Armored Trains

Prepare yourself, for I am about to defer again the blogging of Lego for that of niche strangeness that suits my fancy, but I assure YSAB will be back on track with our favorite precision-molded blocks. I'm building an armored train of my own with the stuff, so here's some stuff I found inspirational. The fellow fan of Lego might find it an interesting collection, as might the random internet wanderer.

Lego Steampunk is holding a Train/Floating Rock competition, and while steampunk is a great premise, it is more likely to see quantity of MOCs built in the theme rather than quality. Here's to hoping that it brings out a similar turnout to that of the Ma.K. Starfighter contest that saw so many great entrants.


An armored train seen in the Miyazaki film Howl's Moving Castle. If I might allow myself to be obsessive and critical, I offer the opinion that this particular design doesn't jive with the rest of the war machines in the movie. The sloping armor, the reasonable barrel length (as opposed to the smoothbore nubs on the battleship of the same faction) and overall plausibility clash with the fantastical/turn-of-the-century theme, such as the quirky airships and ornithopters. But what the hell, it's a cartoon fantasy movie.

A German armored train from the second world war. After the war sloped armor would be teh n0rmalz and all the cool kids would be doing it. It was then deemed ruined by hipsters and in protest the Leopard 2A4 was developed, which was essentially a box on treads with the sloped armor swapped out for titanium armor.

Mind you, a handsome box with a 120mm armament. But back to static tracks:


An armored train from another Miyazaki work, Laputa / Castle in the Sky that seems to take heavy influence from the German design. Darn it if more combat vehicles shouldn't have pink/peach yellow camouflage.









I might coin the term, "rivet-punk".

Here's the Russian WWII era "MVB-2".
In pictures I've found of armored trains, most of them looked pretty DIY-grunge, but the MVB-2 has an amount of aesthetic value. Kind of submarine-like; the protrusion halway down the vehicle looks akin to a conning tower.



Seriously, what's with the pink and yellow?