"1947 V-1 Missile Defense Radar Train Set"

Wow! That is quite a story line! The models look great and nicely go with the plot. I'll be waiting for the book release. Please let us know!

Neil 

Neat!

Bob C.

Needs crew quarters, a mess hall, and at least two security armored cars (I'd recommend a M-3 White or an M-8 Ford... or one of each) on a flat car with quick load / off load capability.

Wow, Lee...incredible train and backstory! It is jarring to see an olive drab GG-1, although they wore many liveries. I assume the Luftwaffe is no longer a concern, because a camouflage livery might be required. Well done!

And a quad .50 mount for AA.  (Thanks, Jay Jay for the reminder.)

And when will this set be available, I think it would be a great candidate for the first LionChief + rtr set.

Great job Lee! Glad to see your imagination continues to expand your horizons.

Thank you Lee

Clem k

Wow! Just, wow!

Thank you for the kind words.  Here are the two photos of it that appear in the book.

The Marquee poster:

And a photo of the train set that went on sale four months after the movie opened, just in time for the 1947 Christmas season.  I have several fictional trains sets I show in thie book and I make the boxes for all the sets, as here).

Great imagination. Don't know where you find the time. I hope the book is a big success.

"Anyway, the famous producer makes a hit movie, The Third Rail, just because he likes three rail electric trains, which he works into the plot as much as possible."

Lee, by chance is the music to this movie titled "The Third Rail Theme" done with zither music. You have a fantastic imagination! I like it!

A suggestion if it's not too late Lee - can you use a more period typeface For a more authentic look?

Some of your poster lettering looks like Helvetica, which was not introduced until 1957.

One thing that strikes me is would a GG1 fit the loading and height requirements of British railroads?

Terrific modeling; especially the radio and radar tower cars!!!  Not to mention shortening a heavyweight passenger car.

If you have some "in progress" photos of these cars, please post them.

Too Cool!! Wow, great work Lee, I am very impressed with all you accomplish!  -Ken

I would buy two sets - Lionel are you listening?

LOVE IT!!!. 

I wonder how many hobby shops are already getting calls from people looking for the, post war "1947 V-1 Missile Defense Radar Train Set"???

Lee, that is one SINISTER looking GG1.   You've improved its looks 1000% by removing the pantographs, IMHO.

Very cool!

Peter

Not even close, nor would it have been easy to get it to run it on the paltry 1,200 volts the British electrified third rail provided, the current would have been extraordinarily high and difficult to manage.  But hey, this is "Hollywood" and they never let something like this stand in the way of a cracking good story.  

One interesting footnote.  I have often heard experienced fiction writers say that sometimes a book seems to take its own direction, that they literally are as surprised as anyone at how it turns out.  I this case, the GG1 is an example.  It is a loco I just never paid attention to, didn't dislike or like, and yet it turns out to be by far the most mentioned and most pictured locomotive in my book.  I am not even sure how that happened, but it did. 

...and battle caboose!  

Thank you for all the comments.  I am heartened that others think this is neat, because I really like it.  I had an e-mail asking about  the radar and fighter control center cars.  There is no motor to turn either radar or radio antenna automatically (although you can manually turn and point it any direction).  But both do retract, etc.  I have two short videos of my "operating" each below.  Also a video of the train running - this scale GG1 is running on 72" curves here, and juts out noticeably over the curve - it is one big locomotive!

Radar car is a converted Lionel scale reefer: radar and tower a scratch built from Plastruk styrene.

fighter control center car has the antenna sticking up a bit but the tower retracted in a recessed area for it.  Again, all scratch made from Plastruk.

This is a nice little train. 

The battle caboose is taken from my WAR TRAIN from two years ago.  I did relabel the caboose for Grp 148, but it was perfect for this train as was . . . 

https://ogrforum.com/t...war-train-army-train

have you thought about extending your name to Lee Cecil b deMille Willis?

  What you have done is impressive...... and way cool. I think the whole train is very snazzy.  And yes IMO the GG1 is better looking without the pantographs

Lee, I love the set, WW2 history and time period is another of my hobbies.  I have a silly question, why did you decide to use a scale GG1 and not a production model GG1 from Lionel made during that time period?  Keep up the great work!.. Imagination is a powerful thing

Actually, any GG1 would have done.  I had ordered one from RMT, not even close to scale, not realizing they were not yet in stock.  I needed one, and Gunrunnerjohn sold me a used one - that happened to be scale.  But its a fantastic loco - big, good looking, particularly in olive drab, and with the motors wired in series, a good slow speed runner, too.  L

As always Lee Awesome. you have such a wonderful imagination. I always look forward to your new posts..................

Hi Lee, your a nut and I love it! I hope I can get a copy of that book.

Lee; the train set looks fantastic. The GG1 looks a little bit different than when you first posted it a couple of weeks ago.

WOW, Intense.

I almost hate to ask (figuring the answer already..) but was this the beautiful and uncommon BLACK 5 stripe G that you bought?  

As common as the GG1's are out there,  any other color perhaps could have been used....

No, it was sort of dark brown red, burgundy I guess.

Lee, love what you've done with this. Pretty cool. I don't know if you've seen the fairly recent movie Captain America, but there is a Nazi train, that if I had the room and talent I would try to model. It's black, streamlined, and just looks evil. You have the good guys. What do the good guys need???? Why a villain of course. I only mention this because if anyone could pull it off it's you. Keep up the great work. I look forward to the next one.

Charlie Howard - that is one cool train in Captain America and would make a fantastic project, I agree.

UKaflyer - when I researched the electrified rails around London for my book, I found a lot of differences in what, when, etc., like you say.  I just went with onevoltage for the book because its fiction and I didn't want to get into the weeds.  I doubt a GG1 could have run in England for a variety of reasons, but it works well in the book.  

What surprised me about the V-1s when I researched it was: a) how many there were, the Germans made and fired about 12,000 in all at various targets.  I never knew there were that many, b) how good the Gloster Meteor (world's first jet fighter in combat) was at catching them.  The original Meteor wasn't that fast, barely over 400 mph, (later ones could go 600) but it was much faster than any other fighter at low altitudes, and the V-1s only flew at 3,000 feet normally, so it was one of the few that could actually catch them in level flight - if barely.  

I wasn't being critical of your original post, I thought it would be of interest to others of how our network evolved in a steam era with electrification mixed in as well and how eventually sense prevailed with standards in the post war period.

I also seem to remember from memory that with all the V1's that came over here the average kill ratio was something like less than one individual for every rocket, or something like that. A pretty expensive piece of kit to use as a killing machine, but then that was just part of it as psychology was the fear it also created to people. My grandparents lived just south of London and they used to see them go over and just look up and wait for the motor to cut out and hope it didn't land near them!

The V1 had a top speed of about 350mph and the Hawker Tempest was the first aircraft I believe to be able to match it for speed and tip wings with it to flip it to a point it upset the gyro and it crashed. The Spitfire assisted when it had the Griffon engine and between them they worked to destroy them. It wasn't always wise to get too close and fire at them as if they exploded you also could become a casualty.

The Meteor in reality only had limited success in destroying V1's, there total kill tally was I think 13, but then they did come into service a bit later.

As I understand it, the V1 got a little faster as it emptied its fuel tanks, so it was hauling buns near the end of its mission.  Most of the planes at the time that could exceed 400 ph or even 350 could do so only at altitude, but the V-1 could hit about 400 at 3,000 feet. Not much of anything flying (except maybe the ME-262)  was really faster at those altitudes, but a fighter pilot of a Spitfire, Tempest, or such could dive on it from, say , 10,000 feet and get considerable speed advantage on it - of course you only got one pass, but . . . 

From what I have read, the Meteor entered service in July '44 although only a few and at first, they were limited to flying only over England, and had very short duration - less than an hour, so they did not really get involved in combat in time to do much with anything, but they were used as V-1 interceptors, and between their top speed, and the fact that apparently they were the fastest plane there was in a dive, they had a better chance that anything else.

I got all this from a really neat book, by the way, Fighting Hitlers Jets, by robert Dorr, not a lot of stuff I learned that wikipedia didn't have in it, except pictures of two American P-80 jest in Europe and ready for action before the end of the war.  Never knew our jets at least made it there, if not into combat, before it was over.

Anyway, one of the war movies Veranda Turbine made ends with four Meteors making a low level pass overhead and one of them breaking off into a Victory roll.

The V1's were normally intercepted as they approached the south coast or just after it so that if they could be downed the chances would be that they hit countryside and not the suburbs of London that stretched for a good 20 miles or so all around. At this point I would say the fuel was about half used so they still had a good 50 miles to go before they ran out. At the end they are probably touching 400 mph. 

The Meteor didn't go into Europe I think to 1945 and was initially not permitted to go into enemy territory. I can understand why, you didn't want the enemy to get hold of a step change in technology if one crashed, even though they had the 262, they may have learnt of something different and improved their own power units