MOC: Train Layout Modules

[Brickthus]

After some intensive building over the last 2 weeks I have completed 20 modules of a new 8mm scale British railway layout to a reasonable standard. The layout features track slopes of up to 1 in 30, varying by 0.5 plate/12 stud length.

All the points and the double crossover are pneumatically controlled from behind the backscene wall on the left of the picture below. Each point took about 3-4 hours to build a baseplate, ballast it, add a mechanism, get the support heights right and add all the control panel connections in a way that makes maintenance easy. Modules measure up to 48x48 studs and have removable air connections . Using mostly rigid 3.2mm tubes to minimise the balloon effect, the points farthest from the control panel need 5-6 pumps of the pump cylinder to operate.

I’ve put in a few of the scenic features I prototyped earlier, like point heater cubicles and conduits. The ballast colours vary according to how fast trains will be going and where they would stop. There’s more foliage and track furniture to add, but that can wait till I’ve built more modules and finalised signal positions. I’ve tried not to make the layout too busy but rather to aim for the look of a real British railway.

More detailed description of features

Brickshelf Folder (39 pictures)

Please let me know if anything about the layout inspires you.

Mark

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Mark J E Bellis 8mm scale LEGO Trains

[Captain Green Hair]

Ah the really big trains, nice!

I saw some minifigs in some pictures, wouldn't they be too small compared to the trains?

[Brickthus]

Ah the really big trains, nice!

I saw some minifigs in some pictures, wouldn't they be too small compared to the trains?

You'd be surprised how big trains really are. British trains are almost 13ft high from the rail, but most people don't get to stand next to a train at rail height. On top of the height of the carriage door there's another 3' for the platform height above the rails, plus the step up into the carriage and the roof structure. From ground level, trains dwarf the tallest men. Not many people look down at the track whilst waiting for a train. It falls to engineers to notice the height! Some steam engines have wheels larger than the height of a man. No-one has yet made any LEGO-compatible wheels that big to scale (~48mm), so 40-tooth cogs and Model Team wheels have to do. It's one reason why I haven't yet done an express steam engine.

The width and depth of minifigs are both too large for this scale! It is well known that minifigs are too fat, but that is by necessity of having to be able to stand still on studs and hence having large feet. They must also be large enough for kids to hold and move their limbs without too many breakages.

Since the original target age range was 5-12 years, minifigs might be short in order to be children, such that children populate their own worlds with people similar to themselves. A standard minifig with a hard hat (like the track workers) is 42mm high, which equates to 5'3" in 8mm:1ft scale. That is the average height of a 13-year-old boy. Only 5% of 11-year-olds will have reached 5'3".

There are many fully-grown men of similar height. To make the height more average (5'6" for a woman and 5'11" for a man), add 1 plate for a woman at 5'7.8" and 2 plates for a man at 6'0.6". (Of course there's no such thing as an average man or woman, before anyone feels the need to remind me!). Different nationalities also have different average heights.

A rucksack or cape round the neck of a minifig adds a couple of inches to the scale height. I had also considered putting a small belt round the leg studs before putting the body on the legs. That would add height at the waist because it is the legs that are proportionally the shortest part of a minifig. A taller leg piece would be ideal, especially as a shorter one exists already. I respect my minifigs so I haven't glued plates to their feet.

"Minifig scale" is not an exact scale but covers a range of scales from 1:30 to 1:60. 8mm:1ft is 1:38.1. The scale of 8mm:1ft comes from the track gauge, approximated from 37.8mm L-gauge to 1435.1mm (4'8.5") British track gauge (the exact gauge for 1:38.1 would be 37.67mm, giving an error of 0.354%, well within the measurement error tolerance). It is therefore more accurate than 'OO' trains! Given the coarseness of LEGO brick dimensions, I try to get the smaller dimensions of models within 6" (0.5M) to scale and the large ones (train vehicle width and length) to the nearest foot.

So the short answer is "No"! At least with all standard minifigs being 5'3", none of them insults another about their height!

Mark

[AgentRick]

Very cool module idea, how much did it cost? And what is this thing might I ask? is it a form of British railroad construction device?

[Captain Green Hair]

Ah i didn't see it correct the first time, the trains are 8 studs wide right?

[Brickthus]

Very cool module idea, how much did it cost? And what is this thing might I ask? is it a form of British railroad construction device?

There's a story from modules to cost...

I began with modules in my previous layout, first exhibited in 2002, but just for the Station, which uses 3x7 48x48 plates. One of my engines won a prize at a model railway show but I knew the layout wasn't of the same standard as the scenery of other layouts for other types of trains. I then planned to see whether a proper scenic model railway could be constructed from LEGO parts, and a new layout was born.

For the new layout I wanted to put in proper slopes with trains over other trains (a double track "looped-eight" with a fiddle yard), whilst increasing realism in the scale model, so tracks on stilts wasn't an option. Therefore I decided to make scenic modules. The first trial one was one I made for the corner of my Small Layout in 2004 (see bottom right). This splits into 3 sections for transport. (The small layout was originally designed to fit in the back of an estate car, so we could do 1-day shows, rather than having to hire a van for the large layout).

My experience of assembling the station of the large layout at model railway exhibitions suggests that a modular layout could be assembled as fast as a layout where bundles of track sections are laid out on tables. It certainly works for modellers of other types of railways. I hope it works for LEGO railways, as I'll have just 8 hours to assemble the layout at a big show once the layout is finished!

As for cost, you'll need lots of 2x4, 2x3, 2x2, 2x2 corner, 1x2, 1x4, 1x6, 1x8 and 2x8 black bricks. I first designed the module structure scheme to use the mix of parts in a Statue of Liberty kit, whilst overlapping all the bricks in layers for strength, and providing arch structures to support the trackbeds so as not to make the modules too heavy or too consuming of bricks. Early modules Folder 1, Folder 2.

I bought 11 SoLs in the knowledge that Sand Green is not a common colour but is the colour of grass that grows near a railway or motorway - not the healthiest colour. Lusher green is found further away from the transport network. I then decided to build the majority of module structure in black because it is the only colour that doesn't bleach significantly in sunlight, which is unfortunately prevalent at model railway shows. Folder 3

In black I initially bought 15000 2x4s, 6000 2x3s and plenty of the other sizes in bulk. I bought hundreds of bags of old grey and old dark grey plates a few years ago (sets 10048 and 10049) for the grey part of the trackbed, as well as 18 Tiger Mosaics for the ballast and more bulk bags of grey plates since then. On reducing the Sand Green to primarily a layer of grass on top of black modules, I went for more Yodas, which have more of the plates, as well as picking up some in Pick-a-Brick. Parts procurement has been a time-consuming occupation, given the obsolescence market in old greys, Sand Green and 9V train parts!

Altogether there will probably be about 300,000 parts in the whole layout, maybe £10,000 of LEGO, of which £3000 is the 9V train motors and tracks. That said, the project has already been going for 3 years and is still a few years from completion, so the brick cost per hour spent on the project is probably about £3-£5.

The device is a Thermite Welding device.

The Thermite reaction, most commonly composed of Iron oxide and aluminium powder, welds together two sections of rail. The construction worker set up the apparatus over a gap in the rail, lights the fuse and legs it! The reaction then deposits molten iron into a mould fitted around the rail gap. Any surplus iron can then be ground away.

The trans-orange chainsaw piece represents the fire that emanates from the top of the pot when the fuse has burned up.

Hope you find the development pictures inspiring,

Mark

Ah i didn't see it correct the first time, the trains are 8 studs wide right?

8+ wide! The 9F is actually 10-wide - a bit too wide!

I intend to improve engines by making them nearer to scale width, with tapered bodies, in the future. For instance a Class 50 should be 9'3" wide along the middle section, so 9.25M it is!

Mark