Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Model Railroad News 05 2009


ExactRail's entry into the HO market is spearheaded by the release of three diverse and exciting freight cars. They are a Gunderson 7466 cubic foot composite sided wood chip car, an American Car 8c Foundry Vert-A-Pac and a Pacific Car & Foundry 6033 cubic foot single door boxcar. Each car type is offered in several paint schemes and each has unique roadnumbers offered, allowing the modeler to purchase several cars. The models are all late 20th century cars with builders dates varying from 1965 to the mid-1970s. However, many of these cars are still on the road today with the exception of the Vert-A-Pak cars which had a relatively short lifespan because of their very specific use hauling Chevy Vegas. I think the first thing that caught my attention about the models was their packaging. The boxes are beautiful and really grab the eye. ExactRail offers two lines of models: the Evolution series and the Platinum Series. The Evolution Series is shipped in a blue box while the Platinum Series is shipped in a Platinum colored one. I slowly pulled each car from the shipping box and carefully examined it. The detailing, paint quality, and uniqueness of each car really stood out. The boxes have an internal split plastic car cradle that protects the car from damage during shipping. The packaging worked and the cars did not exhibit any signs of damage.

Osprey Modelling Manuals 20 Focke-Wulf FW190


Focke-Wulfs now infamous designer, Kurt Tank, created the Focke-Wulf 190 fighter in fact as one of a number of designs he put forward in 1937. He had to work hard BO persuade the Luftwaffe that a radial engine would be as successful as the in-line engines being required in ever increasing numbers for other types of combat aircraft The BMW 139 engine fitted to the prototype Fw 190 suffered from serious overheating problems and these continued with the first production Fw 190A-0s. The problem became so serious that the Luftwaffe considered cancelling the whole Fw 190 programme, but as we now know these early difficulties were overcome. The Fw 190 was to go on to become the mainstay of the Luftwaffe fighter force. The first Luftwaffe unit to receive the Fw 190A-1 was JG.26 in June 1941 for operational use against the RAF along the English Channel. The RAF's first loss to an Fw 190 occurred over Dunkirk on 1 September after which it soon became clear that the German aircraft clearly had performance superior to that of the Supermarine Spitfire Mark V, the best RAF fighter of the time.