a little while ago N.Q.D.Y. posted about a good show she had been to. one of the photos was of a seller's table. on the table, along with trains, were some Dinky Toy boxes. i have a considerable amount of Dinky military stuff. i realized that they had been in a box for decades as they traveled from Oregon to New Jersey to North Carolina to south Florida to NYC and finally down to central Florida.
i decided to create some military loads, despite my increasing inability to deal with fine details. i had seen plenty here on the forum, so i made a post asking for advice. as usual, i got plenty of good ideas and even a few (can you believe it?) disagreements. i sorted out things and decided to try the sewing loops to secure chains to vehicles from the Run 266 article that was linked in the thread. i also liked the idea of using small springs beneath the cars to hold the chains taut.
i found and bought four flats from the 2013 Lionel catalog. long and low with wood decks, i thought they looked great. found some jewelry chain at Michaels. found a triangular wood strip at the LHS that i thought would be good for chocks on the armored vehicles and had to order some smaller triangular plastruct strips online (LHS had every other kind of plastruct strip, but the triangular ones) to use for chocks on the other vehicles.
all of my projects run into unforeseen difficulties and this one was no exception.
the cars are beautiful and greatly detailed, especially the underside. the beams there made the use of springs under the deck for the chains impractical. there was really no good way to even run them over the sides even if there had been room for the spring underneath. i decided to drill holes in the deck and use some small flat washers painted with flat black as grommets. i would glue the chains into the holes. the downside would be that the glue would be apparent on close examination and it would be difficult to have the chains be taut. since my whole scenery design theory is the create a feeling rather than a precise reproduction, lack of scrutiny is standard procedure on the Brewer Avenue and Pacific.
i also discovered that the sewing loops were going to work on only two vehicles and i would have to find alternative means to attach the chains to other vehicles. this i did, also relying on avoiding close examination.
of course i managed to drill two holes in the wrong place. par for the course.
the Dinky Toys themselves present an odd picture. with about five exceptions, what i have are British. what are they doing on a US railroad? joint exercises? who knows. these are not greatly detailed like most of the models being used here for military loads. they were, after all, toys. because they were toys, they were well used. i played with them a lot and some of that play was outdoors. some wear can be detected. again, it bothers me not. i have some very fine German WWII armor, but they are a wee bit too big. i would use them if they weren't. be more of a messy scene. 
anyway, here are some photos and a short HD video. purists may rail and scream, but i don't care. it was frustrating at times, but mostly fun. now i have to figure out what rolling stock to remove from the layout. when something goes on, something else has to come off.
Centurion heavy tanks.
french E.B.R. Panhard and Char AMX
medium artillery tractor and piece
Centurion tank transporter
765 pulling this train
