The Little Engine that Could (Steam Locomotive Vehicle for Twilight: 2000)

"I think I can, I think I can..."

Similar to the previous "A Typical Adult Human" Vehicle Card, I created this summary to assist with running a steam locomotive in a T2k v2.2 campaign using the Poland Hexmaps. You'll need the additional rules from the Going Home supplement, but I think this is still a useful resource.

While researching this, I found a couple of useful resources, the first being the website of the Warsaw Railway Museum (the main site is in Polish so may need Google Translate) which is probably the corresponding real-life location of the PKP yard presented in the module. Wayne from the Twilight 2000 MeWe group over at his Polish campaign website is considering using this as the source of the steam train for his players.

The museum is sited at the old main railway station terminus in the western suburbs of Warsaw and not only does it have a number of steam locomotives, but it also has some diesel and electric trains, including a WW2 era German PzTrWg16 armoured train:

PzTrWg16 Armored Train at Warsaw Railway Museum

Armed with old Soviet T-34 tank turrets (See p40, Soviet Vehicle Guide) that could be retrofitted to more modern cannons with available ammunition, it would be interesting to hook this up to the steam locomotive, probably with the redundant diesel engine removed to save on weight, to run the gauntlet of the Warsaw-Poznan-Frankfurt line that looks to be the default route the player group would take through to the relative safety of Germany... 

Another interesting resource is the Chabowka Rolling Stock Heritage Park at Skansen about 40km south of Krakow (Hex 7627). This similarly has a whole lot of old locomotives and rolling stock and could make an alternative starting point for a group interested in a rail adventure rather than cruising down the Vistula - the smaller railroad tracks northwest through secondary lines to Opole and then onwards to Wroclaw, connecting up with south of the "Major Railways - Poland" map from Going Home.

The third train resource is the Socachew Narrow Gauge Museum - this is to the west of Warsaw (Hex 7413) and similarly has a collection of almost 200 locomotives and rolling-stock but these are all *narrow gauge* and not usable on the main rail networks without conversion, which is difficult without cranes and other engineering equipment. There's a remnant narrow gauge line that covers about 18km that heads north from Socachew through the Kampinos Forest to the village of Wilcze Tułowskie. One of the locomotives might have been salvaged for local civilian use but it's more an oddity for a player group given the limited range of track available.