Legownz Posted April 28, 2020 As I'm sure many of you are aware, model railroading can be an expensive hobby and Lego is no different. So I set out to create a fleet of small, inexpensive, and sturdy freight cars that still had good detail. I mostly based these designs off of a certain television show I watched growing up. I'm sure you can guess which one by the first model. You could take the layer of grey plates to make it take less parts, but I liked the rigidity it gave the sides. Overall, I was pretty happy with this one. This next one, I wasn't that crazy about. I ended up making a few variations of this style of car with different techniques, which you'll see later. Here, I tried to miniaturize an American style hopper to fit on the freight car base I had established. It's not the most realistic thing, but I think it's kinda cute. The obligatory tank car. Of course, I used the technique with the giant 6x8x2 hull top and bottoms. The center strip of bricks can also be colored to represent a fuel company or something. I had to make a flat car, but as with most flat cars, it's pretty boring. Not much to say about it. Another attempt at miniaturizing an American hopper, this time, a covered one. This one might be my least favorite of the bunch. I feel it's pretty ugly and isn't a great use of parts. I was decently happy with this one and I liked how the profile bricks gave good wood (Or maybe corrugated steel) texture. The only thing I don't like is the mismatched doors. I wanted to make it in light grey initially, but those doors are expensive as they only came in the Maersk train. I then tried white, but the profile bricks were never made in white. I guess I could use the 1x2 grill brick as I did in the "Not a Troublesome Truck", but I really liked the look these bricks gave. This is the final model I made. Tried to mimic the "Ventilated Vans" used by the GWR with the cheese slopes on the ends. Also tried an overhanging 7-wide roof (Which is pretty unlike me). I was confident putting it together, but looking at it from afar, it looks like a big grey blob. I might end up revisiting this one later. Anyway, that's all of them! As always, here is a link to the studio file (Note, they're all in the same file and each car is made into a submodel): https://bricksafe.com/pages/Legownz/simple-freight-cars Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Feuer Zug Posted April 28, 2020 Nice set of small sized cars. They've got this cute quality to them. For the tank car, I would suggest using curved slopes on top like you did with the sides. Maybe drop them down a plate first. And I agree with your sentiment about the covered hopper. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LegoDW Posted April 29, 2020 Your first moc, the gondola is my favorite. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites