15 replies to this topic

[Odyssey]

Dear friends of Lego trains (hm, that sounds a bit formal, eh?),

I've been following the train forum for a few months now and have marvelled at some of the truly amazing work I've seen here. And while I'm far away from the perfection of some people here, I'd still like to show you my project I've been working on over the last weeks:

The Austrian Federal Railways' (ÖBB) Railjet high speed train


I've chosen this train for my first MOC project as I'm travelling on it frequently, it has an interesting design and as it's somewhat unusual for a high speed train. With a top service speed of 230km/h it's admittedly rather on the slow side for high speed trains and no match for the likes of TGV and ICE - but then again, the geographical situation of Austria makes building real high-speed lines pretty hard (there are only upgraded section along the Western Railway). The train currently operates on services between Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich and Zurich.
The trains were built from 2006 on by Siemens and are based on earlier EuroCity rolling stock.
What makes the train sets unlike most other high-speed trains, is that they are technically standard push-pull trains hauled by off-the-shelf electric locomotives which were already used before, but adapted to give them features known from high-speed trains. In normal service a trainset is made up of a Taurus locomotive plus a rake of seven permanently-coupled carriages, each rake being assigned one locomotive which normally remains attached to it. The carriages and the locomotives were designed and painted so they visually form one unit. Due to the carriages being permanently coupled, the interior of the carriages has the look and feel of an EMU (essentially, the train is a push-pull train disguised as an EMU).
My understanding as to why ÖBB made those unusual design decisions (it seems that originally, they planned to build EMUs) is that they needed new rolling stock but didn't have the time nor the resources for developing an EMU. They did, though, have a surplus of Taurus locomotives they once ordered for an expansion into Eastern-European markets which never happened and had some carriage designs which were usable for their new train with only slight adaptions. And lastly, they probably wanted to have a high-speed product instead of just buying new carriages because with the planned liberalization of passenger rail traffic in Europe they are expecting competition from private high-speed train operators on profitable InterCity connections and needed something to counter them.

My rendition of the train is in 6-wide to keep it the same size as the stock sets and carriages are a lot shorter than they should be if they were to scale (that also has financial considerations).

Well, now here are some photos of the original (taken from Wikipedia):




And here is my interpretation:



Version with 4 carriages
Version with 2 carriages (1)
Version with 2 carriages (2)

More photos here:


Inspirations:
- The design of the carriage doors was inspired by Bricktrix' Eurostar
- The interior design of the Loco is a mixture of real elements and inspiration by JGoods19's Highspeed Trainset
- There are some nice designs for the Taurus loco like Hannes1806's and AshiValkoinen's

Hope you like it and I'd be happy about comments and ideas how to improve it :-)

Edited by Odyssey, 01 November 2010 - 11:38 PM.

[Holodoc]

 Odyssey, on Jun 13 2010, 11:32 PM, said:

Hope you like it and I'd be happy about comments and ideas how to improve it :-)

Hi Odyssey and welcome around the boards!

Yes, I do like the rendition of the Railjet. This is the kind of train where a lot of cars are a "must". It does not look good with just 2 cars behind the locomotive. Perfect way to present it with a loco and 3 cars plus the "back end"-car.
One thing I stumbled upon was the color choice. Obviously you took brown by the limited color palette of LDD, but brown doesn't really cover the original. Hopefully you will be able to swap those bricks with dark red ones.

Are you planning to make it a "real" MOC? I'm looking forward to see more of it in reality.  

[hoeij]

 Odyssey, on Jun 13 2010, 07:32 PM, said:

The Austrian Federal Railways' (ÖBB) Railjet high speed train

That's a very nice looking train, no wonder you want to model it.  It looks a lot like
the new lego train 7938, which I'd love to have if it were priced a little lower.

[legotrainfan]

Being Austrian I can only say I'm fascinated by your Rail Jet. It's a superb model! However, I have to agree to Holodoc's opinion on the colours you used. Ty dark red. Maybe it'll look better in dard red instead of brown.

[Odyssey]

Thanks for the nice comments :-)

Here is a picture of how it might look with dark red roof and improved doors:


Yes, I actually want to turn it into a "real" MOC quite soon. I'm still contemplating whether I should order the parts via Bricklink or order at least the loco and first two carriages via LDD. On the one hand, Bricklink should turn out less expensive and allow me to build it with a dark red roof right away. On the other hand, we're living in a quite small flat and I my girlfriend might not be too happy if I start piling Lego over a few weeks... With LDD I'd receive all bricks neatly packed in a single box and might build it together with her Lego-lovin' cousins as well...
I might possibly make some modifications to it and build the other two carriages over the summer, then.


Also, I'd be quite grateful if anyone of you had a good idea how I could get rid of the "holes" on the sides of the locomotive where the side walls and front meet:



I was thinking about this part:

But it neither comes in brown nor dark red so I'd have to decal it.

[aawsum]

very nice choice for a MOC, can't weet to see it in real (the render already looks great)
A small suggestion from my side would be to make the first cart a bit longer, it looks longer in reality as well.

For your question, I guess you would need the inverted slope 1x1 that does not exist :)
No but seriously, I see some opportunities when you use these and
I doubt however if they are available in the right color btw.

[Odyssey]

So, on Friday, my first LDD order of the train arrived: the Taurus locomotive that's used on the train (this one: Siemens ES 64 U2 with fitting paint).

So, here is how it looks:





More photos over on Brickshelf (once moderated): http://www.brickshel...ry.cgi?f=437808

[Odyssey]

So, finally I was able to order and build the first passenger carriage, the second class (or "economy class") carriage which runs behind the locomotive:




(click on the photos for more on flickr)

Oh and one question to the moderators: I'm a bit surprised that the title of the topic was changed to "MOD". In my opinion it's a MOC, not a MOD, because I designed it from scratch myself... (or am I misunderstanding something?)

Edited by Odyssey, 02 September 2010 - 09:33 PM.

[AFOL12v]

MOC = My Own Creation
MOD = My Own Design, I guess?

Your MOD looks very good. Almost like real. You build more trains like these?

[hoeij]

 Odyssey, on 02 September 2010 - 09:32 PM, said:

So, finally I was able to order and build the first passenger carriage, the second class (or "economy class") carriage which runs behind the locomotive:

Looks really neat.  Did you get the bricks from bricklink, or did you use lego.com like for the locomotive?  It's pretty neat that it comes in a box with your design printed on it.

[Legoist]

Well I just think it's brilliant. The interiors are just the perfect balance between realism and Lego's typical minimalism. Also the colour scheme is very original.  

[Odyssey]

 AFOL12v, on 02 September 2010 - 10:36 PM, said:

MOC = My Own Creation
MOD = My Own Design, I guess?

Your MOD looks very good. Almost like real. You build more trains like these?

MOD = My Own Design - ok, that makes sense. Somehow I was under the impression it stands for "Modification" :-)
This is actually my first serious train project. It'll take at least until the end of the year to finish it (if I manage to finish it). I have a few ideas for other projects but am not yet sure what I might go for next...

 hoeij, on 03 September 2010 - 12:34 AM, said:

Looks really neat.  Did you get the bricks from bricklink, or did you use lego.com like for the locomotive?  It's pretty neat that it comes in a box with your design printed on it.

Actually, I ordered both the locomotive and the first carriage via Design by me. I ordered both individually though. For me, the main reason is in the limited space and time I have available for building so I prefer to get all bricks picked and packed for me.

 Legoist, on 03 September 2010 - 07:33 AM, said:

Well I just think it's brilliant. The interiors are just the perfect balance between realism and Lego's typical minimalism. Also the colour scheme is very original.  

Thanks a lot for the nice comments!

[Odyssey]

 Holodoc, on 14 June 2010 - 08:25 AM, said:

Hi Odyssey and welcome around the boards!

Yes, I do like the rendition of the Railjet. This is the kind of train where a lot of cars are a "must". It does not look good with just 2 cars behind the locomotive. Perfect way to present it with a loco and 3 cars plus the "back end"-car.
One thing I stumbled upon was the color choice. Obviously you took brown by the limited color palette of LDD, but brown doesn't really cover the original. Hopefully you will be able to swap those bricks with dark red ones.

Are you planning to make it a "real" MOC? I'm looking forward to see more of it in reality.  

Concerning the colour (brown vs. dark red), I settled for brown for now because I could order that through LDD which is a lot more practical for me... And I have to say I'm quite happy with how the colours turned out at the moment (also because there are quite big variations in the colours of the original...).

[MetroiD]

Whoa there! A belated but nevertheless rather hearty WELCOME to the boards (as weird as that might sound coming from a long-time absentee such as myself)! And what a wonderful introduction to EB - I absolutely love your Railjet - and would like it even more with a full set of cars behind the Taurus :] I agree with Doc that dark red might look more realistic here, but this train of yours looks just as nice in brown.

What caught my eye almost immediately was the pantographs - funnily enough, I've just utilized that same approach with a train MOC of mine - clean & simple, me likey! As to the "holes" - try to cheese it up and let us know if it works out :) Cheers mate!

[Odyssey]

Unexpectedly enough I've received a few requests as to whether this modell would be available for sale or for download so others could order it over LDD. I'm surely not going to sell my MOC but I've therefore decided that I'll make the LDD files available on request.

So, if you like to get a copy of the Railjet trainset, please don't hesitate to send me a PM...

By the way: I expect a few brick orders in the next days and weeks so stay tuned for updates :-)

[halfpenguinhalflego]

I love it, knowing LDD though it is super overpriced.