For a long while I have been after the Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company's WW1 Austro Hungarian Armoured Train which came on the market in the early 00's when playing 1920s Back of Beyond was a fashionable thing to do.
Long since out of production, last year I was lucky to be able to pick up the locomotive and an infantry/maxim car off ebay. Some email correspondence with the ever helpful Richard at the HLSBC whilst purchasing some re-releases of the HLSBC WW1 German Storm Troop range, meant he agreed to cast up some artillery cars and another infantry/maxim cars!
The Wagons are for the best part single part resin castings for the superstructure and chassis, with little preparation needed. The wheels and buffers are cast pewter alloy and require a little cleaning up before fitting. The Artillery car comes with a pose-able turret and choice of field gun barrels, I opted for the Russian 76mm M1902 gun. The locomotive has a slightly more complex wheel arrangement and the chimney and boiler dome are resin.
The train is accurate to it the real life version and compares favorably (Landships Website), although it looks to be 25mm scale vs 28mm, although I am not that fussy. The kits could be improved a little with the addition of some metal maxim gun barrels and couplings for the wagons (as per Company B's trains) as well as connecting rods for the locomotive, although this would be rather irritating to assemble! The kit is value for money and HLBSC are by far the best company to deal with in the business, being very receptive, helpful and dispatch very quickly. A very good product delivered by an excellent service.
My train was painted in Vallejo 'London Grey', washed in Army painter 'Strong tone' with rust streaks added to rivet heads and cantrel lines. The train was dry brushed to weather it. Buffers were finished in GW 'Chain Mail' silver.
76mm 1902 Model Field gun artillery car.
Infantry / Maxim Car
Armoured Locomotive
The completed Armoured Train
