Brickworld 2019 retrospective and some of my MOCs

[zephyr1934]

Brickworld 2019 was total sensory overload, there were so many great models of all shapes and sizes that at some point your mind just sort of locks up. It took me a few hours to get from one end of the hall to the other and each time I would discover something new. Even if you were only interested in trains there were three or four great layouts that always had something happening. My pictures from the show have now been moderated on brickshelf and can be found here, with a generous helping of train displays.

 

I will not go in to detail about all of the various displays and events, except to note that there was even an ILTCO meeting

 

Well, okay, there were a couple of other train builders there too...

And this really insane transformer based on the Super Chief. The builder was kind enough to take the 10 min necessary to step through the transformation. That is the same MOC displayed on tablet on the left and standing on the right. The full transformation can be found here.

 

Meanwhile, I had a nice little display that was easily overlooked given the sheer level of goodness all around the hall. I'll post back to this thread with information about some of my new MOC's that debuted there.

 

[coaster]

10 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

Well, okay, there were a couple of other train builders there too...

Boy, what a motley crew that is!  We're missing a couple people in this picture, but I think this was as close as we ever got to everyone being in the same place at once.  This was an amazing Brickworld, and it certainly raised the bar for 2020.  The official theme may have been Space, but it was all trains this year.

By complete coincidence, I discovered at Brickworld that I actually work in the same office as the guy that built the Super Chief Transformer.  Small world...

[ecmo47]

I was pretty stoked to be included in that picture!

[zephyr1934]

My building has slowed in the past few years, but I have been slowly building new MOCs. I kind of took BW as my opportunity to show off a couple of years worth of new building all at once. Here's the first of those MOCs

So first I started making stickers to letter my trains, then I started selling stickers, then someone asked if I could do stickers for containers, then I was so tickled by them I had to make a few containers, then again I was so tickled that I had to make well cars, as per this ancient thread.

But most of what I'm interested in modeling is in the 1900-1980 time frame, so I was happy with my Conrail MOD of the Maersk locomotive for pulling the well cars.

Tell that to my son, who is very much interested in the trains he is growing up with. So a while back I designed an NS SD60m for him. I never got around to posting about that engine until now...

I designed it with the intent to eventually make instructions for it and sell the stickers (a keen eye will note the fan stickers in the turn table base... I will have those listed in my store soon). Beyond the fans I do not have plans to produce the stickers in the short term, but who knows, if there is interest I know some people who produce instructions and stickers and maybe they'd talk to me.

Anyway, this being a 6 wide locomotive (the hood is actually 5 wide to allow for the PF inside) I didn't have the space to do brick built trucks, which led to this custom motor side,

 

and this MOC made its full debut on my display at BW this year.

Then last fall I had an idea to make an unpowered mate for this locomotive. What better than the PRR heritage unit, right?

The best I can figure is that Tuscan red starts out looking like Lego dark red and after about a year in the sun it winds up looking like lego red-brown. I took a little liberty with the design, I believe the pinstripes on the real unit are yellow, but I went with more PRR traditional gold, and for the same aesthetics I did away with the yellow safety stripe under the running boards (it would have been maybe half a plate high if modeled at scale). The one thing that I've been waiting and waiting for are the grilled cheese in dark red, maybe some day, but for now those are dark blay and probably the best excuse for building it in red-brown instead of dark red. Oh well, I like dark red better and this gave me an excuse to build a dark red locomotive. Here too, BW was the debut of the locomotive.

(yes, that is a 10 wide observation car behind my 6 wide train)

I also added another well car to my collection, this time lettered for Maersk and populated with heritage containers.

 

More on my BW MOCs in subsequent posts.

 

[ivanlan9]

@zephyr1934 said, "I designed it with the intent to eventually make instructions for it and sell the stickers (a keen eye will note the fan stickers in the turn table base... I will have those listed in my store soon)."

To which I reply, "Yes, please!" 

[Toastie]

On ‎7‎/‎9‎/‎2019 at 5:47 AM, zephyr1934 said:

Well, okay, there were a couple of other train builders there too...

Why not listing names? (OK, I know ... the internet does not forget ... ) But ... I'd love to connect EB avatars with names and faces. Holger was there but all the others? Is that really a secret? I am not in the exhibition loop - not at all - but I can imagine how much of efforts must be put into that. @ecmo47 you were stoked; were on earth are you? Man, there are so wonderful people here on EB/TrainTech ... my name is Thorsten, last name Benter, "Toastie" here on EB.
Want to know why? Because I spent a three months - (the best of my life: Played tennis on grass) - research stay in Oxford/UK. The "Th" thing in my name drove people nuts, so they simply called me - Toastie. Whatever. 

All the best,
Thorsten

[zephyr1934]

@ivanlan9 noted

 

6 hours ago, Toastie said:

Why not listing names?

...

On 7/8/2019 at 11:47 PM, zephyr1934 said:

Well, okay, there were a couple of other train builders there too...

I'm in the front row 4th from the right, wearing a brown minifig shirt. I'll let the others out themselves (or not) as they see fit.

[Jeffinslaw]

Depending on what night that picture was taken, I was either stuffing my face with Giordanos, Portillos or a pizza place up in Milwaukee called Ians which explains why I wasn't there. 

-Jeffinslaw

[ecmo47]

The picture was taken Saturday right after the show ended for the day. I'm standing on a chair in the back row with the white button-up shirt next to the twin-city guy.

[coaster]

I think it'd be much more fun to make you guess who I am. :)

I'm in the front row, looking all cool with my white shirt and blue hat.

[legoman666]

I'm the one that looks 12.

[SD100]

Both locos are great, with a lot of attention to detail. I dream of putting together a triple set of those GEVOs. Are you at all considering releasing instructions for those well cars? Those side frames are really nice too, they would soup up a lot of EMD models.

[zephyr1934]

16 hours ago, SD100 said:

Both locos are great, with a lot of attention to detail. I dream of putting together a triple set of those GEVOs. Are you at all considering releasing instructions for those well cars? Those side frames are really nice too, they would soup up a lot of EMD models.

Thank you for the kind words. There are some instructions already out there for well cars, e.g., here. The ribbed sided well cars use too many rare parts that it would not make sense to release instructions. As for the motor side frames, version 1 is already available either from shapeways, as discussed here, or from me by special request but they are stupid expensive either way (!@#$%). I'm in the process of fabricating a potential version 2 might cut the price by 10%, but I'll have to test it before releasing it to the public.

 

[Cale]

I'm the dummy with the BMR shirt.

Cale

[Toastie]

On ‎7‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 6:01 AM, zephyr1934 said:

I'll let the others out themselves (or not) as they see fit.

This is so incredibly nice! However, this is no outing, in contrast, you guys can be so proud of what you have achieved, what you do, and what you share!

Thanks a lot @zephyr1934 for kicking this off! 

All the best, and keep on with what you are doing!

Very best regards
Thorsten 

[sed6]

On 7/10/2019 at 11:17 PM, zephyr1934 said:

...I also added another well car to my collection, this time lettered for Maersk and populated with heritage containers.

 

The blue well cars look awesome. I really like your idea for "heritage" containers also. Well done. 

[Roadmonkeytj]

On 7/12/2019 at 5:52 PM, legoman666 said:

I'm the one that looks 12.

Your Tony's son?

[zephyr1934]

I have a few moments to talk about more of my MOCs at BW

First up is my Pioneer Zephyr. It is a couple years old and I even posted about it in this thread. But BW was only its second outing to a major show, and the first was at NMRA Indy, where there were only a dozen AFOLs. As you can see, I was fortunate enough to be nominated for the BW best train. The competition was impressive and there were many equally great train MOCs that were not even nominated, so I'm pleased to have been awarded a "nomination trophy"

Next up, I had my O-gauge steamer at the show and it was running some of the time. Here too, I was able to post about this MOC in a previous EB thread. I keep making small tweaks to this locomotive, and am slowly making changes that I will report on (probably in that old thread) as they develop.

As a prime example of the total sensory overload, I almost did not get a picture of one of my newest MOCs, the big blue E44 at the bottom of this shot. My son is a big fan of the last generation of electric freight locomotives in the US, so this one had to be built (of course he is a rebel and much prefers the E33 with its single pantograph and lack of skyline casing... kids these days... but he did spot the roof of a real E33 way off in the distance at IRM, so he was happy),

Gotta run, but more soon...

 

[Toastie]

On ‎7‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 8:24 AM, Roadmonkeytj said:

Your Tony's son?

I wish I'd even get that - considering that I have no clue what "looks 12" means

What a wonderful crowd of people. Finally I have an idea - this is so cool.

Thank you all very much again! I wish I could meet you guys in person - it must be ... fantastic ... at least ...

All the very best to all of you,
Thorsten 

[zephyr1934]

I had two brand new buildings on display (now I'm up to three buildings, with the third being the grain elevator in the background of several of the shots... four if you count a 14 yo switch tower). The first building is a warehouse. I've been wanting to build something in this style for some time (concrete floors and beams, with brick and window walls) and incorporate a siding to give my trains somewhere to serve. This MOC is not based on any particular building.

 

There are lots of juicy details on this unassuming little building, including the hard to photograph fire escape and the main entrance (man, the snot you can do in a building compared to a train)

 

Since this was meant to be a neglected siding, I came up with a couple of clever tricks to do with ballasting the warehouse siding, including a tie that slipped out of position and a more typical end of track. I was also experimenting with tricks so that when you ballast with 1x ties, techniques that would allow one segment to have tiles on studs 1 and 32, or on 2 and 31. Some worked, like the askew tie, others not as nice, like the three closely spaced ties that you might be able to see in some of the pictures. Since this building might be raised to be in line with the street (as it was at BW) or not, I chose a cantilevered loading dock and the track were separate. Although not shown, I also came up with a quick and dirty trick to raise the building up to match the roads- use straight track (for which I have a ton) instead of some brick built structure.

 

 

Whereas the second new building is 1920's or 30's era shop/apartment building that is a few miles from where I live. This one was a challenge to get the windows right. If I just built it normal, the panes of glass would disappear into the blackness of the unlit interior (same for the doors, which I changed to white so that you could see them). The windows are actually offset by half a stud in both directions, the window frames are snug against the windows, with a half plate gap between them and the walls. It was an insane prospect to get those all to fit. Then the windows themselves are 1x2 trans clear with a white background to keep the details of the windows visible.

 

As with all of my MOCs in this thread, questions and comments are welcome.

 

[Man with a hat]

Great buildings. They look so deceivingly simple but there are so many clever techniques used. Brilliant.

[raised]

That E44 is -for the lack of a better way of putting it- sheer beauty. I mean, not as a prototype per se, but definately when build with bricks. I can fully understand your sons fascination with electric US freight locos, I have the same. They are just so, you know, 'what if'. Also, 99% of electrics worldwide has streamlined, sleek designs, and their US counterparts from the sixties and seventies just don't have that at all. That utilitarian design just makes them even better. So keep up the good work, as long as you promise the whole Lego trainhead community that you will never build the EMD GM6C, or even worse, the EMD GM10B!

Also, those wrongly placed / slipped ties are amazing. Just amazing. 

[Hod Carrier]

They say that the devil is in the detail, and that’s certainly true here. Few things say “neglected yard track” better than poorly maintained ties, and that shows here. Great techniques + Great details = Amazing results!!

Chapeau, monsieur.

[zephyr1934]

I finally have a moment to come back and talk about my remaining MOCs from BW. Having been dragged in to the modern age of railroading by my container cars and my son's contemporary interests, I felt obligated to make a Northern Pacific heritage unit to go with my North Coast Limited cars. Sadly, I did not get the chance to run this train at the show, but it did take a madden voyage this past weekend at another show.

 

My inspiration for making this heritage unit was sparked by this design.

 

My last new MOC was a PCC streetcar, complete with PUP control. It has a lot of detail, including a fare box in the front window. Ironically while I got a lot of stuff right in my opinion, I set out with the objective of getting the widow's peak in the front window right and I never really got that at all.

 

And if you have a streetcar, you need streetcar tracks too. One thing I learned from that experience is that I hate building roadways

 

The full gallery of my MOC's that debuted at BW can be found here.

 

 

 

[Roadmonkeytj]

11 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

I felt obligated to make a Northern Pacific heritage unit to go with my North Coast Limited cars. Sadly, I did not get the chance to run this train at the show, but it did take a madden voyage this past weekend at another show

I gotta say I really like this color combo.  

Which shows do you do?