Murdoch17

1920's ocean liner "RMS Acadia" (micro-scale ship MOC)

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Way back when (around 2010) I designed this ship as a standalone piece for my desk. I spent about $120 USD on Pick A Brick from the online LEGO shop & from 3 Bricklink sellers. (I later found I could have saved a bunch of money by going through Bricklink alone.) Since it's original construction around seven years ago, I have added another brick layer to the ship's base and 18 studs of length to for decks. The model is in micro scale, and sits about 114 stud long, which is very close to three feet long.

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Printed 1 x 1 tiles should spell out the name ACADIA on the left and right sides, and on the rear of the ship. (The tiles haven't been ordered yet, should be bought by the eighth of this month)

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The font of the ship. (also called the "bow".)

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The rear of the ship. (also called the "stern".) The raised portion of the deck is for the docking bridge when the ship is in port.

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The left hand (or port, and the right side would be the starboard side.) profile shot of the vessel alongside a yard stick. This ship is just a hair longer than three feet long, or 114 studs. This has officially become a Seriously Huge Investment In Parts, or SHIP!

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This is the red star line flag, and below is the fictional history and statistics:

The RMS Acadia was designed in 1914, but World War One prevented it's construction by Steele & Sons Shipbuilders to start until 1919. The ship was modified from it's original design to burn oil, and was completed in February 1921. The ship could hold 3280 people total, with 1140 being Crew, with 270 being First class, 530 in Second class, and 1340 being the steerage, or Third class. The ship sailed it's maiden voyage in July 1921 from Southampton to New York City. The ship was English, and as such, was immune to American law of Prohibition. The ship took off-season sailings (informally known as Liquor Cruises) around the Atlantic, returning to the port of origin within a couple days. The ship managed to hold a steady service record, and remained relatively full-up until the Great Depression really took hold in 1931. The ship's owners, the Red Star Line, managed to stay financially afloat long enough to get the ship through the worst of the Depression, until the ship was requested by the English Navy as a troop ship in late 1939 for use in World War Two.

The Acadia's fancy woodwork was put in storage and the ship was turned into a troop ship relatively quickly. The ship was strafed several times by enemy aircraft during the war, and narrowly missed being torpedoed in 1943, but it survived the war not too much worse for wear. When it was handed back over to Red Star Line, it was given a complete overhaul mechanically and electrically. The whole ship was rewired, and the oil burning engines converted to diesel. The Acadia's woodwork was painstakingly restored to it's original grandeur, and she was ready for for sailing by 1948, almost a year after being handed back to it's original owners.

In the early '50's the ship began sailing luxury cruises to the Mediterranean from England and the United States, in addition to it's usual scheduled Atlantic crossings. The ship began showing it's age by the late 1960's, when it's original glass dome began to leak badly. A handful of cracks in the reinforced glass caused the ship to be dry-docked, but before it could be fixed the huge dome collapsed in on itself, causing the grand staircase to be heavily damaged. Luckily, the accident happened in the middle of the night, and no one was on board at the time to get hurt by all that broken glass. The ships' dome was replaced, but only because the ship's owners knew of it's heritage and couldn't bear to see the old girl scrapped. (Not to mention it would have cost more to scrap the ship than fix the dome) By 1975, she was last four-stack ship in existence, and the owners were planning the Acadia's 55th Birthday for the next year.

The Acadia celebrated July 1st, 1976 as her fifty-fifth birthday, and as part of the celebrations she was given to a preservation group dedicated to keeping the ship sailing as an "ambassador of history", as a peek into the way things were and how the men and women visiting and working on the Acadia went about their lives through each period of this ships stoic history. Many former passengers and crew detailed their experiences on the ship in writing or on film for the beginning of what later became known as The Acadia Living History Museum. Today, the ship features a feature-length film that chronicles the story of the ship and it's many passengers and crew through out the ships commercial and wartime lives. The film is shown in the Second Class movie theater, built into the ship in 1947 after World War Two, flowing seamlessly into the 1920's flavor of the ship. The ship still sails, making stops in New York and London (substituted for Southampton) at least twice a year.

Ship Name: RMS Acadia
Ship Type: Atlantic Class Passenger Liner
Owner: Red Star Line
Ship Built: 1919 – 1921
Capacity: 2740 passengers, 1340 crew (3280 persons total)
Lifeboats: 60 boats with
60 people per boat (3,600 people total capacity)
Builder: Steele & Sons Shipbuilders
Propulsion: 24 Boilers, 2 turbines, 4 steel propellers
Top Speed: 28.5 Knots
Fuel: Diesel (originally Oil)

The LDD file for the updated digital version is here.

Any thoughts, complaints, questions or suggestions are always welcome!

Edited by Murdoch17

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I always love ship scale models and yours is quite nice. Looking forward to the finished photos. Did you investigate using the curved slopes on their sides for the white bow and stern?

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Nice ship indeed. Great job, Murdoch17. :thumbup:

Curves slopes definitely gives a better shape for boats.

It might be worth to experiment with those. 

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On 4/24/2017 at 6:25 AM, gotoAndLego said:

I always love ship scale models and yours is quite nice. Looking forward to the finished photos. Did you investigate using the curved slopes on their sides for the white bow and stern?

 

19 hours ago, sander1992 said:

Nice ship indeed. Great job, Murdoch17. :thumbup:

Curves slopes definitely gives a better shape for boats.

It might be worth to experiment with those. 

Thanks to both of you, I'll investigate the slopes at a later date, but the parts are already on order and should be arriving soon, and I'm over my LEGO budget right now. Maybe sometime in the next few months I'll revisit it...

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This looks great. I love reading about the history too. I've never been passionate enough about a subject that I would want to build it AND then tell everyone of the history. I haven't been into ships before, but this looks really well done. The scale is always tricky, but you've seemed to nail it. Kudos.

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On 4/27/2017 at 0:37 PM, TheLegoDr said:

This looks great. I love reading about the history too. I've never been passionate enough about a subject that I would want to build it AND then tell everyone of the history. I haven't been into ships before, but this looks really well done. The scale is always tricky, but you've seemed to nail it. Kudos.

Thanks! 

I didn't realize it before, but at 114 studs long, this has officially become a Seriously Huge Investment In Parts, or SHIP!

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