"Set aside." Normandy diorama.

[Guest]

Thank you Steve, I can recommend the Sabre flatbed wagon, superb fit, no or little flash...

A first layer of gravel was sprinkled into a heavy mixture of plaster/water/wood glue. I'll have to rework slightly here and there and add more once the sleepers are in place.
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It's a start...

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[Guest]

The sleepers were glued in place and tomorrow the grind bed will be added to the base.

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[JR]

Guy.
Nicely set out track sleepers, are they resin ?, the detail on them is top class.
Looking fwd to seeing progress on this, I've never seen a flatbed and tank build on any forum before.
John

[Tim Marlow]

Hi Guy
Good build so far, the Panther and flatbed are excellent.
One thing strikes me though, are you sleepers too close together? It may be the photos, but the images make them seem too close, at least to my eye? The other aspect to keep in mind is the ballasting. If the waggon is to be shown in a yard setting there wouldn’t be a ballast shoulder. This was to improve safety for the railway staff as the flat ballast would be easier to walk on. If you are showing the waggon on a running line, however, shouldered ballast would be fine. Detail on those sleepers is excellent, by the way, nice to see them full thickness as well.....
Cheers
Tim

[papa 695]

Nice work so far Guy, the Panther and flatbed look great

[Guest]

Ian, thank you for your supportive words.

Tim, you were right on the shoulders as this will be a yard setting, therefor I added more sand/dirt to lower the gravel bed. It's not much maybe three mm but it looks much better. Great and useful comment sir ! For the sleepers I followed the instruction sheet, it says 1Omm between them. They look ok to me when I compare with reference photos. Thanks for the heads up.

John, no they're Sabre plastic ones and they came with the flatbed railcar. The wood structure looks ok but I'll have to scratch more detailed clampings.

[Tim Marlow]

Glad I could help Guy. Spacing is probably just the pictures then...I know it varies by company and country at that time...and is also slightly closer under the rail joints if you have one..
Ballast would be pretty flush with the sleeper top, possibly cinders rather than proper ballast so fine stuff would work best. Not sure on German flat bottom rail fixings, but they may simply be spikes through a Baseplate. Peco used to make them, probably O gauge would be fine enough for this scale....rail chairs would not be used with flat bottomed rail, it’s one area where British outline railway practice lagged behind the rest of the world because we still used bullhead rail.
Cheers
Tim

[Steve Jones]

Dont know why but as soon as I saw your update I thought of Burt Lancaster in the film The Train:smiling3: Looks like it is all going well. When Tigers went on the flatbeds they had to sort out the wheels to make them fit. Were there those issues with the Panther as well??

[Gary MacKenzie]

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( pictures for discussion purposes only )

These pictures show , to me , that the french rail tracks had very close sleepers, maybe they ran heavier trains ???

[Guest]

Thank you for sharing these lovely reference photos Gary. I followed the instruction sheet, 10mm between two sleepers.

[Steve Jones]

Gary - The sleepers were closer together so it was easier for the French troops to run away on:smiling:

[Guest]

Steve, thank you sir, I can't tell you if Panthers' wheels were an issue. I'll look for info on that matter.

[Gary MacKenzie]

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(photo for discussion purposes only)

Look's like they fitted without track/wheel alterations. ( just ) ( 3.42 metres wide ) versus Tiger @ 3.56 m

[ropey]

Was the hull MG fitted after the shot?

[Guest]

Hello friends, I didn't have enough benchtime for an update. I'm still scratchbuilding the details of the sleepers, here's an impression of how far I got.

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There's a lot of white stuff works going on.

Hopefully more soon.

Best regards !