[MOC] Epic Subway Saxophone Battle

[Exetrius]

Hi! This is my first post in the Trains sub-forum (comments aside). I'm here to share my latest MOC: the Epic Subway Saxophone Battle! One warning, though: this was built as a lively interior first, and a train second. I'll go further into the specifics of that later, but first let's see the build. 
 

At times, pretty weird and amazing things happen on the subway. With many different people on the move for many different reasons, briefly sharing the same space, it's a game of chance until the next encounter between strangers leading to an unexpected scene!

I was inspired to build this after watching the 2013 viral video "Two Total Strangers Have Saxophone Battle On NYC Subway Train". I built it as an entry to the IDEAS LEGO House contest, category "Minifigure". The premise of this category was to create a fun or whacky minifigure vignette, no larger than 64x32 studs.
 

I built two subway cars with minus one wall and the roof, to show the interior. The base of the build measures 62x10 studs, the cars are built on a 29x10 studs platform wide. Since the 8x16 straight train tracks have a slight overhang, I couldn't use four of them for this entry (maybe diagonal). Three, on the other hand, would be too short. Another issue I had with these is that they were a bit warped, making the cars look a bit wonky. I solved both problems by using 15 8x4 flexible rail pieces. As for the proportions and lay-out... I have taken a lot of uneducated decisions here.😬 The cockpit and exterior were built 'freestyle'. And though I am quite sure that a standard passenger car has doors both front and back, I didn't have parts to make four sets of doors. The doors open and look pretty good from the inside in my opinion, though they don't follow the curved profile of the exterior. For the interior, I looked at the NYC subway for inspiration:

And here is the video:

Final shot:




That's it, let me know what you think of it! Do you like what you see, or does it pain your eyes as a train fan? Feel free to call me out on bad or inaccurate design choices... Thanks for viewing!   

[Jack Sassy]

Very nice. I like the little detail you integrated in such limited space. Good job!

[caiman0637]

Haha! This is great!

[zephyr1934]

That looks great, thanks for sharing. Yeah, not a perfect replica for a real subway, but closer than a minifig is for a human (grin) so it definitely works.

As for the tracks, nothing wrong with using flextrack for a display, but another alternative would be straight rails,

 

[Vilhelm22]

Love it - a funny and unique build!

[deraven]

As a MOC of a subway train it could use some polishing, but as a set for this awesome diorama, it's fantastic!  The stark lighting and color selection really sells it, too.  Nice build!  

[Feuer Zug]

Great design and execution. Full of details and yet it doesn't feel overdone.

[Exetrius]

On 4/25/2021 at 9:38 PM, Jack Sassy said:

Very nice. I like the little detail you integrated in such limited space. Good job!

On 4/25/2021 at 9:42 PM, caiman0637 said:

Haha! This is great!

On 4/26/2021 at 4:10 PM, Vilhelm22 said:

Love it - a funny and unique build!

On 4/26/2021 at 8:18 PM, Feuer Zug said:

Great design and execution. Full of details and yet it doesn't feel overdone.

Thanks guys! 

 

On 4/26/2021 at 4:04 PM, zephyr1934 said:

That looks great, thanks for sharing. Yeah, not a perfect replica for a real subway, but closer than a minifig is for a human (grin) so it definitely works.

As for the tracks, nothing wrong with using flextrack for a display, but another alternative would be straight rails,

Haha, yeah minifigs are pretty horribly proportioned for scaled builds, aren't they?  Thanks, and good suggestion! 

 

On 4/26/2021 at 6:21 PM, deraven said:

As a MOC of a subway train it could use some polishing, but as a set for this awesome diorama, it's fantastic!  The stark lighting and color selection really sells it, too.  Nice build!  

Thank you, I really appreciate it! 

 

[brick-builds]

I like it, very funny.