Daedalus304

A1 Peppercorn Locomotive

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So this locomotive is out of my usual fare these days, and given that my fledgling layout is going to be modelling an area of southwest American desert this may seem like quite the anomaly.       

This engine is the result of a few things that are significant to me. though. The Emerald Night in 2009 was my first glimpse at what a LEGO train could be, before that my only knowledge of them was the previous rather undetailed 9v stuff and the My Own Train line was, to me, the best LEGO steam had to offer. I bought an Emerald Night as soon as I could and started trying to learn to build my own, at the same time I went online and found the massive AFOL train community and struck it big when I stumbled across MOCs by Tony Sava, who's work astounded me. From there it wasn't long until I found Cale, Bricktrix, and the rest of the greats and began focusing most if not all my building attention on local steamers, my old 8-wide emerald night conversion gathering dust.

Then, I found out about Tornado, the brand new A1 Peppercorn. Growing up, I didn't have a lot of real, personal interaction with railroads - there were no running lines near enough to my house for me to ever see one. My introduction to the world of trains was the same as many young childen - Thomas the Tank Engine. As I grew up and started getting into trains more, getting some HO stuff, I became more focused on American locomotives - but those beautiful British steamers have always held a place in my heart. Tornado, the first brand new steam engine, was a huge milestone to me and I've always wanted to build a model of it. Since then, a few LEGO models of Tornado have been built. I loved Andrew Harvey's Tornado model as well as Michael Gale's, which is fantastic. And each time I saw them I knew I had to build a Tornado of my own.

So these two things finally came and melded together two weeks ago when I saw my pair of old Emerald Night mods sitting on a shelf, still gathering dust. It was time. 

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This model was built as a model of Tornado, but due to my love of the Emerald Night I've given this locomotive the name and number of good ol' 10194. 

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Since this engine is going to be running on a layout with American rolling stock, I decided to leave the red buffer beam flat instead. I had been thinking on passing on it altogether, but I just flat out like the red there better.

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The A1 Peppercorn has a lot of really beautiful shapes and curves that I wanted to try and make sure I got, and I am pretty happy with how it turned out. 

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As for the technical details, this engine is powered by a single L-motor hidden in the firebox with the rest of the PF stuffed into the tender. This engine is probably one of my best runners, decently powerful and will take all manner of curves, switches, and s-bends at full speed without failure. 

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And finally, my rough approximation of the Tornado's cab. I could not fit minifigures inside using the standard LEGO seat piece, but with these custom ones a driver and fireman can sit inside comfortably.

I've got a few more pictures of my A1 Peppercorn "Emerald Night" on my Flickr, as well as much larger resolution pictures. 

Thank you for your time!

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She's beautiful! :wub: As a Brit, I've always loved the LNER A1 classes, such majestic, powerful machines. This model would be really set off by a rake of BR MK1s behind her...
I like the outdoor photography too. All the brilliant little details such as the brake levers between the wheels and sanding gear at the front really stand out with full sunshine on them. Good job all round!

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Thanks, everyone!

On 2/20/2017 at 11:38 PM, zephyr1934 said:

Another exceptional build filled with juicy details. The backhead in the cab alone is quite impressive.

I haven't tended to put a lot of detail or attention into cabs in the past, they've all been really really rough approximations. This one still isn't exactly close enough to be a proper scale model of it - but I did spend a lot more time trying to capture some of the more prominent bits. I had a lot of fun with it, especially the bits on the right-hand side.

On 2/21/2017 at 3:05 AM, ColletArrow said:

She's beautiful! :wub: As a Brit, I've always loved the LNER A1 classes, such majestic, powerful machines. This model would be really set off by a rake of BR MK1s behind her...
I like the outdoor photography too. All the brilliant little details such as the brake levers between the wheels and sanding gear at the front really stand out with full sunshine on them. Good job all round!

LNER A1s have always been some of my favorite locos, with all the curvature around the cab and firebox area they sort of hit this perfect sweetspot where they have the style of a streamlined engine while still looking distinctly like steam locomotives. I agree about the coaches, right now I've got three Emerald Night coaches for it to pull that look really nice behind it, but after I finish my next huge train project I might put together some proper 8-wide coaches for it to pull.

I'm glad you like the outdoor photography. I have never had a good "proper" indoor photography set with the neutral backgrounds and the fancy lighting, so a sunny day and a park table is what I have to work with. Not all the shots turn out quite like I'd like, rogue shadows and whatnot, but to me it almost makes the engines feel just a bit more real!

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