Hellas-Express

OSE seems to have a large and varied fleet of road vehicles so I shall start with the Mercedes Unimog 'Zweiweg' road-railers which come in various types. The first five photos are of a vehicle seen at Inoi in 2005, fitted with a short load deck and a HIAB-type crane arm and registered ME IX 68565, note the front and rear fitted stabilising jacks. And before anyone asks, I didn't take any photos of the Citroen Jumper (?) crew van beside it! The final photo was taken from a moving train and is a basic Unimog with the full-length load deck. It may I think be a contractors vehicle since it carries no OSE logo and a different registration plate, can anyone tell us more? Interestingly, it's coupled to a flat wagon. For the record, 'Unimog' is a contraction of 'Universal Movement Over Ground'.

This next vehicle is a tower wagon registered ME IX 68567 seen at Athens Larissa in 2005. Once again, stabilising jacks are fitted fore and aft, along with the HIAB crane. The hydraulically operated platform has folding handrails.


Next, at Athens Rentis depot we see a box-bodied equpment (?) vehicle with the long crew cab, registered ME IX 68235. What appears to be a small hand-operated (?) crane is fitted at the front right corner of the body which has large roller shutter either side - I'd love to see inside!

Modelling the above Unimogs in HO is reasonably straightforward, providing you can find the models, which may not be so easy. Roco have made a variety of models over the years and Kibri have done several good kits which provide a basis for conversion work plus spare parts since you always get more bits than you need in a Kibri box. The first one with the HIAB crane and short load deck can be made from the Roco model Ref.1509, which will just need the rear jacks added plus additional detailing and a spare wheel, while the tower wagon and the box-bodied vehicle can be produced by combining parts from two Roco models and a basic Roco or Kibri chassis - Ref.44170 provides a long crew cab and a HIAB crane, while Ref.1923 provides the box body and the hydraulic platform. The basic Kibri kits are Refs. 10872 or 50872. I haven't done any of these conversions yet, they're all on my 'to do' list but should be easy enough, apart from finding small enough OSE logos and number plates. Should you wish to go the whole hog, SB-Modellbau in Germany make a motorising kit for the Roco model. I'll post some photos of the base models later today.

nice shots Tim. I met the tower wagon ME IX 68567 at Inoi the 14th December 2012

Nice shot - I'll bet they didn't drive it up there on the tracks! I wonder if anyone has a list of all the OSE Unimogs?

Right, Modelling pix for Unimogs - these show the raw material rather than completed examples, it should be obvious how to combine the various bits to get what we want.

68226



68227



68230



68567



68569



68574



KHI 6179

AHHHH, so many modelling possibilties! Was that second photo taken at Dikea??

Tim

No .... it is taken at Lamia .

Oh, OK. Is there any sort of list of the various Unimogs? I rather like them.