MiniArt European Tracks & Concrete Telegraph Poles 1:35

[Mike]

European Tracks & Concrete Telegraph Poles

1:35 MiniArt via Creative Models

 

MiniArt are masters of diorama details, making figures, vacformed backdrops and styrene kits of unusual things such as these two kits featured today.  Both are of the latter type, being moulded in grey styrene, and are intended to provide you with easily constructed infrastructure to give your diorama bases relevance.

 

 

Concrete telegraph Poles (35563)

 

 

This kit arrives in a long end-opening box with a selection of four types of posts on the front.  Inside are four sprues with the same basic post, which is lightened with rectangular holes, with a choice of four different tops in the shape of a pair of insulators on one side, a T-piece with an insulator on both sides, a stack of five insulators on each side, and a lamp post with a short pendant lamp hanging from a decorative fixing on each side.  From the box you can build four of the first three types, but only two of the latter lamps, unless you fit one lamp to each post.  You can of course mix and match to suit yourself.  The clear parts provide four glass domes for the lamps, plus four clear light bulbs for that extra bit of realism, which is a neat little addition.  The parts are crisply moulded, and slide-moulding has been used to create a one-piece dome for the lamp, but the concrete posts don't have any texture to them.  Initially this seems a shame, but when you think that you will be joining the two halves together and hiding the seams, this gives you the opportunity to stipple a texture pattern with liquid glue or Mr Surfacer after you have finished hiding the seams.

 

 

A cool accessory that stands 200mm tall when completed.

 

 

 

European Gauge Railway Track (35561)

 

 

This set arrives in a top-opening box, and contains eight sprues in grey styrene.  On each sprue are five differently textured wooden track ties/sleepers, which have the bottom parts of the rail shoulder-plates, to which you add the bolt-on shoulders after adding the rails.  Each rail is 170mm long, and has small pips on the bottom at regular intervals to match corresponding depressions on the shoulder-plates, making spacing a doddle.  The rails also have keyed ends to join two parts together to get the correct spacing between the connecting fishplates.  The fishplates have their bolts moulded-in, but the track ends have holes that match pips on the back of the fishplate parts, which fit one on each side.  The finished length of track from the box is 686mm, which should be plenty for at least one diorama unless you think BIG!  If you were to need more, the track is designed so that successive sets will interlink seamlessly one after the other.  Adding the ballast to the track is your responsibility, but the likes of Deluxe Materials produce ballast that you can mix with powdered adhesive, then wet it to lock the ballast in place once you are happy with your work.

 

 

 

Review sample courtesy of