Hi all

This is a bit of a wierd post as I haven't much to show, more of a statement of intent really to keep me motivated and maybe get a few suggestions from the masses.

I used to make model railways a bit, and I've always liked trains, and so as I'm planning to make a bunch of transportable pieces of terrain in the near future I'm planning to kick it off with a small imperial freight yard.

At the moment I'm thinking two bogie box cars, a bogie flat truck and a loco.  The yard itself will have three tracks and one wrecked warehouse/goodshed.

I've been sketching out idea for a while, and whilst at first I couldn't decide on steam-esque locos or diesel-locos, I've decided on a mix.  A modern steam engine look with some very unusual power couplings.

The engine I'm basing it on is the Pennsylvannia T1 4-4-4-4 which you may know from the film A Series of Unfortunate Events (it's the one that almost hits the kids car at the level crossing), and only existed IRL for a few years before being scrapped for diesel motive power.  Very forboding and scary looking.



I'm basing the power on a rare type of loco called a 'Shay'.  Basically the idea was to power every single wheel on the loco meaning there was no wasted effort, and very little wheel-slip.  They were slow but very powerful beasts (often used for logging and mining) and to me are rather aesthetically pleasing, especially with the off centre boiler.



These ideas have rattled around in my head to create the attached concept.  Basically it's a shay type chassis with the boiler and cab of a T1.  There's a bunker/power plant of sort at the back (looking a bit like a steam engine's coal bunker) which may or may not have some sort of ore in it.  

Apologies for the dodgy sketch/scan but I've been scribbling on the train and at work and I want to put this idea up before I forget about it and lose interest.

As I say, this is mostly to motivate myself but if anyone has any thoughts or experience around Epic scale trains, let me know!  Hope to be starting in a few weeks once I've finished decorating my bedroom!

Peace out folks.

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Great Scott!

Sounds like a cool idea, I know nothing about trains so can't really help there.

No actual trains in sight but Carl Woodrow had some railway tracks in his Armageddon city boards.

Yeah I've been in email contact with Carl about that, his board inspired the idea really.  This page gave me a few ideas as well.  The skull detail is a bit cartoony in my eyes, but the rest is pretty sound.  I'm going to go for a more realistic US box car and bogie approach though, and the containers will probably be based on the Forge World 'ribbed' trailers.



My terrain pieces are planned to be totally portable so my yard will be a lot smaller than Carl's, three or so spurs on a base no bigger than about 30 by 20 cm.  The tracks will be bombed out at one end and have craters throughout (some of the cars will be wrecked/derailed) to try and suggest a small part of what was once a much bigger network.

The fact you think it's a cool idea is reason enough for me to get on with it, although I need no excuse to scratch-build railway stuff TBH, no matter what the background!  

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Great Scott!

There is an Imperial locomotive in the 40k:Apocalypse book. It doesn't have rules or anything, but it looks cool and might give you some ideas.

Yeah, the imperial war train as seen below?

I've seen it yep, but wheras that's an armoured defence loco I want this to be more of a shunter.  Similar idea though, bogie powered and ambiguous as to whether it's steam or diesel fuelled.

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Great Scott!

What about even going with a mag-lev type train?  More futuristic, it gets you out of scratchbuilding suspension, & you can still retain the look.

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WAAARGH!!
The Lost & the Dipped

I thought about this, but I already have the suspension/chassis (bonuses of a past in railway modelling!) and heavy iron track seems more appropriate for the Imperium I think.  I know they have lift technology obviously but I thought it'd be a lot of work for moving heavy gear when axles and rails would probably do the job.

Having had another good look at the Imperial War Train I might try and incorporate some of their ideas into it, I do want it to look like it would fit in with the Imperium!

Thanks for all your comments guys, keep 'em coming!

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Great Scott!

I like the looks of the locomotive in one of the James Bond movies with Pierce Brosnan. I'm pretty sure it was Goldeneye. The scene was towards the end of the movie.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

Now that is a very good idea.  My design's already got the imposing 'brow/forehead' element, but that is a great basis for a loco.  I shall see what I can do!

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Great Scott!

Cool, I must admit that I've thought about doing Epic-scale Imperial Trainlines as a terrain piece - I always thought that the BFG Cobra destroyers would be a perfect basis for heavy-duty looking bullet trains.

Looking forward to seeing what you're going to come up with!