Lego Ideas Project: The Polar Express

[Lego Dino 500]

Hey guys! Sorry if it seems like I'm botting all the forums for Lego Ideas votes. I'm just using Lego Ideas to host my image sources, so it usually coincides with one of my Lego Ideas projects.

Right now, I just completed work on the Polar Express- a 1/78 scale model of a Pere Marquette 1225 2-8-4 Berkshire steam locomotive. It has a coal shunter, 4 passenger cars, and a caboose. Right now the locomotive is painted mainly black with stone grey accents, and the cars are painted black, navy blue, and classic red. If I built it in real life right now, it'd have a astonishing length of about 5 feet/1.6 meters, and only contain 1,697 pieces. This is mainly due to the fact that it's built using 6X34 train plates and 1X16 beams for the base below the car interior. Every single car is built with a modular roof that can be detached for playability inside the train, and the same goes for the actual locomotive. It's capable of holding 42 passengers, if you don't include the chefs and conductor who'll be standing and traveling between the cars.

Here are some pictures of the train:

The front view of the whole train:

The view of the back of the caboose and observation area:

View of one of the cars:

View of the Entire Train:

Whats funny is it's literally so large I couldn't photograph it any larger without displaying the whole screen and UI around it.

Cross Section of a Train Car With Adjustable seats:

Rear View of a Train Car:

Mid View of the Train from Behind:

Anyways, I hope I could receive some feedback on this. It's my first actual try at a Lego Train, so there are obviously some areas where I can improve. Also, when the project is approved within the week, it's called The Polar Express on Lego Ideas, and it'll be posted by my account there, LegoGuyLOL4Ever. If anyone is interested, I'm also attaching a copy of the Lego Digital Designer file to this. If you try to build it IRL, it might be expensive due to the amount of Navy Blue.

polar express 2.0 copy.lxf

[snowvictim]

Looks quite naked. It'd look better if you used tiles, not plates, for the roof in my opinion.

[detjensrobert]

Looks good, but will probably not make it through the approval stage on lego ideas mainly due to the fact that it s 8 wide (not that that is a bad thing). Lego group has stuck to 6 wide.

Other than that, nice build!!

[MAB]

Going on recent retail set trains, it would never be made like that. You'd get the engine, tender and one carriage.

I find it quite boring to be honest. This is mainly down to you concentrating on showing the carriages over and over again and not the engine, combined with the fact that the carriages are so plain. Compare it to one of the better trains of recent years - the Emerald Night - and the carriage design is just so plain to the point that there is little of interest in them. They are a plain single coloured box built completely studs up with windows and standard train wheels.

[Lego Dino 500]

It just got posted to Lego Ideas at https://ideas.lego.com/projects/85649 Anyways the cars are based off of Pullman Heavy Weight Observation cars, but every single reference picture I could find of the ones in the film depict it with smooth walls. And I intended for the roof to be studded, as this is primarily meant as a display model, since you could theoretically reenact any scene from the movie besides inside the rebycycling and coal cars, if that makes any sense. Right now I'm working on improving the locomotive from the Railbrick's steam running gear instructions and Tony Sava's Pere Marquette 1225 models, but I'm having difficulties recreating it in LDD due to the 2-8-4 alignment system present on the different models and representation.

[Paperballpark]

I'd be interested to see more shots of the loco, as it looks a bit unrealistic from far away.

[Duq]

It's a nice idea to do the polar express but this model has so many issues it's hard to know where to start.

I haven't seen the movie but if I search for images I see carriages in a much lighter blue, with narrower windows in a dark red band (not interrupted with blue).

You might also want to read up on train terms. You mention "a coal shunter, 4 passenger cars, and a caboose". What I see is a steam engine, a tender and 4 passenger cars.

So nice idea, but back to the drawing board...