Dave Shick reviews Trumpeter's German Panzerlok BR57 Armoured Locomotive kit.



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Thanks!

Thank you Bill, David has done nice job on it. The loco has some details improved since BR52, and it can turn into nice model at the and. The price seems to be pretty high for it in my opinion, it is kinda big kit, but it did not take much time to design it I would say. ALso pity they did not put any effort into the cab interior, I guess many guys would go for "open windows" option. I have a regular BR57 in my mind to start in near future, and that will be a good chance for me to check this kit more closely
Cheers
Libor

Thanks, Libor.

I should point out to anyone interested that Libor's company, LZ Models, produces some very interesting resin upgrades for the Trumpy loco kits that will improve the interiors.

I see no figures on the sprue shots, Brian.

Besides, I don't really want any Trumpeter or Tamiya figures anyway.

Correct, no figures.

There's really no option to position the cab windows open, unless you scratch built an entire interior.

Libor does make bits for the BR86 (which I have, and will be using soon - I hope). Also the BR52, I think, but not as extensive. Maybe after he gets going on this guy he'll come up with some stuff. An entire cab interior might be interesting, but really would be lost if the tender and loco were attached. There's really no use for the valves and pumps he fashions so well either, they're all under the armor.

Anyone know what is the total length of the armored train?

How did they get the coal from the front tender into the engine?

Trumpeter probably included the front of the boiler because they included positionable doors in the front armor.

KL

I managed to pick one up for $50.00 CDN at a train show

Kurt, In common railroad practice a secondary tender was often used to carry water only. Down thru the years many auxiliary railroad tenders have been built that carry only water. Coal being more readily available, it could be burned regardless of quality grade but for a steam engine the water had to be of at least a minimum quality to limit the formation of scale and calcium deposits in the boiler.

I looked at building the whole thing to BP_44 standards and you'd me looking at something around ~12'/4 meters for the whole thing. Only about 6" wide though!

True for most areas, but this is actually not the case for all coals Michael. Ukranian coal had to be sprinkled and treated with oil to make the steam engines run with it as it's quality was too poor. This was done for most steam engines over there due to lack of the coal's quality, and in grand scale for the BR52s. Though it was readily available everywhere as you stated and thus, water was more of a concern, hence the "Kondenstender" and such.

/Stefan

But was that the case here? The second tender in those cases was normally a water-only model, not simply a regular tender with no coal in the bunker.

KL

Cannot say for sure what the Germans did back then, however they probably had more than a few salvaged tenders from locomotives that had been blown up in resistance attacks (always go for the locomotive) - some tenders no doubt would have survived! The coal bunker would possibly have provided a storage space for an ammo reserve or food stocks.

In the US, the L&N used salvaged M1 tenders for water supply on their work trains. The UP and Southern would build dedicated, water only, tenders.

Pleasantly surprised at the level of detail offered under the skirts of the locomotive. As to the cab However - they chose to detail the forward bulkhead of the tender so it is surprising they did not offer at least a minimally detailed boiler blackhead that the super detailers could go to work on as well as an opening cab window with a figure of an engineer. (As pictured on the box Art!)