Recreating and Revising Passenger Cars from a 12 year old Youtube video

[Celeste]

When I was a kid, I used to watch a lot of Lego videos on Youtube, especially ones with trains. Due to having a lot of free time now, I have had time to go back and revisit almost all of the things I remember watching. One I remember watching excessively had some custom passenger cars in them and as a kid, I thought they were the coolest thing. So I finally decided to recreate them for myself.

Here are some stills from the video I used as reference. I also just watched the video over and over again in slow motion to try and get details from the grainy quality. 

The first thing I did was recreate the exact same car into Stud.io. In combing over the footage, I found certain points where the creator likely ran out of parts and used camera angles to hide holes in the model, which I had never noticed before. So in my recreation, I obviously filled in the gaps when necessary. Here was the result.

After finishing, I realized the flaws in the design. The train in the video never goes around a turn, and it would be impossible with this design as you couldn't have the bogies turn at all. The roof was permanently stuck on, which I personally wasn't a fan of, and I found the ends of the car rather plain. I made some alterations to the car, but not so much so that it would look like a different car/design entirely. (As an aside, I believe these cars are based on real rolling stock in Poland, where the video creator is from, but I don't know the specific name of them or anything like that. If you know more about this than me, please feel free to share and correct me in the replies)

Anyway, here is the new revised design. It is on top, while the original is on bottom.

So I reworked the bogies so they can spin freely and the "step" below the door now spins with the bogie. I added diaphragms to the end of the car and vents to the roof for more detail. Lastly, a layer of tiles were put in to make the roof removable. The car can also have a red scheme instead of the green to match the red car seen in the background of the video for less than 10 seconds.

I was happy with the final result so I decided to order some parts. I wanted to keep the grey authentic throughout so I built the entire thing in old light grey, which was necessary for the train windows and the older style of the 1x3x4 doors with the solid hinge area. I also switched out the roof pieces to something more affordable than the 2x6 ones found in the Metroliner (part 2875). I also used the older style of buffer to keep with the feel and era of the source material.

With parts on their way, I decided to tackle the "1" and "2" on the side of the cars. After looking at screenshots from the video, looking at some fonts, and asking my mother who is a graphic designer and knows a bit about fonts, I concluded they were most likely hand drawn. I really liked the original numbers though, as they were very unique in their shaping, so I traced them in Illustrator and cleaned them up a little. Then I printed them and cut them out with an Xacto knife. When the parts arrived, I put my two new (old) cars together.

(As another aside, the ladder details and door steps were offset so I had to buy a few of these technic plates. I don't deal with odd numbers much, so if there's a better way to do these offsets, 7 wide people, please let me know.)

This project was totally fueled by love and nostalgia so I wanted to change as little as I felt necessary. I hope you can excuse the creativity lacking on my end and that you enjoyed looking regardless. If anyone is interested in the Stud.io file, the Illustrator file for the numbers, or the original source video link, let me know and I'll be happy to provide!

Thanks!

[JWBDolphins]

What a cool project!  I don't think you're lacking creativity either - you did something that was important to you and did it very well!  I think your upgrades are well done too.  I don't recall seeing diaphragms done that way before, the use of those bricks really gives that collapsible feel, nice job!

Thanks for sharing!

 

[grimrecka]

Great job. There's certainly something to be said for the simple elegance of the design and your improvements don't look at of place at all.

[brownie5968]

Those old finger hinge arms look really good on the bogies, simple but effective! Good job!

[ColletArrow]

I love both the original design and your modifications to these coaches - from the roofs to the bogies they're fairly simple and nondescript, but have enough detail and a neat colour scheme that make them believable. Overall I they've got something that just makes them very pleasant to look at.

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Simple but very effective! 

[Celeste]

On 10/29/2020 at 9:06 PM, JWBDolphins said:

I don't recall seeing diaphragms done that way before, the use of those bricks really gives that collapsible feel, nice job!

Funnily enough, I got the idea from a lot of official lego sets. Thanks!

On 10/30/2020 at 5:08 AM, grimrecka said:

Great job. There's certainly something to be said for the simple elegance of the design and your improvements don't look at of place at all.

 

On 10/30/2020 at 7:56 AM, ColletArrow said:

Overall I they've got something that just makes them very pleasant to look at.

 

On 10/31/2020 at 4:41 AM, LEGO Train 12 Volts said:

Simple but very effective!

Thank you!