How many of you armor/military modelers are also interested in railroad models, whether "military scale" (1/35, 1/48, 1/72-1/76) or traditional model railroads? Thank you for your participation. We at RailRoad Modeling are curious.
Group, 24-hours in and this poll is off to a good start. So far, it looks like almost two out of three of us do have an interest in railroad models in and of themselves.
I am not trying to poach anyone from Armorama and invited you to visit RailRoad Modeling and show us your models. We also have awesome campaign running, and a new one pending: Inaugural Railway Campaign
Hope to see you down at the station.
The spirit’s willing but the flesh (and wallet and modelling time) is weak. I’ve been an armchair model railroader for many years and have put together a decent library - mostly logging/mining narrow gauge - and have a few shelves in the basement decorated with boxes stuffed with “potential”. Someday I’d love to build a small “mini-miner” layout (inspiration from Iain Rice’s Lilliput Logger, MR Aug1998) but at this point I’d probably settle for a loop of On30 track under the Christmas tree with a Porter and a couple of shorty cars. I regularly drop by the RailRoad Modeling forum and admire the work being done there but don’t really have the opportunity to contribute.
I hope you get more feedback from people in the other Kitmaker forums.
Cheers,
Colin
Hi Colin, thanks for the input. I understand the lack of resources, in my case it’s time and space. You talked about your mini mining or mini logger idea. Are you familiar with Mini-Trains? They were marketed by AHM back in the 60s and 70s, and then some company in Germany revived them a few years ago. I don’t think that they’re still making them because of some problem with who owned the moles or something like that, but you can find the sets out there. They are HO but use N track, about HOn2. I’ve seen a few of them were people have tricked them out pretty good. They look really nice for a small Industrial layout.
I voted for #2 but would really like to check both #2 AND #3.
I have an interest in ALL heavy machinery from Armor, Tractors & Trucks, to Standard & Narrow Gauge Railroading to the Space Shuttle as well as all things Space X. (Orbital mechanics still evades me though.) *
Started out as a RR modeler at age eight and have been at it (mostly Armor & Railroading) for 64 years!
_
*(Basic orbits around a planet I get, but what is involved in orbiting the James Webb Space Telescope around a Lagrange Point still evades me???)
Fred, I am a longtime armor modeler (53 years) and had a HO layout in my teen years. However, time and space prevent me from having trains now. I still love them, though, and attend a huge ( 22,000 attendance!) annual model train show in my area. I don’t own any trains now, but I would be happy building structures for somebody else’s layout, that would be fun I think.
@JPTRR Yes I remember them and I’ve noticed they’re enjoying a bit of a renaissance. They’re exactly the type of equipment I’ve always liked but don’t get to indulge in. Someday… retirement…6 years and counting. 
Matthew, I sympathize with you. I have not had a working layout set up in 35 years. But I still love to build cars and structures and everything else. My “layout” is a 4 ft by 2 ft area with a main line and a spur that crosses a secondary line with a single slip switch. I use it mainly the testing and demonstrating things.
I think there’s still three months left in the inaugural railroad campaign, and when the next campaign starts shortly, the subjects are pretty wide-open: military; structures; Rolling Stock; pretty well anything related to railroads. Come build a structure with us?
My On30 “Carpet Railroad” runs on my living room floor using HO fast-track. This makes for long runs and WIDE curves but also the occasional tripping of the girlfriend. (No falls so far!)
p.s. The Cat loves its well!
I started out as a kid with my older brothers train sets and loved it, then armor modeling came along. I continued with the trains on a very limited basis but was hit and heavy for armor and figures too. Then after my military service and college I got heavily into trains. This coincided with me getting a job on the Long Island Railroad lol. I started buying engines and rolling stock and even built an 8x4 table to start a layout. Had a track up and running but soon it became too expensive and time consuming for both. The tanks won out! Maybe I’ll set some trains up when I retire. Still have about 20 or do engines and 40 -50 pieces of rolling stock. Here my table now…,
Richard,
you’ve denied yourself a quiet pleasure with all those labels. Anytime I need a little pick me up I can go to the basement and open a dusty unlabeled box and spend a good half-hour saying," Oh cool, I’ve always wanted one of those!". 
Cheers,
Colin
That’s half of my modeling life! LOL.
I still go down there and just open boxes and look at the plastic lol, sometimes just the box top itself is joyous enough! I actually did an inventory to try to ….gulp……thin my stash. Managed to get rid of almost 50 kits out my stash of 270. Many older Italeri stuff and figure sets from Dragon. Got a huge box of resin figures I haven’t even touched yet.
Results to date show almost 2 or 3 of us have an interest in railroad subjects. Not yet 10 days old. 785 views so far but only 118 votes. I’ll let this run a while longer.
Being one who serves two masters, I will be building more military rail subjects soon. We have another campaign starting on railroad modeling and they will be there. I don’t want to distract or poach armor modelers but I wonder if there is a way to create a dual campaign, with subjects on either site yet under a single banner? I’ll look into that.
Anyone have a railway model in progress? How 'bout some show and tell?
What about a campaign that encompasses both a railroad subject and military subject? A flat car with a vehicle on it seems most obvious. I have a few ideas. Always wanted to do a diorama with a Reichsbahn flat car with an M60 being loaded/ unloaded.
Some years ago I developed an interest in The Rhodesian bush war which resulted in me build quite a collection of kit bashed and scratchbuilt vehicles
in 1/35th and aircraft in 1/48th. This grew to a layout to display the vehicles and Rhodesian wartime rail rolling stock. Here’s a few photos.
A Cougar armoured rail trolley Land Rover based.
The start of a rail protection wagon armed with an ex aircraft 20mm cannon and a 7.62mm machine gun.
Here is one of my recent pieces, 1/76 scale, combining military with railway subjects … Dennis 3-ton Lorry being loaded onto a Lowmac railway wagon (Great Western Railway, WWI era).
Paul
Good day all, i am getting back into modeling, and saw this older thread and had to upload a recent project i am working on. I did hav an old account here from over 10 years ago but it wouldnt transfer over. Probably user error. This pic is an 1/87 SDV pz4 H with added zim custom brass schurtzen brackets , custom schurtzen and a 15g needle for the barrel. The kit has inaccuracies but i can live with them. Enjoy.
I am a 1/35 WWII modeler. There are now many kits available of German and Soviet armored trains and rolling stock. Many years ago I built some 1/35 DML and Trumpeter Armored RR vehicles. I actually bought a Squadron Signal book on WWII Armored Trains as reference material. The 1/35 Locomotives are also very nice but too expensive for my tastes. I will check out RailRoad Modeling.
