The new thought is a what-if scenario, with a B-25 split over three railroad cars for shipment. The story line is that strong storms during the winter of 1943 (or 1944) caused reconsideration of using ferry flights, and transportation by train to Maritime (or other) final assembly points was tried. Or perhaps the rail cars / components could be loaded on ships, as was done with short-range planes.
As you can see, I have opened the box to start considering component positioning. The fuselage halves are tacked together and temporarily mounted. The photo shows a 52' flat car actually built in the 50's, but as is clear a more prototypical 40' car just won't work for the fuselage - which may be shipped sans nose, or perhaps with slight overhang at the rear.
I am hoping to use one or two 40' cars, based on how much space it takes to stowe all the component sections; I do have two more 52' cars on hand if it turns out that I need to use all of them. I still haven't decided if the engines and nacelles will be fitted to the wings, or moved separately.
I have no idea if it was ever done or not, but I found a drawing for loading a Messerschmitt (admittedly much smaller) on a flat car.
Also, much later in time but even more massive, Boeing ships assembled 727 fuselages from it's Wichita plant by rail to the Renton, WA facility for completion. You can easily find many youtube videos of this operation.
I have a couple of painting questions. I found a build log for a HK 1:32 Mitchell, and the fellow building it used several layers of aluminum before olive drab. I got the sense that this was to create a more metal-like appearance, but maybe that is more critical on the 1:32 model with all the rivet detail. Any suggestions for a primer color?
Also, he used an Edourd mask set for painting the clear pieces - which this plane has a lot of. I haven't checked if they make a 1:48 set, but was wondering if a thin marker would work for this? Does anybody make olive drab markers?
Charles
