Inspiration behind the Emerald

[Piranha]

After building my Emerald Night and wondering about what Lego designed their trains after, so I begin to research

I discovered that our very own Emerald Night is designed after the LNER Peppercorn Class A1 60163 Tornado

I was also quite surprised that this train that was still being built in 2008

My original notion was that it was from the early 1900s and had no real life version

Even more surprising was that Lego even did a good job replicating the passenger car

Which leads me to think there is some nice inspiration there for people to MOC

Full article here

Now I didn't know that

But I am curious to find out what members did

Also if anyone knows other real life trains that Lego may have based their trains off, please share

I find it quite interesting

[Captain Zuloo]

Really? Where did you discover that 10194 was based on the Tornado? Personally I think it looks more like the LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman. But the cars are certainly based off Pullmans.

I was also speaking with a bloke from the layout behind me at the last train show I exhibited at, and when he saw the Metroliner he seemed to think that it was based off of an AMTRAK train.

But mostly I think LEGO train sets are based on their designers imaginations.

Excluding the Santa Fe and the BNSF of course.

[muffinman42]

the emerald night looks more A3 since it has the wheel archs.

just a little note the flying scotsman locomotive was A1 but was upgraded to an A3.

and also note the flying scotsman was/is also a train that ran from edinburgh to london but it wasnt/isn't pulled by the locomotive the flying scotmans(im not sure if they still run it under that title though).

basicly im a train nerd it looks much more like an A3 since it has the larger smoke box with the angled sides and the wheel archs.

[TaltosVT]

Jamie Berard, the designer of the Emerald Night, gave a nice talk on his design process at the NMRA show in Hartford, CT this summer. Basically, the Night isn't really designed around anything in particular, but more along the lines of "heavily inspired" by all of the above. The passenger car had the possibility of having dark blue sides at one point. He showed us a nice model that was used in the decision making process. One side was blue, the other brown. If I recall correctly, the same method was used to decide on which type of window to use.

Very interesting talk to listen to.

-Elroy

[Captain Zuloo]

Jamie Berard, the designer of the Emerald Night, gave a nice talk on his design process at the NMRA show in Hartford, CT this summer. Basically, the Night isn't really designed around anything in particular, but more along the lines of "heavily inspired" by all of the above. The passenger car had the possibility of having dark blue sides at one point. He showed us a nice model that was used in the decision making process. One side was blue, the other brown. If I recall correctly, the same method was used to decide on which type of window to use.

Very interesting talk to listen to.

-Elroy

You didn't happen to get any photos or happen to know where some are?

[ConductorPete]

The second picture is the basic idea to my MOC that I am going to post up soon. well done for getting these images by the way.

[TaltosVT]

You didn't happen to get any photos or happen to know where some are?

Here's one with a few of the prototypes pictured. The wheels on a couple of the prototypes actually melted on the plane on his way over from Denmark. The reason being that they were rapid prototype, and made from a soft plastic.

And here's one with the blue color-scheme for the coach, along with a couple more prototypes:

There may also be other photos in the ILTCO NMRA 2009 gallery. He gave about four talks throughout the weekend, so a few people had a chance to take photos.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/iltco2009/pool/

-Elroy

[WesternOutlaw]

Here's one with a few of the prototypes pictured.

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing. - you too Piranha.

[DaCheese]

the emerald night looks more A3 since it has the wheel archs.

just a little note the flying scotsman locomotive was A1 but was upgraded to an A3.

and also note the flying scotsman was/is also a train that ran from edinburgh to london but it wasnt/isn't pulled by the locomotive the flying scotmans(im not sure if they still run it under that title though).

basicly im a train nerd it looks much more like an A3 since it has the larger smoke box with the angled sides and the wheel archs.

The Emerald Night does indeed have wheelarches splashers but I don't know why because the wheels are too small to reach the running plate. On mine I've just flattened them off to create a raised section at the height of the spashers and put the nameplate where the middle splasher was. The smoke deflectors and splashers suggest the A3 was more influential to Jamie than the Peppercorn A1 (the system of class naming of this type of engine was so complicated I don't understand it completely, but Flying Scotsman was built to Sir Nigel Gresley's A1 design and Tornado is as close as the A1 trust could get to Arthur Peppercorn's later A1 design. Like you say muffinman by that stage all the A1s had become A3s).

You're right in that Flying Scotsman wasn't kept specifically for the train of the same name, but it could well have pulled it at some stage.

[Piranha]

Really? Where did you discover that 10194 was based on the Tornado? Personally I think it looks more like the LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman. But the cars are certainly based off Pullmans.

Actually I didn't discover it all on my own

I was talking about the EN with someone and I brought up that it looked early 1900s, then he said that no it was modern like and gave me the wiki link to it, and a train beginner like myself can't distinguish all train types except the most common ones

I was also speaking with a bloke from the layout behind me at the last train show I exhibited at, and when he saw the Metroliner he seemed to think that it was based off of an AMTRAK train.

No wonder why when I road on the real life one I sensed some similarity

But mostly I think LEGO train sets are based on their designers imaginations.

Excluding the Santa Fe and the BNSF of course.

You busted my bubble

Thanks for those awesome pics TaltosVT!!

[peterab]

A lot of the hobby train models have real life prototypes, the swiss crocodile, the ghan etc.

I've read that the metroliner looks _very_ much like a French train (I always assumed it was intended to be Amtrak as well).

The 7740 shows a lot of similarity to German TEE trains.

The grey era steam trains (and some of the earlier blue track trains) have the colouring of DB (German Federal Railways) steam trains, though the wheel arangements are not necessarily of a particular class.

Some of the diesels also look like German ones, but could be any generic European shunter too. There is a small red engine that looks very much like an early german electric.

I think the further you go back the less definate you can be because the level of detail falls. My gut feel is even if a set isnt intended to be an exact replica, real prototypes influenced the designs.

[muffinman42]

its sort of a patch work of diffrent express steam classes, lets name the class after the head designer of the project.

i didnt know what splashers where, thanks for saying that they arnt wheel archs, it just seems right, there archs above wheels.

it has leads from many locos but has the A1/3 feel to it, then again many did!

i want lego to make a steam freight loco now, a 2-10-0 maybe.

hmm i just found this reading about the 9F on wikipedia: ". the centre driving wheels were without flanges, whilst those on the second and fourth coupled wheels were reduced in depth. This enabled the locomotive to round curves of a radius as small as 400 feet"

[BillytheKid]

This was fun to read .