DPRK missile train / M62 locomotive WIP (10th of August)
And now for something a little different. I'm not much of a train builder, but for a few years now, I've been meaning to build a military train. Initially I looked at the Peacekeeper Rail Garrison. This was an American plan to launch Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles from trains, which reached the hardware stage prior to being cancelled in the early nineties. I looked at this for the experimental military collaboration (for Brickfair Virginia 2020). However, it was a really big train, with two locomotives and several huge cars.
Then, in September of 2021, North Korea launched two KN-23 ballistic missiles from a train. They repeated this early this year. They are short-range ballistic missiles (with a range less than 1000 km) and the train is much more compact, with a single M62 locomotive (originally built in Ukraine, when it was part of the Soviet Union) and two cars, one of which houses the two missiles.
Given that I've been building a collection of missile launchers of various types, this fits the bill.
I've started by building the locomotive and the two missiles. LEGO trains tend to be built to a smaller scale than is really appropriate for minifigures, mainly so that a train layouts can fit a child's bedroom. It is my intention that mine will be able navigate a gentle curve, but it will primarily be a stationary model. So, I stuck to the scale I normally use for minifigures (between 1/40 and 1/43) and ended up with a train that is nine studs wide.
DPRK missile train / M62 locomotive WIP (10th of August)
And now for something a little different. I'm not much of a train builder, but for a few years now, I've been meaning to build a military train. Initially I looked at the Peacekeeper Rail Garrison. This was an American plan to launch Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles from trains, which reached the hardware stage prior to being cancelled in the early nineties. I looked at this for the experimental military collaboration (for Brickfair Virginia 2020). However, it was a really big train, with two locomotives and several huge cars.
Then, in September of 2021, North Korea launched two KN-23 ballistic missiles from a train. They repeated this early this year. They are short-range ballistic missiles (with a range less than 1000 km) and the train is much more compact, with a single M62 locomotive (originally built in Ukraine, when it was part of the Soviet Union) and two cars, one of which houses the two missiles.
Given that I've been building a collection of missile launchers of various types, this fits the bill.
I've started by building the locomotive and the two missiles. LEGO trains tend to be built to a smaller scale than is really appropriate for minifigures, mainly so that a train layouts can fit a child's bedroom. It is my intention that mine will be able navigate a gentle curve, but it will primarily be a stationary model. So, I stuck to the scale I normally use for minifigures (between 1/40 and 1/43) and ended up with a train that is nine studs wide.