Hi.. Was just looking through the Great Models web site and saw that they have the Trumpeter K 5 E railway gun for $107.10. Now even though this is quite a hunk of change for a model, it's still about $20 or $30 cheaper that I was lead to believe it would be when it came out. So that's a good thing. Right?

Take care, sgirty

Squadron Mail order has them for $100

The list price is like $140 or so

here in the UK my local model shop has the Dragon one for £70 from what I here the Trumpeter one should bearound £79 so a nice little saving there :-) It's interesting to compare prices from different sources though

But the Trumpeter kit has nicer detail to it.....

Hi. Went to the local hobby shop here in the Dayton Ohio area today and they had just received the Trumpeter K 5 E in as a display item. WOW! Having now seen both the Trumpeter and the Dragon I will vote for the Trumpeter version. Very, very nice. And it also has the T-track layout in the kit as well. Of course, where to put this thing with this type of set up is another question that will be dealt with later ! HA! But the box is really big and is just filled to the brim with parts. And the dealer said he could get me one for $104. So since my birthday is next week end and I figure that with turning 54 at least two-thirds of my life is over with anyway, and any number of ther good logicial reasons (?) that I could come up at that moment, I went ahead and gave in and ordered one.

Since the kit was still in the shipment boxes this is the first time this dealer had opened the kit box as well, and he was much impressed with it as compared to the Dragon unit. The plastic all looked to be real nicely and crisply molded and it is a multi-media kit as well, with PE, chain, different guages of wire, etc. included. The railroad bed pieces themselves look to be 4 or 5 inches across with some very nicely molded detail in the rocks, which looks to be a project in iteslf in the painting and weathering department. Guess some research in the model RR section is going to be in order to get some stone coloring details for RR road beds.

I can see right now that we're talking months worth of work here. Quite literally, even if this is the only model a person would work on till it was completely finished. After all, 1100+ parts is not, by any means, going to be a walk in the part, just in assembing, not even thinking on the painting and weathering.

So if anybody out there is trying to decide between these two, my opinion, for what it's worth, would be to go with the Trumpeter. Of course, if you've just won the lottery, get both. Ha!

Take care, sgirty

Military Hobbies in Canada also has it listed at $99.95. While I'm a little short of coin at the moment, I may have to wait a bit, but the Trumpeter K-5 is definately my choice.

Mike