Recommended Posts

really nice, as said in the flickr post love it when the locomotive itself is powered! Its always tricky but it sure is satasfying. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

For today I have a shot "in the field" that circles around to the opposite corner, and look, unlike the LDraw images where I omitted the engineer's side it shows that in real bricks I actually did build that side of the engine. This picture also provides a better view of the tender and now you can actually tell the tool box is hanging off the rear of the tender.

52075378795_c10e37271a_c.jpg

 

Meanwhile, thank you all for the kind words.

19 hours ago, Ropefish said:

really nice, as said in the flickr post love it when the locomotive itself is powered! Its always tricky but it sure is satasfying. 

Yes, that is the huge downside to PF, how much internal space it takes up. But it is so much nicer when the locomotive is the actual source of power. If I can't get it all into the engine though, I would probably prefer a powered tender than to put the battery in the tender and span the gap with a power line to the motors in the locomotive.

Anyway, in this case the PF is a tight fit with the wiring and all. I had to use a 1x2x3 panel to span over the PF plug on the battery and as noted above, there are all of these crazy half plate offsets to work around. So it is pretty much I had just barely enough space to make it all work. If I were trying to conserve spacer I could maybe shorten the locomotive 2-4 studs behind the IR receiver. I suppose that is one of the nice things about the XL wheels (BBB XL with o-rings to be exact, I like the "ready to run out of the box" of them) is that it allows you to build bigger while keeping the proportions reasonable. (yeah, I know, not a revolutionary insight but it is true)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That's enough about the locomotive for a while. I happened to have built a few cars to go with it too. I'll give you the background about the prototype cars next time, and then follow up with details of the actual MOCs after I take the "builder photos" and shots of the car details (I plan to take those photos in the next few days).

52076861079_a854bc1a4f_c.jpg

 

The cars have fluted sides and were enabled with the return of red profile bricks that appeared at the end of 2019 on the 2020 LUGBULK parts list and would soon appear in the Manchester United Stadium for the bleachers. That reissue was fortuitous since they last appeared in sets in 2007 and pushed me to actually start the build.

2877.jpg

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Gorgeous work there! Those cars 6-wide? Also, I'm assuming you're planning to do the San Joaquin's famous 3/4 length domes to go with this right?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Fantastic cars with your fantastic locomotive @zephyr1934!  I was wondering - how do you get such a small indentation with the doors?  I’ve been using jumper plates, but these give more indent than I want so I’d be interested to see your solution.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Today I present the entire 10 car train, viewed from the rear end. The train is 15 ft (4.6 m) long with the locomotive.

52078992227_d6784b2478_c.jpg

 

The story of my build starts with the original Daylight, which began operation in 1937 running between Los Angeles and San Francisco along the California coast. The train departed in the morning and would arrive late afternoon, hence the name. The strong name would soon be used on other trains, at which point this original route would be called the Morning Daylight and then the Coast Daylight. But let's get back to 1937, the original consist was a matched set of 12 brand new cars:

  • coach/bag
  • coach
  • 3x articulated paired coaches
  • tavern car
  • diner
  • parlor
  • parlor-observation

These early lightweight cars were built by Pullman-Standard using normal steel with fluted stainless-steel sides painted in red and orange. They had full skirting covering the under-car equipment. The articulated paired coaches were a bit of an oddity, it was essentially two coaches that were permanently attached to one another across a shared central truck.

The train was completely re-equipped at the end of 1939 and expanded to 14 cars. Most of the original train consist became the Noon Daylight that ran the same route. Then in 1941 the Noon Daylight was discontinued due to spikes in demand and shortages of equipment throughout the SP and all of the US during WWII. Most of the 1937 consist was reassigned to the Central Valley, becoming the San Joaquin Daylight (replacing the heavyweight San Joaquin Flyer on the same route). Though with the new approach to the San Francisco Bay, the SJD terminated at the Oakland Mole (ferry terminal) which is across the bay from San Francisco,

The initial SJD consist was 10 cars:

  • heavyweight bag/RPO
  • heavyweight full bag
  • 2x standard coaches
  • 2x articulated paired coaches
  • diner
  • parlor-observation

Unfortunately, finding good references for the SJD equipment is difficult. Reportedly at first the cars were lettered "San Joaquin" instead of "Daylight" but I did not find any photos of this usage. Since 80% of the cars came from the 1937 Daylight, and there are many great references on the 1937 Daylight (starting with 1937 Railway Age), I decided to do a hybrid: a 10 car set using the original Daylight consist, but leaving out one of the articulated coach pairs. This choice also gave me a greater variety of cars to model to make it all a little more interesting.

 

As for the build, all of the cars are 6 wide. Each half of the articulated coaches are 44 studs long. The rest of the cars are 50 or 51 studs long (an extra stud when there is a vestibule). The tank on the tender helps make the transition from the 8 wide locomotive to the 6 wide cars.

I'll go into details about the car builds in future posts.

 

21 hours ago, High_Admiral said:

Gorgeous work there! Those cars 6-wide? Also, I'm assuming you're planning to do the San Joaquin's famous 3/4 length domes to go with this right?

Actually, I carefully chose the car numbers so that my train has three dome cars on it... but those would only come in the future. After steam was discontinued and the consist refreshed with newer cars, the tavern, parlor, and observation in my consist were all rebuilt into dome cars. I was tempted to build one of the actual domes, but it would be completely non-prototypical for the train when pulled by the P-10's.

 

20 hours ago, Ropefish said:

oh hoh looking good, how many passenger cars are there going to be?

10 as per above (grin)

 

16 hours ago, Vilhelm22 said:

Fantastic cars with your fantastic locomotive @zephyr1934!  I was wondering - how do you get such a small indentation with the doors?  I’ve been using jumper plates, but these give more indent than I want so I’d be interested to see your solution.

Thank you. There are a ton of half plate offsets in the engine and the cars. On the cars the letterboards pop out by half a plate (tiles on top of headlight bricks) while the doors are set back half a plate. The easiest way to do that with the doors is to use an inward facing bracket on the wall of the car, connected with a plate or tile to a brick with studs on one side, also facing inward. Thus, pulling that brick 1/2 plate (the thickness of the bracket) inward. Put the window on top and tiles below the assembly and viola, a door inset by 1/2 plate. When possible, I also put blocking behind the door to ensure it does not accidentally get pushed in when handling the car. I had to use a different technique for the shorter doors, there, I used a brick with studs on the side pointed towards the outside of the car with a plate and a tile to get the inset. Then above, I used the bracket technique to sneak a snotted window above the door. Of course these tricks preclude building interiors to the cars. Which at 6 wide, it is already very difficult to do an interior well (there are some genius builders who have pulled it off though)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Wew that's a good chunk of pulling power then huh? can't wait to see some videos of them moving now.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Here's the complete train from the front end. It is neat to see how the design from the prototype goes from an orange swoosh on black to a hint of red, then all red around the orange that then continues to the end of the train.

52082419888_d5eaa013ff_b.jpg

 

18 hours ago, Ropefish said:

Wew that's a good chunk of pulling power then huh? can't wait to see some videos of them moving now.

The engine seems pretty strong and the train is pretty heavy, but the train also has roller bearing wheel sets so that makes it a lot easier to pull. Although I have not tried with this train, I think it could also be pulled with a pair of PF train motors. The fact that I do not need to use supermagnets between cars suggests that this is far from the heaviest train that I've pulled with a pair of PF train motors. The fun part is when I hit the stop button on the PF train controller, the momentum in the train (and lack of friction in the wheels) pushes the engine a noticeable distance.

I have a couple of videos coming soon

 

17 hours ago, LEGO Train 12 Volts said:

Wow what an amazing - LONG - train ...once again you have outdone yourself! :pir-huzzah2:

Thank you, and it will be a LONG time before I attempt something on this scale this again. But I just had to put the Pacifics with those Vanderbilt tenders in proper context.

 

@JayCal thank you for your kind words!

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The reduced friction from roller bearings is definitely a problem if you push that red stop button. I tossed trains on the floor because heavy cars pushed the light cars off the track due to momentum alone. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

I just had to put the Pacifics with those Vanderbilt tenders in proper context.

Shareable choice ... some locomotives are incomplete without their own train! :thumbup:

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Very impressive indeed!  "Cherce," in the words of Spencer Tracy to Katharine Hepburn in "Pat and Mike."  :wub:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Great consist of passenger and baggage cars. While @LEGO Train 12 Volts said some locomotives need the cars to complete them, your Daylight is good with or without the accompanying cars. They do increase the impression and I like seeing the entire collection. Well done.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Today we have movement!

52084445911_aec8175b2c.jpg

(The black widow in the the foreground isn't mine, I believe it was from the SRW Locomotive Works instructions though.)

 

23 hours ago, supertruper1988 said:

The reduced friction from roller bearings is definitely a problem if you push that red stop button. I tossed trains on the floor because heavy cars pushed the light cars off the track due to momentum alone. 

Yes indeed, fortunately for me this train seems to have a good weight balance and I only have problems if the lighter tender is in a curve. Not that I want to push my luck.

 

2 hours ago, Feuer Zug said:

Great consist of passenger and baggage cars. While @LEGO Train 12 Volts said some locomotives need the cars to complete them, your Daylight is good with or without the accompanying cars. They do increase the impression and I like seeing the entire collection. Well done.

Thank you F.Z. and exactly that. With all of the detail on the locomotive I wanted to show that first on its own. Then come back with the rest of the train. It is always amazing to me to see complete models of classic passenger trains at any scale. To think, what you see at the airport today back in the 1940's and 50's would have been a bunch of trains like this at a union depot. Most railroad museums will run short trains of mixed equipment, while it is great to see the equipment preserved, you do not usually see in in context. There are some tourist railroads and other entities that put continuity of paint scheme above preserving the original owner of a given car (4449, 261, Grand Canyon, CVSR)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Benn, Will you have your own layout display at Brickworld or are you participating with a group? I plan to attend and look forward to seeing this great train!

Dave

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Here's a shot for today,

52092800757_7618579528_c.jpg

1 hour ago, bogieman said:

Will you have your own layout display at Brickworld or are you participating with a group? I plan to attend and look forward to seeing this great train!

Thank you for the kind words. I've requested two tables and am planning on a static display where the trains are the stars (i.e., not much else besides trains). It will have this, my recent Amtrak builds, Katy Caboose, and the steam elephant. Hopefully someone will let me run on their layout (grin).

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The car shots have been taken. I will start with a couple of car features to highlight in individual posts and then I will show shots of the entire set of cars.

Today, I want to focus on the truck sides. I used a modified version of this build for the trucks, using roller bearing wheels and custom truck sides. These sides were made out of necessity, I build 6 wide and it is really hard to hide the exposed wheels at this width. There is only about a plate worth of space to work with. So I sculpted these sides over MANY iterations. As you can see from the second image, the truck sides are almost flush with the 6 wide car.

52098120565_8d08e9912e_c.jpg

52097855644_71588f955c_c.jpg

Although I did not build interiors, another feature to notice in the top image is that I built all of the bulkheads and walls in the cars. In this case you can see the restroom wall in the first window to the left of the door. In real life the restroom window would have been frosted so you wouldn't be able to see this wall, but getting the frosting right at this scale is tough.

 

There is still one thing I need to update on the cars, I am redoing the dutch-door stickers to get rid of the black gasket around the window. It seemed like a good idea at the design stage but I don't like how the sides of the window frame are visible inside the gasket, that was an unforeseen function of the fact that the windows are 3D but the gasket is 2D.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Great looking train, I really like the small details in the cab.

Thanks for sharing.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You're truck sideframes look really good. I'm a big proponent of adding custom 3D printed parts to Lego models where I feel there is not a good brick-built solution. I've recently made my own windshield frames for an 8-wide EMD F7 and a GE 4500HP 1st gen gas turbine loco. But I'm reluctant to post them on this forum as I expect they will be controversial.

Dave

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.