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Desperately need help with WWII railway specs
DrODDS
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Posted: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 - 06:08 PM UTC
I recently posted a response to a review of the new MiniArt European railway kits (in the Diorama forum), but I figured it wouldn't hurt to take a shotgun approach with this very specific question:


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I'm looking for a track set that represents German-built track on the Eastern front (during the first few years of the war). Is this kit an option for that? If not, what might be my best option? I'm having a heck of a time finding any information about the subject.

To be specific I'd like to duplicate the tie plates and rail in resin for a scratch-built base for my 1/35 Dora gun as well as Trumpeter's Karl on railway transport; the track in both of these kits is unsatisfactory to say the least.



Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Removed by original poster on 11/17/16 - 22:20:28 (GMT).
RobinNilsson
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Posted: Thursday, November 17, 2016 - 03:35 AM UTC
Some loose thoughts:
If there was already a Russian track I assume that the hardware would be reused (shift one rail inward) instead of replacing Russian iron and sleepers with stuff brought from Germany.

Tracks laid specifically for Dora: If there was a local supply of hardware with sufficiently heavy rails I guess it would be reused. Maybe you could go for that scenario ?



Image found in post at Histomil
http://histomil.com/search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keywords=waffen+ss&t=3918&sf=msgonly&ch=-1&start=90

/ Robin
DrODDS
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Posted: Saturday, November 19, 2016 - 08:19 PM UTC
Robin, thanks for the response! After spending some time researching photos and current railway products I've found your suggestion to be true. Armor35 makes a few products that depict german re-gauged railways from russian components. I'm going to go ahead and scratch build/duplicate re-gauged russian components for my Karl base, and hold off on parts for the Dora build until I figure out exactly what was used.

Here's a response from Sean Malloy, which also answers many of the questions I had.


Quoted Text



Standard gauge, as used in Europe, is 1435mm; Russian wide gauge is 1520mm. A correct 1/35 track gauge would be 41mm; however, one of the shortcuts that is sometimes taken is to use a 45mm track gauge, because this matches the track for 1 Gauge model railroads, allowing the use of commercially available 1 Gauge track.

On the Eastern front, the Germans would either lay entirely new track, which would look the same as track laid in Germany, re-gauge the Russian 1520mm track by unspiking one rail and moving it inward (Frederick Boucher has reviewed Armor35's products for this), or, if it was necessary to use German rolling stock on Russian rail instead of transferring the load to Russian rolling stock, would replace the trucks on the cars with 1520mm trucks. Re-gauging track to 1435mm also had the benefit of making the track unusable if recaptured by the Russians until they reverse the regauging.

DrODDS
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Posted: Sunday, November 20, 2016 - 01:35 AM UTC
Here's some dimensional information regarding current track sets:


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Note that as none of these have been glued there was a little play. Excuse my 1/35 measurements in inches.

1) Old trumpeter (from K5 gun kit): 1.750" = 1556 mm (even larger than Russian gauge, which would be 1520 mm)

2) New trumpeter (from Karl on railway transport): 1.630" = 1449 mm (Stabdard European is 1435)

3) Dragon (from schwerer panzerspähwagen kit): 1.635" = 1454 mm

4) MiniArt (european rail): 1.615" = 1436 mm (basically exact for European gauge, but small enough to likely be incompatible with all Dragon and Trumpeter kits without modification)



I have ordered Armor35 russian tie plates and spikes for use on my Karl on railway transport build. I will be using balsa for the sleepers, and I will paint/weather it to look like a Russian railway that was re-gauged to European (1435 mm). As for the Dora build, I will have to hold off until I can get the exact style figured out. From what I can tell from the few pictures I've found, the straight section of Dora track (in Russia) was NOT made from russian tie plates or re-gauged Russian track, as no holes from previous mounting locations are visible in the ties, and the plate assembly has a very bulky appearance (on both the inside and outside of the rail) in the photographs. This, from what I can tell, indicates that German railway components were transported to the gun's final location for rail construction.

EDIT: I'm not sure how to insert a picture from my phone, but there is at least one clear photograph of German-style tie plates on a fully assembled (straight and curved) Dora track section. This observation is consistent with the bulky appearance of the tie plates in all the other photos I could find. Unless ALL these pictures happen to have been taken before the gun was shipped to the eastern front, its safe to say that European components were used.
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