Updated Santa Fe train - what features would you want?

[Lego Dino 500]

Right now I'm designing a updated Santa Fe train consist, hopefully to scratch the urges of the original without the hefty costs, but I want to ask a few questions before I start working on it. What parts from the original are the most expensive and difficult to buy? What are some better methods to tackle the nose without the expensive parts? I'll be posting updates and images, with LDD files as I work on this and at the end will upload to my Rebrickable, where I already host an old project.

[xboxtravis7992]

If I designed my own Santa Fe:

7-8 Stud width

Prototypical Accuracy to an EMD F-Series locomotive or an ALCO PA locomotive

Lots of Power Functions power

Custom chromed bricks used in the streamliner cars

That's my wish list. I don't own the original so I don't know what original bricks are the priciest. I know a few pages back the discussion about a better F-Series style locomotive nose came up... but it was a heated argument.

[Lego Dino 500]

Thanks. I'm having to compromise some details, since the goal is a version that'll be cheaper to brick link and somewhat more realistic than the original. Right now the cars are 36 long, 6 wide, and roughly 7 studs tall. They should be roughly proportional aside from the track gauge. If you want I could probably bust out a second version, but that would take a bit more time. I already have the exterior of the first car done, a remake of 10022-1 and a template to make the 4 other cars.

[xboxtravis7992]

Nice. Will be anxious to see progress.

[Lego Dino 500]

Update: I finished redesigning all of the 10022 1-3 cars, and built new designs from scratch. They all use the new medium grey versus the original bley, the only rare parts I used IIRC were the transparent macaroni, I haven't found a good substitute. These should all be compatible with original or reproduction Santa Fe stickers.

Exterior shot of 10022-1 and 10022-3.

Interior shot of 10022-1, I couldn't fit a full kitchen. So it's just a few tables, a seat, and a register and counter.

Interior shot of 10022-3, with the partitions and doors surrounding the bunks. Unlike the original, I opted for realism and made them narrow enough to leave a 1 1/2 stud hallway throughout the car between the vestibules.

Interior shot of 10022-3 without the walls and partitions present. There's room for 4 beds, but I had to cut a few chunks out of them to leave room for the bogie plates.

Exterior shot of 10022-2, the observation car.

Interior shot of 10022-2, I included 2 sofas and a good amount of seats. Unlike the original I chose to include full seating instead of several tables to make room for the sofas, which were present in the real train. I'll include the Rebrickable link, and I'll post the LDD files there. It's easier to keep track of in case someone copies from me if I put it up there.

[storms26]

They look pretty darn good so far!

I suggest a new nose for the engine, since it's sort of sharp and square.

As far as the cars, the only thing I can recommend is the grey coloured wheels and couplets from the old high speed trains.

[Rotundus]

Hello Dino...

Your plans look pretty good. They should be some nice looking cars. It doesn't look like you have many expensive parts detailed in the pics. Having said that, the most expensive part I see are probably the doors... And after just checking on BrickLink, they don't look all that bad either, (under $1.00 (us)). Although... your exterior doors (^w/window) doesn't seem to be available in light gray. The BL catalog says red or white only for those. Ahh... I just saw the clear 2x2 curved brick. That one might surprise you.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Rotundus

[Lego Dino 500]

Hello Dino...

Your plans look pretty good. They should be some nice looking cars. It doesn't look like you have many expensive parts detailed in the pics. Having said that, the most expensive part I see are probably the doors... And after just checking on BrickLink, they don't look all that bad either, (under $1.00 (us)). Although... your exterior doors (^w/window) doesn't seem to be available in light gray. The BL catalog says red or white only for those. Ahh... I just saw the clear 2x2 curved brick. That one might surprise you.

Any good substitutes for the 2x2 curved bricks? I know those are crazy expensive, and I want to substitute the doors for some jumper plates and bricks, but I'm worried about the accuracy.

Does this look okay? I'm replacing the doors with bricks and jumper plates right now.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Lego Dino 500

[Rotundus]

Any good substitutes for the 2x2 curved bricks? I know those are crazy expensive, and I want to substitute the doors for some jumper plates and bricks, but I'm worried about the accuracy.

Well... After a little more investigation, it looks like I may have given you some bad info. I looked at the 1x3x4 doors. The doors in your pics (1x4x5), are indeed available in light gray, although the price will likely be a shocker. As far as substitute for the macaroni is concerned... you may not need to, it's not as expensive as I thought. (And I haven't come with a good one yet.)

The jumper plate doors should look fine from the outside, although they will likely look a little awkward on the inside.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Rotundus

[tnmears]

Any good substitutes for the 2x2 curved bricks? I know those are crazy expensive, and I want to substitute the doors for some jumper plates and bricks, but I'm worried about the accuracy.

Does this look okay? I'm replacing the doors with bricks and jumper plates right now.

Oooh. These doors look good.

[Rotundus]

I took another look at the fluting on the side. You might want to either extend or shorten the car by one stud to eliminate the stagger at the ends. Unfortunately this will probably result in a reduction of the structural integrity of the model. When faced with the same options, I have always gone with what looks better and just dealt with the more delicate walls.

[3D LEGO]

Lego Dino 500,

The 2x2 curved bricks in trans white are available for pennies - as long as you buy the standard notched version. (What you used in your models.) The non-notched version on the other hand is pricey. There is a reinforced newer version that may not be as aesthetically pleasing to you but from a price stand point there is no difference between those and the previous version.

I would go for the brick built doors as that more closely resembles the doors of the real train. Also I second the grey train axle holders and couplers suggestion. Sets 4511 High Speed Train (9v), 10157 High Speed Train Locomotive (9v), 10158 High Speed Train Car (9v) and 7897 Passenger Train (RC) all featured them. (The RC train is medium stone grey but I cannot say for the other ones.) As far as potential expensive parts the window piece is one such. Perhaps if you could design an ample substitution then you could avoid it entirely.

Beyond that good work on your redesign/modernization project. Already it is looking very good. One thing to think about going forward is what locomotive that you want to model. Your options include: ALCO DL109 and PA, EMD E (streamlined) and F (More blunt) series, to name a few. While the F series is the most iconic, the PAs would be much easier to model. Other problems with earlier units is the triple axle trucks they used.

3D LEGO

[zephyr1934]

Any good substitutes for the 2x2 curved bricks? I know those are crazy expensive, and I want to substitute the doors for some jumper plates and bricks, but I'm worried about the accuracy.

...

Does this look okay? I'm replacing the doors with bricks and jumper plates right now.

The cars look like a great homage to the original set. The clear macaroni bricks are a tough one to beat, you could snot cheese bricks in there to save a lot, but it will not look quite as nice. You could also put a 1x2x2 trans clear panel in at about 45° angle.

While your brick built doors are not consistent with the original sets, they are more prototypical. Only thing you might want to change is swapping the "handle" to the side away from the vestibule (typically the doors on streamliner cars opened inward to the bulkhead wall). I would also suggest trying to get a more rounded look to the roofs with 1x3x1 curved slopes or perhaps 2x4x2/3 curved slopes, those parts were introduced after the Santa Fe sets were released.

On the engines, the windshields and porthole windows will break the bank. You could use a plain trans clear windscreen or experiment with brick built solutions. Here's one design you might want to consider for the nose. I think ministickers.nl had transparent porthole window stickers. I sell opaque ones and when I finally get my color matching down I'll offer transparent, but if you look around you can find several brick built solutions too.

[Aaron]

The old Santa Fe sets were decent for their time, but still had a lot of room for improvement. I'd personally remove the buffers, since the real cars are American and didn't have them, and the fluted bricks will look cleaner and still be structurally fine if you double stack them and don't overlap. Also, your doors are already infinitely more accurate than set 10022 since 10022's doors were backward.

[Lego Dino 500]

New update: I'm about 60% done with the locomotive. And I've responded and modified the cars and loco to your suggestions, though I'm not entirely sure I made my goals clear: I want this to be bricklinkable at around the MRSP of the original Santa Fe train, and as such am making compromises with the design with the wheel sets for example. The black ones are still produced, and seem to be Lego's standard now. The light grey ones from 9V and RC era are pretty expensive, and can only be found in rare quantities now. For this same reason I discarded the original red 6x28 baseplate, the 9V buffers and magnets, and the 2x6x3 windshield at you guys's suggestions.

I was having trouble designing the nose originally, and I took heavy inspiration from zephyr1934's North Coast limited, but I couldn't figure out the design, even from the exploded diagrams. Any attempt I made at replicating it ended up at a dead end, where I couldn't get the bricks flush or the shapes right. So I took the original 10020 nose design, and heavily modified it and substituted arches for curves and cheese wedges. I still don't feel entirely confident on the shaping, but it's at the pinnacle of my talent for now. And to distinguish the doors on the sides of the loco from the walls, I used corrugated texture bricks to get the right depth. The whole loco is an empty shell for now, aside from the PF train motor which I substituted for a 9V motor. The windshield is brick built, so it can be more accurate, but it may require a sticker down the middle to separate the two glass panels.

I took your suggestions and unstaggered the corrugated bricks, but I'm still mixed on fixing the top layer above the windows, as that's meant to fit the original 10022 stickers and if I shortened it it'd be too small to fit them. What I am excited about is I could reskin the loco in light grey eventually as an alternate model, and you'd be able to run this as a California Zephyr. Or depending on the parts availability, you could resin this easily to suit any number of railroads, including Santa Fe's blue scheme.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Lego Dino 500

[zephyr1934]

I want this to be bricklinkable at around the MRSP of the original Santa Fe train,

That seems too tight. I definitely applaud your idea of making it reasonable price and presumably using semi-common parts, but the cost of lego in general and train parts in particular has gone way up since 2002. I think the loco was MSRP of $35 and cars were $30. Using the Horizon Express as a measure I'd suggest a target of at least $50 for the locomotive (unpowered) and $40 for each car.

What I am excited about is I could reskin the loco in light grey eventually as an alternate model, and you'd be able to run this as a California Zephyr. Or depending on the parts availability, you could resin this easily to suit any number of railroads, including Santa Fe's blue scheme.

That was one thing that REALLY surprised me about the sets, so few people redecorated them or built MODs (of course many who did are reading this forum, this audience is atypical in that regard, grin)

[coreyg]

That was one thing that REALLY surprised me about the sets, so few people redecorated them or built MODs (of course many who did are reading this forum, this audience is atypical in that regard, grin)

I built these about a year ago. They are as close to the orginal I could make it with the new colors. Switching from Red to blue meant I didn't have to buy the red windscreen and the porthole in red was not possible so I was forced to do a different solution for the portholes. I just did a standard train window instead. If I was redoing it now, I'd probably try to get stickers for it instead. I remember one of the little doors being a pain to buy. I forget why now. Somehow I came up with the idea of using a cupboard instead of a door. I think it was because I couldn't find them in light bley, but I'm not sure anymore. The curved slope pieces on the top were a pain. This uses *a lot*. It's easy to get a hand full of them, but to get enough to build those cars took me a lot of orders. It's now on my standard want list, so they get bought anytime a store I'm buying from has them (and they are at a reasonable price).

I did add a bit of blue to the passenger cars. I thought the all grey look was a bit blah and I wanted to easily tell which cars were mine when there was a real santa fe on the same layout. (and the blue train bases are cheap because of the blue cargo train).

Edited July 16, 2016 by coreyg

[Lego Dino 500]

I just finished building 10025-1. I'll keep fixing the EMD loco and adding in some details I forgot, and I'll post a new picture in a bit. And Zephyr, you were right. It seems that the original price is far too low/tight of a constraint to keep this to, it's unrealistic to expect it to be that low. But guys, how does the nose look? That was the biggest problem I've faced building this.

Edit: I just finished the locomotive and 10025-2 baggage car.

So theoretically, I've finished all 5 different car variants and the locomotive. So everything there is all you need for a complete consist. Should I keep changing the files around and make some more improvements, or should I go ahead and upload to Rebrickable?

Edited July 17, 2016 by Lego Dino 500

[storms26]

Looking a lot better for the nose, but I still think that the windscreen could use some work.

[M_slug357]

*snip*

And Zephyr, you were right. It seems that the original price is far too low/tight of a constraint to keep this to, it's unrealistic to expect it to be that low. But guys, how does the nose look? That was the biggest problem I've faced building this.

*snip*

Have you adjusted those prices for inflation though? What was $40 (usd) almost 15 years ago might be closer to 50 or 60 in today's market...

As fer the nose&windscreen, the best I's can say is that you'll really have to think outside the box fer these. Also, if you could re-integrate lights for one or both headlamps, you'd be a genius!

Luck is really all I can offer at the moment...

[tnmears]

Is that a round 1x1 tile on the nose of the F? why does it look like a different red?

[Lego Dino 500]

Is that a round 1x1 tile on the nose of the F? why does it look like a different red?

A normal 1x1 tile stick out too much, and round 1x1 tiles aren't available in regular red. I believe the discoloration is far less visible than the corner of a 2x1 tile sticking out, it's no bigger issue than people using 2x3x6 windscreens instead of the originals.

[3D LEGO]

Lego Dino 500,

I have been following your progress and I thought I would offer a few additional suggestions that incorporate and or build upon what you already have. Utilizing the pictures that you have posted, pictures of the original set, pictures of the real locomotive and suggestions offered, I created the following model. Please note that the shorter body was an attempt at getting around the expensive Train Base 6 x 28 in red. (I failed, as motorizing this design would be a pain. At least you are not considering a yellow one. One neat feature of the design is that the locomotive would be noticeably shorter than the wagons for better aesthetics.) Below is a breakdown of the design ideas. Feel free to use any you would like. Note, that while I have as of yet to sort out all the connections, it is all doable.

EMD F7A Santa Fe - Warbonent on Train Base 6 x 24

(Image too large to embed.)

1. Though used, the Panel 1 x 2 x 2 with Porthole Pattern was a price misunderstanding on my part. Ignore them.
   
2. As suggested, I designed it without the Train Buffer Beam part. This reduces the cost while improving the aesthetics and curve handling.
   
3. The varied fan size is accurate and a nice cost saving feature.
   
4. The simplification of the fuel tank is accurate as well.
   
5. I have not solved how to attach the numberboards as positioned but I think I am onto a great idea aesthetically. (Lighting may be an option)
   
6. Dual headlights. It is achievable and at the same time looks better than the original.
   
7. Gangway is of a better size though it could be 1 stud wider. Also the random bracket up top is to represent the hookup point for multiple unit control.
   
8. Stairs uses accurate flip plates instead of cavities like original.
   
9. Window is similar to your design but altered.
   
10. The signature grill: I was not satisfied by the original and the pictures of the real thing led me to design a slightly bigger version.
    
11. The v of the Warbonent on top of the cab will be a pain. I need to think on it more.
    

Questions or comments? I applaud your for your design goals. Not only is it achievable but the end result will be a much better model.

3D LEGO

Edited July 20, 2016 by 3D LEGO

[Lego Dino 500]

Thanks! You really can pump out a design fast, I'll definitely take advantage of a few of your ideas if it's okay, regarding the windshield and vent fans on top. Though I'm not too keen on the reduced length and other SNOT bits, as I'm working to reach a balance between realism/scale. I'd rather it capture the scale and silhouette of the train than all of the details.