game.

Didn’t really get the details on the sides in the game (and I think it was a World War One game).

Steaming

So in the Old West one thing you need to do, is to rob a train! However in order to play this scenario on the table you will need a train!

I have been thinking for a while about getting a train for some Old West games. First thoughts were to get a toy train and repaint it, but knowing my history in buying stuff and not painting it, I decided that if I was going to go down this route then I would have to leave it until I had the time to do it justice. Also getting one which was the right scale and didn’t look too much toy like was also a challenge.

I also thought about getting the Dixon Miniatures model, which was nice. Another however was that this was a metal kit which means nice and heavy, but again experience tells me I would find the construction of such a kit a bit of a challenge.

So I was intrigued by the new Sarissa Precision railway range which includes an engine, various wagons and carriages, as well as track. All the models are made from laser cut and etched MDF. I was lucky enough to receive the engine and tender from the range as a present.

At a show last year I saw another manufacturer’s range of 3D models made from laser cut and etched MDF. There were old style trucks and cars, as well as tanks and armoured vehicles. The layered approach allowed for curved sides and bonnets. This was quite a paradigm shift in the use of the material, mainly used for flat surface models such as buildings.

The Sarissa train uses a similar construction methods for the boiler and from the pictures on the packaging and the website looks quite effective.

I am wondering if I can hide the layered effect on the boiler to make it look more like boiler plate than layers of MDF.

So at this time, it’s still in the shrinkwrap…