Opening the box for the Operation Iraqi Freedom train set, Joe’s long-forgotten statement popped into my mind. In fact, if you buy this, you may need to change your road name to the Mayhem & Pandemonium Railway.
While in the real world, most military locomotives spend their lives shuttling cars around the confines of a military base, with this baby you can hit the high iron, kick keesters, and take names.
The train and extra doodads
This K-Line O gauge starter set was designed with youngsters in mind, and it fits that bill nicely.
Since military trains are traditionally part of the logistical tail, there is a definite combat support edge to this outfit, with carloads of supplies and engineering gear.
The set contains five freight cars and a caboose. A gondola with crates, a flatcar with a crane and operating searchlight, a flatcar with a medical vehicle and an operating radar dish, a depressed-center flatcar with a vehicle, a depressed-center flatcar with Patriot missile launcher, and a work caboose carrying missile re-loads.
Worthy of special mention are the flatcar with a radar dish that rotates when the car is moving and the Patriot missile battery. Note, however, that this car is a one-barrel launcher and not the separate-sale no. K691-8029 Patriot missile battery car that has four tubes. But fear not, there are plenty of spare missiles to refill the lone barrel!
The locomotive sports a lighted beacon on the cab roof and ladders on the sides of the hood (shades of K-Line’s fire department set?).
There are many plastic and sheet-metal vehicles in this set, although their scales vary from too big to too small. You’ll find a vehicle transporter carrying a backhoe and both a mobile crane and a flatcar with a crane as well as an M1 Abrams tank.
The tank is also part of the conquest, I mean, consist. It is a bit small, and the barrel is more like the shorty snout of the M551 Sheridan. But for subduing truculent foes along the right-of-way, it works.
In a salute to our Commonwealth cousins, many of the soldiers that come packaged with the set seem to be carrying British Bren guns, Sten submachine guns, Lee-Enfield No. 4 rifles with spike bayonets, and they wear what looks to me like British 1937-pattern webbing! Those boys have been in the desert a long time!
These plastic troopers appear to be copies of copies, so some of the mold detail is a little murky. But hey, for their intended young audience, these soldiers have plenty of the right stuff. If you want more detailed troops, go to the Michigan Toy Soldier Co. website, michtoy.com, to see what they offer.
On the test track
The outfit is pulled by a K-Line MP15 diesel switcher, a locomotive design that’s been with us since the 1980s, so rest assured that this baby is a rocket.
In testing, our low-end speed average was 39.5 scale mph, and the high-end speed average was 141.2 scale mph. The 2-pound, 4-ounce locomotive has a drawbar pull of just over 5 ounces, unexpectedly light. While it pulled the set’s military train with ease, we strapped the heavier coaches from the RailKing Aerotrain to the switcher and it could move them along – but very, very slowly. So watch what you add to the length of the train.
These performance numbers are comparable to a 1986-vintage MP15 we tested in our locomotive technology article in the November 2002 issue (24 scale mph on the low end and 133 scale mph on the high end, though it mustered a stronger 14 ounces of drawbar pull).
All in all, the set contains plenty of play value, although the locomotive is a bit light in the pulling department.
I saw a military train during the buildup for the war with Iraq with a Union Pacific SD80 and a GP38 on the nose, not an MP15 diesel, so the K-Line’s set locomotive’s performance is in keeping with what it is – a switcher.
The new K-Line Power Chief 120V transformer was up to the job, and I ran a handful of locomotives from Lionel, MTH, and Atlas O and found no compatibility issues.
The set’s SuperSnap track worked fine. A few pieces of track needed a second try to connect them electrically, otherwise all worked beautifully. And the banana plug power lockon is terrific.
If war toys make you frown, or if you’re looking for an accurate model of a military train, then this set isn’t going to make your day. But for a youngster who doesn’t shun the military, this set will win a shootout every time.
