A while back I mentioned that I was interested in an Army Loco that I saw at Fort Stewart and I bought a LL GP20 to make my own Army Loco. Well anyway I picked up some Army Cars to make up an Army train. I bought 4 MT US ARMY 50' Box Cars (yellow with red doors) and 4 MT U.S. ARMY Flat Cars (green) to go with my Army Red GP20. I’m going to buy some tanks and other military vehicles for the flat cars, but I don’t know exactly what to buy. My problem is tying everything together with what I got. For one thing, I’ve never seen a yellow & red Army box car before and I’ve never seen a Red Loco off base. I have seen lots of military trains near Barstow CA heading toward Los Vegas loaded with Bradleys, MLRS, and Hummers but never with a red Loco. They were always being pulled by a BNSF of another commercial rail. So what is the story with the yellow box cars? I've tried searching for Military Trains on Google, but all I get "training".
It’s the MT 993 00 019 four runner pack WIG-WAG still has some, but nobody else that I could find. They call it US Army Runner Pack #19
I've seen pictures and video of the red Army loco. It is used for switching around base and doesn't go on the main line. Most of the rolling stock I saw hauling equipment around Camp Pendleton, CA in the '80s was Santa Fe locomotives shoving around 89' flatcars. They would use those for LVTP-7s, trucks, etc. MT has a nice LVTP-7 (Amtrac) load in both desert and green (woodlands). If you are simulating an Army base, you could have the Marines coming for an exercise. As for the yellow Army box cars, I would suspect they are some sort of special run as DoD tends to not advertise where and when it is moving things. That's just an educated guess on my part, however. Andy "Tetsu Uma"
I wasn’t really going to build a base. I was thinking of a small spur to a small depot with maybe a couple of Quonset Huts and a Micro-trains Military Warehouse Kit. I saw a loading dock years ago that always reminded me of my time at FT ORD CA, but I can’t find it anymore.
THe military stuff I've seen either has a discreet DODX for freight and tank cars, then I've seen a bunch of sleeper/kitchen cars. Then there is all the fantasy commemorative stuff. I have also seen old Con-COr sets that purport to be hospital trains with military steamers.
During first Desert Storm, we had an enormous amount of material moving by rail to the east coast via the then-Conrail, ex-Erie-Lackawanna main line. The very first trains were loaded solid with M1-Abrams, and those trains had cabooses - with armed sentries on guard on both ends. Yeah, I put down the camera when I spotted M16's. As things progressed the specials kept coming but more to support vehicles, instead of offensive material. Just before they cut the main line (as Conrail) we saw a solid short train of Patriot missle batteries as a special headed east. But other than a few oddball moves, I very rarely saw any DODX flats. Most were 1 or 2 tanks per car, usually _TTX flats - heavyweight flats for the bigger tanks, more conventional piggyback flats for the rest. DODX retired almost all their tank-carrying flatcars, relying on the conventional flatcar pool. The big difference is now that a 'conventional' flatcar can easily handle 100 tons on four wheels and 89'4" rather than the typical 50-ton, 40-foot flat of WWII era. The closest you'll ever see to a 'main line' military locomotive is the special-painted UP locomotive for Desert Storm as a commerative.
Simulating a base with an industrial spur would be cool. I was thinking of reasons to have Marine Corps specific equipment at an Army base and vice versa.
Are you talking about the older WWII troop trains? I think I have seen them. I’m looking for something more modern. Since I already have the flat cars I started looking for something to put on them and I found a lot of pretty cool modern military stuff, but it’s all 1/44 scale and I don’t know it will look right. I also found some Die Cast pieces, but I’m not very fond of the die cast. I had a Die Cast Van before and I just could never get it to look good because of the solid metal windows. I also saw some interesting Vietnam era military stuff on eBay, only it’s not much of a selection. It’s going to be hard to fill 4 flat cars. I might have to come up with something else for a load.
The yellow boxcars with red doors are for hauling ammo around, not 5.56mm NATO rounds but bombs, artillery shells, cannon rounds etc. The red gps the army has are for switching on bases, you'll almost never see them out on mainline trains
I’ve got to work out at Barstow one day this coming week and I’ll have to ask the guys who live out there what they know about it. Three of the guys out there used to work at the Marine Depot there in Barstow. They probably have some knowledge about it. The funny thing is I’ve had to wait a crossing for those trains passing through on more than one occasion, but I wasn’t really interested at the time. I was more interested in all the hummers riding those flat cars and never looked at the flat car itself..
You mean like this? BLMA Models - N Scale Or train 3 in this clip on railvideos?: http://www.rail-videos.net/video/view.php?id=3270 And there's these: Results for N Scale Military Vehicles
My base has its own branch line that runs from the base to the CSX Eastover Sub. The interchange would be really easy to model. The line curves away from the CSX tracks almost 90 degrees to a passing track. Normally, the empties and loads are left on the curve for one or the other to pick up. The cars are always DODX tank cars. I can't ever recall seeing any other type of car being delivered to the base. I have heard that it used to happen and the base still retains the capability to recieve ither types of cars.
I did a 30 car WW2 military train. I have the flats you have (X30) plus a few 40 ft army boxcars, a couple of MT army tank cars, 1 troop car (for the security detail) and 4 of the ammo boxcars. When I put it together, I could get tanks,trucks,halftracks, and SP howitzers at Wally World for $2 each. They are all 1/144, but look just fine.....the key is that they are ALL the same scale.....if you try to mix sizes you'll have some issues. I use the train at a lot of NTRAK displays, and noone has ever noticed a size issue.
So how is Shaw? I got a buddy there that is crewing 16s now, and I've thought about heading that way, its close to Myrtle Beach and well that's where my girl is. But I'd need a place to run trains and such...so who knows.
For those looking for WWII era equipment..check out KenRay Models. http://www.kenraymodels.com/pages/pages/miltary.shtml They have been at the Ohio N Scale weekend both years so far and have some gorgeous models. My only complaint is that they are pewter and heavy. Make sure you have some power to pull these if you want to run them.
30 Cars, wow! I would have liked to have seen it. Some of the 1/144 stuff really fits the era that I want. I might buy a couple of pieces just to see what it looked like. I bought some road equipment thats 1/144 and it looks ok. Off course real tractors come in all sizes so its hard to tell, but I was worried that if it were on a 1/160 flat car, it might be noticeable.
