Oxford Diecast diversifies into railway models

[Nova]

raise the standard or not the Oxford MK3s still look miles better than Hornby's. (OT for LNER, I know)

[adrianbs]

Hi Folks The Reference to the OxfordRail Rail guns in BRM is somewhat muddled and inaccurate, possibly due to information supplied by Oxford. Only 2 complete Railguns of this type were used in WW1, one being Boche Buster and the other Scene Shifter. They both went to France as soon as completed in mid 1918 and were used till the war ended.
They returned to store along with the other 10 partially complete carriages and the 14" GUN barrels were removed and scrapped. One had been Left Hand and one Right hand having been requisitioned from a turret on a Japanese battleship being built. An 18" HOWITZER barrel was designed at the end of WW1 for use with these carriages but 8 of the 12 carriages were later scrapped. The 4 units remained in store apart from visits to Salibury Plain to test fire one of the 18" units.
Come WW2 Churchill was told these carriages still existed and Boche Buster with it's 18" Barrel together with Piece Maker, Gladiator and Scene Shifter were reconditioned and sent to the South coast. The latter 3 had to be fitted with the longer range 13.5" GUN barrels. The Barrel which now survives is an 18" HOWITZER which had been sent to Shoeburyness for test purposes and only mounted on a test sleigh. It may never have been on a rail carriage.
As a result there are 3 types of barrel fitted to these rail carriages and in fact all 3 are different in length and other dimensions. I have some doubt this will be reflected in the model and it is difficult to envisage quite what use these models will have on a layout as they spent most of their lives in store.
... Wiithout the Armstrong Whitworth Diesel and the Ammunition Wagon they could only be used as static items on a section of curved track in WW2 or hidden in a tunnel !!. There are no known pictures of these units in transit to or from store as far as I am aware.

[adrianbs]

Hi Folks And just in case anyone thinks to ask just what the heck all this has to do with the LNER it's very simple. The units were stored at Catterick and so presumably travelled south on the NER/ LNER whenever they left their sheds and it would make a fantastic train if only someone could tell us what the formation actually looked like. I am personally very interested to know as It just so happens I already have Boche Buster, the Armstrong Whitworth "Dinosaur" diesel and an ammunition wagon. It was made to EM gauge by my friend Ron Watson using the drawings I had obtained from the IWM (for the Railgun) and a barrel I had cast as a load for a Gun set. He had already made a 9.2" railgun and I just happened to idly ask why he had not made the REALLY BIG ONE, to which he replied very foolishly, "I would if I could get the drawings". Two months later he brought the whole unit to our EM group meeting and the immediate cry from the other members was "What took you so long" as he usually brought a new model to every meeting. In his defence it has to be said that the LNER Garrett had also taken rather longer than i month.

[adrianbs]

Hi Folks My fears about the accuracy of the Oxford rail Railgun seem well founded now that images of what look like pre-production models have now been shown. As I mentioned above there were 3 different barrels used on these units but unfortunately it seems OR have chosen the one variant that is of least use and put it on the wrong carriage in both instances. The barrel they have modelled looks like the 18" version which has a much longer breech end due to the much bigger shell and charges. This was NOT fitted to Boche Buster in WW1, as they portray, since these barrels were not completed until after the war ended.
…. Equally they should not have used this 18" barrel on Gladiator in the guise of the WW2 unit as Gladiator only ever had a 13.5" calibre barrel, never having been fully equipped until the beginning of the Second World War. Only Boche Buster ever had an 18" barrel in WW2 although possibly in the interwar period Scene Shifter may also have had an 18" barrel fitted for test firing purposes. Although one reference says that Scene Shifter retained it's 18" barrels others say 13.5". The original 14" and Later 13.5 " barrels were very similar although slightly different in length and the length also differed for the 18" barrel. A few minutes research would have shown OR the error of their ways but to date they appear not to have considered research of great importance for their railway products.

[amdaley]

Thanks for that information Adrian.
Looks like another opportunity missed by Oxford to add to all the previous ones.

[adrianbs]

Hi Folks In spite of what may be posted "Elsewhere" these railguns were designed specifically to be within the loading gauge of those lines where they would need to travel without being dismantled. I am not sure what height the model is at the top of the breech but it should be 13' 5.5" overall, It does look rather tall compared to the Dean Goods in one of the pictures although the DG is actually quite a low cab variant even with the whistles on top. Since the units were stationed in tunnels on the south coast for protection they clearly did not exceed the tunnel loading gauge as they were in fully assembled, ready for action condition. Once again it is clear comments are being made by people without knowledge and obviously the guns were able to travel on the French Railway system with it's bigger loading gauge. The only worry would be if Oxford had made dimensional errors or inadvertently used the 1/72 scale so beloved of military modellers. This might well create problems for layouts with low bridges or tunnel mouths. The model would be approx. 10" (3.3mm) too high if the scale were wrong plus any other dimensional inaccuracies.
It had been considered that they would be shipped to France in WW2 but the French railway system had been so comprehensively damaged that this idea did not get traction. especially as they were very cumbersome beasts requiring a great deal of effort to move.