1/72 WWI Military Train
The Historical Model Railway Society exhibits working model railways at their Museum and Study Centre at the Midland Railway Centre at Butterley in Derbyshire which is open to the public on certain special weekends and by appointment.
We are setting the date of one of our 4mm scale railways (Plemsworth) back to August 1914 and running a model of a troop train carrying half a battery of Artillery to Southampton for embarkation to join the British Expeditionary Force. We have used your HAT QF4.5 inch Howitzer kit to build the guns, but have had to scratch build the limbers and ammunition wagons, using plastic and brass. We have also built General Service Wagons from scratch.
I enclose pics of part of the troop train with our scratch built General Service Wagons and limbers together with your QF4.5 Howitzers loaded onto carriage trucks. Our train also includes cattle wagons that were used to transport the horses. There are 26 railway vehicles in the train. The other photograph shows three Great Central Railway locomotives in the correct lined black livery for 1914. The locomotive with the white headboard is in charge of the troop train.
On 16th and 17th August the Midland Railway Centre at Butterley in Derbyshire will be hosting Midland Railex which is a large model railway exhibition and the layouts will be running in 1914 guise.
Louis Heath
Layout Manager
HMRS
http://www.hmrs.org.uk/index.php
Many thanks to Mr. Heath.