and a reminder from Alan Gruber my Scouting Wide Games co-creator that today is Thinking Day 22 February each year, amid a glimpse of our new 60mm Girls Scouts in the making:
Bob a Job for the War Office? Phoenix 43 range (S and D models) scout trek cart, scouts and scoutmaster group. Crate – old Tamiya 1:35 stock.My recent broken figure conversions to Girl Scouts admire the Trek CartBeautifully detailed moulded figures with scout badges and all …
I have pretty much finished painting my Trek Cart scout group of Phoenix 43 figures, apart from gloss varnishing them.
1\43 Phoenix 43 S and D Models Scouts and Trek Cart
At first it looked a little fiddly but fitted together well with little flash.
The Trek or Trek Cart is mentioned in very early Scout cigarette cards.
First series Ogden’s cigarette cards – Boy Scout Series 1 to 5 Cigarette Card Images, an internet book / reprint by Trading Card Enterprises, LLC
It is also pictured as an iconic bit of scout history in the 1990 Cub Scout Handbook history of Scouting pages:
Baden-Powell’s Mafeking idea of ‘Model Soldiers’An interesting conversion idea for a Boy Scout patrol with turbans – plenty of world Boy Scout uniforms on cigarette cards on Pinterest. Cub Scout Handbook, 1990.Close up of the trek cart picture illustration 1990 by Martin Aitchison
Search around and you will find that trek carts were once quite iconic for the scout movement, such as this book cover illustration.
Pinterest is a useful source of images and there are Trek Cart sections on there, from which I have taken some screen-shots as reference pictures for painting my trek cart model.
The dark green works well as a scout colour (Pinterest image source)Bright and colourful Trek Cart paint schemeGood design and colour references for vintage trek carts from a Pinterest search.S and D models Phoenix 43 Trek Cart No. OF154
I chose a dark green Gloss simple paint scheme for my trek cart with no wording.
The trek cart or baggage waggon train provides a good target or focus for many Wide Games / tabletop gaming scenarios.
I never made the link between scout trek carts and the Wild West type pioneer trek carts featured in this episode of Mormon and American West history.
Recreating the Mormon pioneer treks of the 1840s
This is a pioneer story as gripping and tragic as that of the Oregon Trail.
“To cut down on expensive wagons and oxen, some 3,000 of the [Mormon] pioneers subsequently used low-cost wooden handcarts that were light enough to be pulled across the Great Plains. One family or five individuals were assigned to a handcart, with 18 to 20 people sharing a tent. A cart hauled no more than 200 pounds — about 17 pounds of baggage per person. Each highly organized company was led by an experienced guide and was accompanied by at least four oxen-drawn supply wagons.
The first party of handcarts set out from Iowa City, Iowa, on 9 June 1856 with a company of 266 people from England, followed two days later by a second company of just over 200. These early handcart brigades successfully arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, but the trips were not easy. Pioneer journals recorded harsh weather, the threat of hostile Indians, the death of fellow travelers and the ongoing hardships of hunger and fatigue.”
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Trek carts which disassembled were made in the early William Britain’s Boy Scouts Range, seen here featured in James Opie’s Britain’s Toy Soldiers 1893 – 1932:
Two of my repaired Broken Britain’s 54mm Scouts beside Britain’s Trek Cart pictures in James Opie’s book.
Trek Carts can also be found in smaller OOHO railway scale figures by Modelscene / Peco.
OOHO Modelscene Peco railway series trek cart and Scouts with berets
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