COBI Compiègne Wagon (22 June 1940) Set 6289

COBI's Compiègne Wagon (22 June 1940) is a 1:35 model built from 2,001 blocks, 58.5 cm long. The roof lifts off to show the interior as it was arranged in June 1940, the sides use bricks with a wood texture, and gold printing reproduces the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits lettering and the wagon number. Doors open at the sides, at both ends and between the internal compartments. Two figures representing the two delegations are included, along with a display base of five track sections and a profiled embankment. All markings are pad-printed; no stickers.

The same carriage, twenty-two years later

This is the wagon from set 6291, and what makes it a separate model is what was done with it.

After 1918 the carriage went back to the railway company, then to the French army museum, and in 1927 it was installed in a purpose-built shelter in the forest of Compiègne, at the exact spot where the armistice had been signed, as a national memorial.

In June 1940, after the defeat of France, Hitler ordered the shelter's wall demolished and the carriage pulled out onto the original siding. The French delegation was brought to the same clearing and made to sign in the same vehicle, in the same seat Foch had used. The staging was the point: the surrender itself could have been signed anywhere.

The wagon was then taken to Berlin and displayed as a trophy.

How it ended

In 1944 it was moved to a tunnel near Crawinkel in Thuringia. It did not survive the war — either destroyed in an Allied raid on Ohrdruf in 1944, or burned by SS troops in 1945 to stop it being recaptured. The accounts differ and the question has never been settled.

The carriage standing in Compiègne today is a different vehicle of the same class, fitted out to match.

In the COBI range

Set 6291 is the same wagon as it stood on 11 November 1918, with figures of Foch and Erzberger.

Specifications

Pieces: 2,001 · Figures: 2 · Scale: 1:35 · Display base with five track sections · No stickers
Model dimensions: 58.5 × 13 cm (23.0 × 5.1 in)