Crimson Lake & Cream

[The_Cook]

I somehow got it into my head that I would quite like a rake of BR Mk I Crimson Lake and Cream carriages, the colour scheme being more colloquially know as Blood and Custard. These were intended for play, 6yr old play, on my sons Lego train set so needed to be designed with fairly rough handling in mind.

The design criteria of it being playable and compatible with the existing Lego playsets meant that I was looking at a 6 wide carriage, so the carriages from 10194 Emerald Knight seemed a fairly good starting point and whilst Emerald Knight isn't a direct reproduction of a known locomotive, it and the carriages are definitely inspired by British Steam designs from the first half of the 20th Century such as the Gresley designed Pacific locomotive 60103 Flying Scotsman.

Initially it started out as a simple recolour of the 10194 carriages, the lower Reddish Brown half became Dark Red, the upper half windows remained Tan, dark brown lining either side of the red lower half. Off to my brick drawers and Bricklink to source the pieces... Except a rake of carriages running up one of the North/South UK mainlines would normally include a Bar, a Kitchen and a Brake Van. Searching Eurobricks for inspiration I was drawn to the Pullman cars of Heppeng and Redimus and they have been an influence on my final designs. The challenge with any interior is fitting it into the 4 wide gap. It is just possible to get the bar squeezed in and to get a Barman serving and a customer standing in the available space. I replaced the back wall of the carriage with solid panels and some 1x3x2 windows as was customary with the Mk1 carriages. However, since the bar only takes up half the carriage something was needed for the remaining half. According to the drawings I found of actual BR Mk I Bar carriages there would have been banquet seating curving round at the carriage ends, which wouldn't be achievable in the 4wide space, so the compromise was to just add a dining table in instead.

Which leads to the design of dining tables. I wasn't that happy with the bulky table from 10194 and the strange raised platform it sat on. With the benefit of hindsight I now realise that the platform is to clear the protruding pin from the bogies. I decided I would rather have a full floor so the carriage walls were dismantled down the base, the dark brown 1xX plates are replaced with Dark Brown 2x6 and 2x4 that can support a Dark Blue floor internally. Raising the floor causes a problem in that the minifigures at the bar can't fit beneath the carriage roof if their hairstyle is any larger that the historic 1980's bowl cut. Roof rengineering required, the large curved slopes are replaced with smaller slopes that incorporate a step, this allows slight thinner supporting plates to sit just that little higher. A rim of 1x6 plates provides strength around the edges.

The tables themselves turned out not to be as simple as expected. I knew that I didn't want the simplistic tile on a round 2x2, I was after something more refined Ideally with a table lamp. Dark Red Fez's make the ideal lampshades, they get sat atop a transparent round plate and centered on a jumper plate. I wantted to use an inverted 1x3 slope to support the table, but in order to get the legs underneath the tabletop everything needed to be raised by a plate. Various methods were tried, eventually I settled on using a jumper plate to anchor a 2x2 tile and in a number of places that was substituted for jumper plates or modified tiles with studs so that items could be attached to the tables. The tables are actually one concession against playability, in order to get minifigs in and out the tables need to be removed because the minifig legs sit under the table. Not so much of a problem for an AFOL, but to a 6year old it just means the tables get abandonned trackside as getting them back in after putting in the minifigures is fiddly.

The seats are on a 6stud repetition. This doesn't neatly fit with the 4 wide windows, whilst the middle table can be aligned with a window those either side align against the pillar between the windows which in turn means that the Lampshades don't fit. Since the nice 4 wide train windows in Tan were only produced for Emerald Night and now fetch astronomical prices on Bricklink a change was in order. I protoyped numerous different variants in LDD, trying 4x3 windows, altering the spacing on the seats, 3x3 windows, 3x3 windows with a 1x1 column in between, even attempting sideways built windows to introduce a transom but that was quickly dismissed and offseting everything by half a stud. In the end  4 wide windows were substituted with 3 wide windows which allows the tables to align with a window rather than a pillar. This required a change to the pillars near the doors which had to become 2 wide and at the same time I susbtituted the inverted slopes for a more robust 1x6 raised arch. The seat positioning gave enough of a gap at one end of the carriange to introduce a 2x3 set of drawers, a working lamp and space for cups and other items. Small 1x2 curved slopes nestle neatly into the arch to give a seamless finish.

The challenge for the Kitchen Carriage was to squeezing everything in the kitchen into just 3 studs of space. Even with the constraints the kitchen contains a sink, a cooker, cupboards, implements, serving counter and there is still space for a chef. The remaining half of the carriage gained one and a half tables.

The Brake Van was more problematic. The carriages are only 5 bricks high, all of the modern doors tend to be a based around 6 bricks high. I did contemplate trying to brick build the doors but none of the hinge mechanisms were going to work with doors a full brick thick. Scouring Bricklink I found some appropriate doors from 2007 and the Spongebob Squarepants theme, <a href="https://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=73436c04&in=S">Door 1 x 4 x 5 Left with Reddish Brown Glass</a>, one and only one Bricklink store in the UK had a pair that was quickly acquired! Even with the shorter doors securing them still posed a problem, they couldn't correct directly to the roof because the roof is removable and as soon as it is removed the doors are no longer secured. The fix was to run a layer of grey tiles across the top of the doors to secure them and rebuild the roof to have a small lip to accomodate the raised tiles. I experimented quite a bit with the protruding periscopes that allow the guard to look up the length of the train without having to stick their head out of the window. Eventually I settled on 1x2x2/3 slopes in Dark Red either side of a Trans-Clear Plate with Dark Red Tile on Top.  

Then it was the turn of the doors. They had originally been built with a Tan upper and Dark Red lower but the lack of the Dark Brown banding following through into the doors started to annoy me so they needed to be changed as well. the ideal would have been to use a plate with vertical clip in Dark Brown but since that part doesn't exist in that colour and I don't have the luxury of owning the moulding machines I ended up using a V-clip in Dark Red sandwiched between two 1x3 plates. I could have just shifted the 1x1 brick with bar handle down below the Dark Brown plate but it would have been unsupported at the bottom  and given the play that the doors get I wasn't happy with such a fragile solution hence the use of plates with v-clips.

The full rake of 6 coaches comprises of: first, bar, first, kitchen, first, brake. That seems to be the maximum that the locomotives I currently have can handle at reasonable speeds and without wheelslip. I'm experimenting with using the <a href="https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=73090b">Brick, Modified 2 x 6 x 2 Weight</a> to add weight to locomotives to improve traction. Fresh batteries also help, as well as persuading my 6yr old son that if he wants to learn to drive a real train he need to learn to accelerate <i>slowly</i>.

What it's missing is some 2nd class carriages... I have some more 6x28 bases on order, I've should have enough bricks. Prototyped in LDD, I remove the table, move the seats closer together and the carriage now fits 8 seats. The seats don't line up with the 3x3 windows so they come out in favour of the old 4x3 windows that I'd decided against on the first class carriages earlier. Some columns allow to align the windows with the seats. I experiment with putting an arch across part way through the carriage, an attempt at a semi-open as it were. However I realise upon placing minifigs into the carriage that their heads are going to clash with the arch so I remove it in favour of a discrete light fitting. Then I have second thoughts, I remove the dark blue floor and lower the chairs by a plate so that the minifigs fit beneath the arch. Experimentation occurs with the tables, I start with black 1x1 bricks topped with a white tile, a smaller version of the tables from the first class carriages but it feels a little too classy for second class so I eventually opt for using dark brown plates jutting out of the carriage side. I feel the simpler look looks better.

If the rake of the carriages is rebuilt to be first, kitchen, first, first, bar, second,second, brake then the passenger section of the brake and potentially the bar could do with being rebuilt to 2nd class standards. In order to squeeze 4 seats into the brake carriage it would be necessary to move the luggage compartment doors back by a stud which requires some rethinking about the periscope attachment. It's Not an impossible task, but I'm fairly certain that it'll be another brick order to get the relevant SNOT bricks.

What it needs now is a either a decent 4-6-2 pulling it or a Class 55...

In the absence of those I'm left with the Green Locomotive from 60198. With a rake of 8 carriages behind it, it struggles. Accelerate too fast and there's a lot of wheel-slip. So the Green Locomotive needs modification. I try adding weight in terms of the old weight bricks from the lego boats, some improvement. Next attempt is to use a second motor bogie, I need to use PyBricks to invert the outputs of the hub and to bind the remote so that one control controls both outputs, the control logic is validated on a short 5 segment test track and works as expected. It needs a proper loop of track to be able to get the full 8 coach train set up behind it.

Then I realise that none of my stations have platforms nearly long enough for a consist of 8 carriages... A massive station rebuilding program is required!

Edited September 7, 2023 by The_Cook
Spelling corrections

[zephyr1934]

Looking good, some creative updating going on there.

And welcome to the challenges of long trains (grin) you might be beyond what will reliably move with a single locomotive. A heavy locomotive using two L motors could probably pull that without complaining, or maybe a pair of heavyish engines each with two train motors. At some point soon, you will also start having the magnets pull apart due to the weight. All of which can be solved (e.g., putting 1x2 plates across the couplers) just know that you are wandering into that type of territory.

As for the platforms... yeah... rare to see any lego station platform proportional to the real thing. Gives you an appreciation of how big real trains really are.

[idlemarvel]

Very good end result. Thanks for the explanations behind your eventual designs.  Have you uploaded your LDD designs somewhere?

[Andy Glascott]

Really nice carriages there! 

[The_Cook]

11 hours ago, idlemarvel said:

Very good end result. Thanks for the explanations behind your eventual designs.  Have you uploaded your LDD designs somewhere?

I need to find a new file sharing site after the demise of MocPages. Once I've done that I can post the LDD files.

[Feuer Zug]

Good work on your passenger consist. The color scheme works well, like the real life one. Your dedication to expanding the offerings is commendable.

[The_Cook]

LDD file at the link below. I don't know how long the link will remain active so if you're reading this in the far future and it's failing then try PMing me and I'll re-upload.

The LDD file is presented as-is, all of the variants of the carriages are present along with the various experiments for windows, seating, alternative table arrangements, etc... I can't make any guarantees that the LDD file is exactly what was built as sometimes brick substitutions need to be made last minute when you realise that the stock you thought you had isn't what you've actually got or a build technique that works in the digital realm doesn't work in the physical world because physics.

Enjoy:  LDD File

[ukbajadave]

I don't usually wander into the train forums but I thoroughly enjoyed your description of the build process and various iterations as it is something we all go through if we MOC.

After all that does your 6 year old appreciate the accuracy or do they just like the big train?

[The_Cook]

On 9/9/2023 at 9:11 AM, ukbajadave said:

After all that does your 6 year old appreciate the accuracy or do they just like the big train?

For a 6 year old big train beats accuracy hands down

Edited September 14, 2023 by The_Cook
typos