One of the more unusual subjects for a model this year came from a phone call from FreightLink in South Australia. FreightLink have the responsibility of moving the Australian Army’s 1st Armoured Regiments M1A1 AIM(SA) ABRAMS Main Battle Tanks rail when these 68 ton monsters are on exercise. They are loaded onto a specially built railway wagon, one per wagon, on the north-south railway line from Adelaide to Darwin through Alice Springs in Central Australia.
They sent us a couple of photos of the tanks loaded onto the wagons and asked for ideas for going away gift for the man responsible for the project who was retiring from the company. He was having a special dinner in his honour and they wanted something very special for him to remember his time with the company.
We very quickly came up with the idea of building a model of an “Aussie ABRAMS” loaded onto a wagon and fitted to a piece of track and mounted in a nice display case. They loved the idea and we got to work.
The ABRAMS was built using our modification kit which was fitted to the 1:35 scale Tamiya M1 A2 ABRAMS kit. The Tank was kept in its basic sand colour scheme and modified with machine guns and aerials removed as they are when transported. This part of the model was the easy part and was completed in less than a day.
The railway wagon was another story! A new kit by Trumpeter Models of China was purchased for conversion to the new wagon. The German railway wagon was a very nice kit and came complete with a section of track and ballasting underneath which gave a very nice look to the completed model. The kits bogies of the wagon were modified and the main deck and sides were laser cut, assembled and detailed with many scratch built parts plus some parts from the kit.
The whole thing was painted in Royal Blue and the FreightLink logo placed on either side. The Tank model was mounted onto the wagon deck and the braces and chains attached as they are on the real version. The track section was painted and all was mounted onto a polished timber base and a lovely one piece acrylic display covered it all.
The model was shipped off to Adelaide in plenty of time for the Boss’s going away party. Unfortunately the couriers got a little carried away with it and the model was damaged when it arrived. Luckily for us that a good friend lives only 20 minutes away from the FreightLink offices and he went straight over to have a look at the damage (Thanks Graham!). Off it went to his workshop and after a couple of phone calls, for paint colours, some advice on the best way to fix it, and a couple of hours gluing and painting the model was back to its original pristine look.
The model was presented at the dinner and apparently our client was very happy with this very unusual going away gift. We received a lovely email the following week with his thanks for a great job.
We aim to please!
Click on one of the following images for a larger version. 
