Dragon

Kit Number 14023

1/144 Railway Artilleriewagen and Box Wagen

Reviewed By Jim Pearsall, #2209

This kit further increases the number of 1/144 armor kits available.  While I suspect they’re mostly for war gamers, they can and do look good with 1/144 aircraft, and could go with N scale, which is 1/160.

The parts come mounted in a tray, which keeps the parts from getting lost.  After looking for one of the buffer/shock absorber assemblies for the box car on the floor, I recognize the need to keep all of these parts neatly and securely stored.  I didn’t realize the dog shed all that hair right there in my work area.  The large parts have been removed from the sprues, and only require a little attention with the knife and file to be ready for assembly.  The small parts are still attached, and some care is required to get them off without damage.  When I say small parts, they are very small.

The Artilleriewagen has only 3 major parts, an upper assembly, a lower assembly and the turret.  These go together neatly, with large locaters internally which give strength and survivability to the whole assembly.  The wheels are molded into the bottom, and do not roll.

The turret doesn’t fit tightly, and it seems like every time I tried to do anything to the model, it fell off, usually on the floor and generally in some inaccessible spot.  I finally wound up putting some Scotch Magic tape around the turret ring to make it tight enough to stay on, but loose enough to traverse the turret. 

The rest of the panzer consists of the shock buffers and hooks which are features of European rolling stock.  There is a fret of photo etch with a comm antenna which mounts on top of the unit.

I painted it panzer sand overall.  I added a wash of slightly darker brown, but it doesn’t seem to have picked out the detail as well as I wished.

The decals were nicely in register and went on well.  I could have some fairly harsh statements to make about whoever decided to put double stick tape on the back of the decal sheet, however.

The only other thing I notice about this kit is that the antenna interferes with the traverse of the gun turret.  Probably true to prototype.

The wheels and trucks are 3 pieces.  The outer assemblies are the suspension and wheels, with the axle glued in.  The wheels are not designed to roll, as they are molded into the suspension.  The design makes for a robust assembly which holds together well.

There are 2 end plates which support the hooks, buffers and connectors for coupling cars.

The rest of the car consists of 2 sides, 2 ends and the roof.  There are good locators on the sides and ends, and they fit to the floor nicely.  The roof goes on, and the assembly is finished.

I painted the sides with a wash of brown, which looks convincingly worn.  I painted the windows and doors Feldgrau, for no other reason than it looked like the right color for a wartime car.  Some detail painting on the buffers, and it was done.

My only problem with the goods wagon is that the flanges on the wheels aren’t deep enough to reliably keep the car on the track provided.  It generally doesn’t look like it’s on the track, because it isn’t.

The track is nicely done.  The connection method holds the parts together nicely.  There are 2 long sections, one straight one curved, and 4 end pieces, in case you don’t want to connect the long sections.

I put a brown wash on the ties, and painted the rails silver.

Overall assessment:  Pretty well engineered.  Not difficult to assemble, but not for the 12-and-under set, as the small parts are really difficult to track and handle.  I wound up using CA on the buffers and hooks, as the pins are slightly small for the holes, and there’s not enough surface area for Micro-Weld or Tenax to get a firm hold.

So how small are these?  This small!

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