[MOC] Prototype electric multiple units for Botanical Gardens Station

[Tube Map Central]

February 1905: New prototype electric multiple units delivered to the Lego Railroad and Tramway Company (LRTC).

With Botanical Gardens completed, I wanted a nice straightforward project to round off, and so I decided to create some appropriate Edwardian trains to go with the station.

The first electric commuter railways ran in the UK in the 1900s using a variety of designs - many influenced by American practice - mainly using third (plus fourth) rail DC systems. Rather than pick a particular train and fail to replicate it, I decided to create a variety of atmospheric Lego-esque motor coaches with the same basic structure, representing the pioneering designs of times past. 8-studs wide was chosen because I wanted them to hold a useful (for commuter rail) number of minifigures (the lowest capacity design seats 12 with 9 standing). The advantages of imaginary rolling stock means that the designer is the sole arbiter of realism! Inspiration comes from the London Underground and Lancashire & Yorkshire railways amongst others, as well as later designs by the NER, L&NWR and L&SWR.

I wanted to model tumblehome - a distinctive staple of British railways - with companies trying to squeeze as many people as possible into the restricted loading gauge. Doing this realistically either involves mind bending SNOT or else lots of extra weight and no room inside for minifigures (or both). In the end I settled for aircraft parts to get the smoothest simplest result. The result is a bit extreme, but I think I just got away with it. The Intention was strong imposing looking period pieces.

Thoughts:

These are all unmotorised and the doors don't open, I am completely at peace with that!

The colour scheme is determined by part availability, I'm not a Great Western fan!

Annoyingly, the new lantern has a stud both sides, meaning it can't hang vertically from a clip (surgery was required). I am looking forward to a red version, yellow as a safety colour is a relatively recent invention.

Suggestions for improved door handles welcome, the plates used almost work but are not quite right.

Ditto luggage racks, the solutions used don't work well for many reasons, but whatever I use has to be implementable in a two-studs-wide and six-studs-wide version.

Car  No 1 has external wiring on the roof for electric lighting. The wires are chopped up antenna (unfortunately not available in white). Bars would be too thick, leading to the dreaded half-plate problem. Suggestions for less clunky lamp holders welcome, they need to be circular.

All other suggestions welcome, including for variations on these designs, I have parts left over.

 

 

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by Tube Map Central
typos

[Tube Map Central]

Emergency links for those who can't see embedded photos, web article to follow in the next couple of weeks

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_EMUs/01_Parade.JPG

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_EMUs/02_Front_CarNo1.JPG

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_EMUs/03_Front_CarNo4.JPG

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_EMUs/04_Front_CarNo2.JPG

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_EMUs/05_Front_CarNo3.JPG

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_EMUs/06_Underframe.JPG

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_EMUs/07_Sides_Cars1-4.JPG

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_EMUs/08_Sides_Car2.JPG

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_EMUs/09_Sides_Car3.JPG

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_EMUs/10_Interiors.jpg

Edited February 9, 2021 by Tube Map Central
Forgot accompanying text

[zephyr1934]

Neat stuff!

[Feuer Zug]

Well done. It definitely has the period feel you're striving for. For the lantern, I might have used a technic brick to hold the backside stud, if it lined up.

[Aquarius]

Great idea, I’ve never really seen these types of locos built out of Lego, and they fit in so well with your stations. Overall great job, only a few things I think could be changed to them. Firstly using 8 wide is useful for detail and scale, but they seem a bit too wide. If possible, try 7 wide (ie use jumper plates offset it). This would make it a bit narrower whilst still allowing you to have a gap between seats inside. Also, I think they look very ‘Lego-ish’. ie not much depth and more impudently they look a bit blocky. Try extending them (if you have the bricks) by one or two studs. Also the undercarriage looks a bit bare. However they look very good and fit in very well with your theme. Well done!

[Pendra37]

They look really nice. To me, they feel more like Epoch 2 than Epoch 1.

[Tube Map Central]

2 hours ago, Aquarius said:

Great idea, I’ve never really seen these types of locos built out of Lego, and they fit in so well with your stations. Overall great job, only a few things I think could be changed to them. Firstly using 8 wide is useful for detail and scale, but they seem a bit too wide. If possible, try 7 wide (ie use jumper plates offset it). This would make it a bit narrower whilst still allowing you to have a gap between seats inside. Also, I think they look very ‘Lego-ish’. ie not much depth and more impudently they look a bit blocky. Try extending them (if you have the bricks) by one or two studs. Also the undercarriage looks a bit bare. However they look very good and fit in very well with your theme. Well done!

Thanks! As soon as I made this the basic part, I was trapped in 8-studs width:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=11301#T=C

Tumblehome is done infinitely better here, but I didn't want to take the mass SNOT route:

The original plan was for Car No1 to be an extra compartment long, but it looked absolutely nuts on standard curves. If I decide to invest in some wider radius third-party curves, then I definitely should extend everything, and that might make them look less toy-like. Car No4 in particular would look a lot more stylish with a second set of doors.

 

45 minutes ago, Pendra37 said:

They look really nice. To me, they feel more like Epoch 2 than Epoch 1.

Thanks! You might be right. Wood panelling would definitely have made them look older. The windows also, framed opening top lights needed. It is a real pain that seated minifigures protrude into the window, it really narrows now options, especially as Lego now does a terrible range of windows.

District Line B stock here (1905):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_B_Stock

L&NW railway Oerlikon stock here (1913):

https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNWR_electric_units

[Pendra37]

Yeah window options are pretty bad. Sometimes I feel the urge create a window from tiles and bricks and place a sheet on transparent plastic, cut to the right size, into the opening. But that would not be Lego so ehh. 
Lego figures are extra fat with big arms no way around that unfortunately.    

[Tube Map Central]

Than

18 hours ago, Pendra37 said:

Yeah window options are pretty bad. Sometimes I feel the urge create a window from tiles and bricks and place a sheet on transparent plastic, cut to the right size, into the opening. But that would not be Lego so ehh. 
Lego figures are extra fat with big arms no way around that unfortunately.    

Thanks to inspiration from another thread, I have clear laser print water slide transfer paper on order. I will design top opening window frames and apply to window glass, watch this space.

 

[Tube Map Central]

With feedback for my earlier post, I decided to make them longer, and I think it has transformed them. They seemed to fit together better and the builds made more sense. The builds are modular, so in theory they could get even longer. Thoughts?

I also changed the front windows to brown to make them match the body colour. I think that made them a bit more grown up, they don't look as much as though they have faces. They do look very somber now though.

Possibly one brick too tall, a combination of using aircraft parts and wanting luggage racks inside, and the way I wanted to do the marker lights on the front. Short stumpy minifigures accentuate the height.

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_Emus/21_fronts.jpg

 

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_Emus/22_sides.jpg

 

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_Emus/23_above1.jpg

 

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_Emus/24_above2.jpg

 

 

And, by request, here are the trains in front of their inspiration station, Botanical Gardens. Further building is on hold until next winter, so these are just temporary platforms.

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_Emus/31_BG_above.jpg

 

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_Emus/32_BG_side.jpg

 

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_Emus/34_BG_back.jpg

 

 

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/Edwardian_Emus/33_BG_front.jpg

Edited May 1, 2021 by Tube Map Central

[zephyr1934]

Looking good! Creative part usage with the roof of some of the cars and it is always great to see your art nouveau station.

[Tube Map Central]

Thanks! I am currently planning the mid-section of Botanical Gardens, which will house the grand staircase ...

It will mean getting a hold load more trans-clear 1x4 tiles though for the glass floor, and 16x16 trans clear base plates for the glass ceiling. OUCH!

[Feuer Zug]

You Might be a plate high on the car, but the overall look with the station is perfect. I'd almost say stop there, but I understand the need to tinker. Excellent MOC.

[zephyr1934]

9 hours ago, Tube Map Central said:

It will mean getting a hold load more trans-clear 1x4 tiles though for the glass floor, and 16x16 trans clear base plates for the glass ceiling. OUCH!

You have expensive tastes, but it shows in the quality of your builds. You could join a LUG and push for getting the 1x4 tiles in LUGBULK (unfortunately, we are about 1/4th the way through the cycle, so the earliest you'd be able to get them is in about 1.75 cycles or 1 yr from now). The base plates have long been out of production though.

What about doing something with snotted 1x6x5 trans panels to save money?

[Tube Map Central]

22 hours ago, Feuer Zug said:

You Might be a plate high on the car, but the overall look with the station is perfect. I'd almost say stop there, but I understand the need to tinker. Excellent MOC.

Thanks! I think the trains are good for now, the station building needs extending (the middle third contains the grand staircase) but I think my next build will be the underground station for the Gate Stock. This station in the link looks wonderful, but the station tunnel is a bit two big, usually a London Tube station had a station tunnel twice the radius of the train tunnel. I can't see a good way of getting a stable tighter cylinder which also has a mosaic, so I will have to cheat and create a cut-and-cover station box with straight walls. Which actually makes sense in this context.

 

20 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

You have expensive tastes, but it shows in the quality of your builds. You could join a LUG and push for getting the 1x4 tiles in LUGBULK (unfortunately, we are about 1/4th the way through the cycle, so the earliest you'd be able to get them is in about 1.75 cycles or 1 yr from now). The base plates have long been out of production though.

What about doing something with snotted 1x6x5 trans panels to save money?

Thanks! If the part is just right, then I have to use it, even if it is rare. Sometimes I still use the part even if it is the wrong colour. Then I will swap a new one in if it ever gets released in the right colour.

Thanks also for giving me another excuse to upload an image, this one shows the construction of the glass floor. 6x5 snotted panels form a six-wide trough (along with a few 2x5 bricks) into which I place 1x1 and 1x2 plates (trans clear with a few trans red/yellow/orange plates along the edges). I then put a layer of seven-wide trans-clear tiles on top that holds the plates in place along a length of floor stud. The tiles alternate 2-1-4/4-1-2 and the tiles/plates are arranged such that everything holds together. Once they are down, they stay down.


http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/eurobricks/floordetail.jpg

Let's attach my inspirations as well. The glass floor is obvious: an Art Nouveau shop in Brussels, designed by Victor Horta himself, and now the comic strip museum. The interior decoration is inspired by the sweetest Art Nouveau/Arts & Crafts church that you have ever seen, just outside London near the Essex town of Brentwood. The interior is breathtakingly pretty, and I have never seen anything else quite like it. There are a few really nice Lego Art Nouveau buildings out there, but I wanted to see whether I could create one without NPU, seeing what was possible using Lego botanicals, hopefully inspiring other attempts.

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/eurobricks/brussels.jpg

http://www.tubemapcentral.com/legodesign/eurobricks/brentwood.jpg

 

I was also very sad when this one did not get enough support:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/2c3772a1-ddff-45fd-90ef-8196c894dcaf

Edited May 4, 2021 by Tube Map Central
Extra link

[Tube Map Central]

Thread bumping time ...

I am reworking these models, and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for the following.

On Car No 1 (the one with compartments) the cabling for the compartment lights, as per many British prototypes, is on the roof.

I represented the cables with (cut) antenna, but I have never been happy with the lamp holders, the Technic parts are too clumsy even for Lego. They need to accept/hold the cables and look as though they are drilled through the roof and holding the lights, something circular preferred Bricks with side studs are too square and stick out too much).

Thoughts appreciated.