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Hi Guys-
I was busily examining my Trumpeter BR-52 last night and can report the following: I compared the track guage to Dragon's tracks and they are exactly the same guage! This was concern as Jens told me Trumpeter's K5 Leopold had a wider guage than the German guage as Trumpeter wanted to use and existing railway modelling guage that I think is called #1 guage or "Garden railway" guage. So, I thought it likely Trumpeter would use that same set of tracks for thier BR-52, happily it appears they did not do that.
Also, the swastika that appears under the eagle is only a smudge on the decal. This would seem to be in keeping with not so recent concerns over depicting Nazi symbols, downright foolishness as the swastika certainly appeared on just about all things German in WW-II. So, if any of you are wondering where to find a swastika small enough to replace the one missing from Trumpeter's decal, go to your decal collection and look for an Africa Korp. symbol. That Africa Korp. symbol's swastika is pretty close to the right size. As to the kit itself, Wow! I cannot believe the level of detail! I've been studying the innermost workings and detail of the BR-52 at this site: www.dlok.de/98.htm
From what I've seen at that site, the Trumpeter kit is very complete! All the brake levers and connections are in the kit, I cannot find anything that should be there that is not there!
One thought does occurr, the rods that stick out of the front of the big boxes that hang down from either side of the boilers front (I dont know their exact name, the have the rods that connect to and drive the wheels sticking out of the rears), these are fixed in place on the kit. I think these rods moved back and forth with the rear rods as cutaway drawings, seen at the above site, show these rods were connected to those rear drive rods. Something to look out for? It's up to you.
HTH-
Geoff Steer [;-{/)

Geoff,

glad to hear the BR52 stands up to your expectations, and incidentally, if memory serves, those rods are called connecting rods

I believe it will only be a matter of time until aftermarket decals will appear, Archer was pretty fast with those for the K5, IIRC.

Cheers

Jens O.