LDD MOC: Modular Railroad Tunnels - now with re-uploaded pictures as of 2021

[Murdoch17]

The single track tunnel was made by my father back in 2000. I updated / extended it, made a two-track version, took off the baseplates, and put the pins in. Here are the pictures:

The two tunnels. These are the basics, and you can modify them however you want, such as hiding them under green plates or BURPs & LURPs.

Double track, with the connecting pins.

Single track, also with some pins.

NOTE: Connecting the tunnels will only work in this way or some variation of this type.

For example, here is a picture of what can be done. Notice the one track section in front of the tunnels? (In the case of single to double tunnels , four should be used.) That is to make sure if your engine overhangs, it will swing clear.

EDITED 9/5/21: added photos back to the post. I finally found them on my Flickr from 2012.. The file, however, is lost to time.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Murdoch17

[Brickthus]

Looks good. Useful if you make a scenic boundary over the top of the tunnel too, so that you can have a short tunnel section and from either side it looks like the tunnel was longer, as the exit to a fiddle yard, when really it is to the next scene.

If you make a very long tunnel it is worth making sure you can take the roof off easily in order to re-rail any derailed trains. This is why I came up with a structure for fiddle yards that are underneath scenery. Use a tunnel portal or brisge as the entry to the fiddle yard but keep most of the rest open so that it is reachable by hand.

The structure in this pic shows a fiddle yard underneath, where the coach is, and tracks on top that are now on baseplates. The arches in the sides of the layout allow for reaching in and the plates may be slid out from between the upper tracks and the structure if need be. I might make some sections removable as small areas; this is common practice in model railways, either by scenery or a building being removable for maintenance and access.

This is especially true for points, so I left more space around them. The structure above is made from 5 layers of overlapping plates in order to spread the weight of the modules on baseplates above it where a stanchion has to be missed out where the points or curves need a wider gap than 16M between them. It is inevitable that one will eventually want to have points behind the scenes!

Mark

[Icosahedron]

Looks cool.

[Wedge09]

Nice work, thought to make galleries of other forms?

[KlodsMajor]

There are dead links: http://www.mocpages.com/user_images/80135/1343930750m.lxf

[Feuer Zug]

6 hours ago, KlodsMajor said:

There are dead links: http://www.mocpages.com/user_images/80135/1343930750m.lxf

Dead links do tend to happen on threads that are nearly a decade old. The site the files are linked to, MOC Pages, quietly yanked the plug nearly a year ago.

[legotux]

On 6/3/2021 at 3:58 PM, Feuer Zug said:

Dead links do tend to happen on threads that are nearly a decade old. The site the files are linked to, MOC Pages, quietly yanked the plug nearly a year ago.

Which is why it is unwise for a forum to force external hosting of pictures, yet that is still the case here. We're not learning from the dead links. Why is that? In this day and age gigabytes are no longer expensive.

I've spent the past months scouring through old threads and it's a true massacre. Ranging from links that are 404 to just blank space where, I presume from the context, once were pictures. It's horrid.

Legotux

[mortenm]

17 hours ago, legotux said:

Which is why it is unwise for a forum to force external hosting of pictures, yet that is still the case here. We're not learning from the dead links. Why is that? In this day and age gigabytes are no longer expensive.

I've spent the past months scouring through old threads and it's a true massacre. Ranging from links that are 404 to just blank space where, I presume from the context, once were pictures. It's horrid.

Legotux

I agree! 

I can't see why photos can't be hosted on the site. If the right filetype is chosen (and maybe resized during upload), they won't take up much space. 

[legotux]

21 minutes ago, mortenm said:

I agree! 

I can't see why photos can't be hosted on the site. If the right filetype is chosen (and maybe resized during upload), they won't take up much space. 

Yeah. But right now it's unfeasible. The max total size of attachments is 0.1MB. 100kB gets you maybe an 800x600pix image, 1280x800 if lucky. That lacks much detail

And I bet that if you post 6 messages, each with one picture, some admin will yell at you that that isn't how the forum is supposed to be used...

In 2031, in 10 years, people will express rage and disappointment at how all the imgur and flicr images no longer work because those sites died.

Legotux

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by legotux

[Feuer Zug]

21 hours ago, mortenm said:

I can't see why photos can't be hosted on the site. If the right filetype is chosen (and maybe resized during upload), they won't take up much space. 

 

21 hours ago, legotux said:

Yeah. But right now it's unfeasible. The max total size of attachments is 0.1MB. 100kB gets you maybe an 800x600pix image, 1280x800 if lucky. That lacks much detail

And I bet that if you post 6 messages, each with one picture, some admin will yell at you that that isn't how the forum is supposed to be used...

In 2031, in 10 years, people will express rage and disappointment at how all the imgur and flicr images no longer work because those sites died.

Legotux

 

Lest we not forget, storage space and bandwidth cost money. Hence why many sites have ads and pay options. What happens when the person's account goes dormant? While the loss of the images may be unwelcomed, please accept it as part of the life of the internet. Life cycles here are far shorter than many forms of media.

[hsousa]

I'm a recent Dark-Age leaver and it's completely sad to see how much have I missed, even digitally.

 

archive.org is my only hope for digitally history, but unfortunately only like 5% of the LDD's were mirrored, maybe less.

 

Storage is very cheap now, but it still costs money. Money that could be received by ads, but I'm guessing there's also a technical limitation of attaching files to this forum.

 

Still.. it's sad, and mostly un-reversible. It's like history, people don't learn from it.

[Murdoch17]

Finally found the photos of the original MOC from 2012, (nearly a decade ago!) so the first post is updated! Now, onto the replies from people still around:

On 8/3/2012 at 10:36 AM, Brickthus said:

Looks good. Useful if you make a scenic boundary over the top of the tunnel too, so that you can have a short tunnel section and from either side it looks like the tunnel was longer, as the exit to a fiddle yard, when really it is to the next scene.

If you make a very long tunnel it is worth making sure you can take the roof off easily in order to re-rail any derailed trains. This is why I came up with a structure for fiddle yards that are underneath scenery. Use a tunnel portal or brisge as the entry to the fiddle yard but keep most of the rest open so that it is reachable by hand.

The structure in this pic shows a fiddle yard underneath, where the coach is, and tracks on top that are now on baseplates. The arches in the sides of the layout allow for reaching in and the plates may be slid out from between the upper tracks and the structure if need be. I might make some sections removable as small areas; this is common practice in model railways, either by scenery or a building being removable for maintenance and access.

This is especially true for points, so I left more space around them. The structure above is made from 5 layers of overlapping plates in order to spread the weight of the modules on baseplates above it where a stanchion has to be missed out where the points or curves need a wider gap than 16M between them. It is inevitable that one will eventually want to have points behind the scenes!

Mark

As to your first point @Brickthus, that was my father's original intent... he just never got around to it, and instead make a WAY better version, that was front-paged not too long ago. Here is it's topic... it has mountain scenery, a window wall, and picture windows to see inside the caverns above the tunnel.

On 6/3/2021 at 2:45 AM, KlodsMajor said:

There are dead links: http://www.mocpages.com/user_images/80135/1343930750m.lxf

Fixed them as of 9/5/21 @KlodsMajor

On 6/3/2021 at 8:58 AM, Feuer Zug said:

Dead links do tend to happen on threads that are nearly a decade old. The site the files are linked to, MOC Pages, quietly yanked the plug nearly a year ago.

Sadly, you are correct, @Feuer Zug, MOCpages is gone... was going for a while too. I stopped uploading there in 2017 or so, due to issues with the hacking that was everywhere on the site. Eventually, from what I heard, my account was hacked too, and most of it was deleted by parties unknown.

On 6/7/2021 at 7:21 PM, legotux said:

Which is why it is unwise for a forum to force external hosting of pictures, yet that is still the case here. We're not learning from the dead links. Why is that? In this day and age gigabytes are no longer expensive.

I've spent the past months scouring through old threads and it's a true massacre. Ranging from links that are 404 to just blank space where, I presume from the context, once were pictures. It's horrid.

Legotux

 

On 6/8/2021 at 12:28 PM, mortenm said:

I agree! 

I can't see why photos can't be hosted on the site. If the right filetype is chosen (and maybe resized during upload), they won't take up much space. 

@mortenm @legotux This website your are reading this one has it's policies for a reason, and has been around since 2006. MOCpages wasn't the first to go... remember Photobucket? Gone too, and Brickshelf (the oldest one still around, about as old as LUGnet!) isn't allowing new members and goes down occasionally. It's just a matter of time...

5 hours ago, hsousa said:

I'm a recent Dark-Age leaver and it's completely sad to see how much have I missed, even digitally.

 

archive.org is my only hope for digitally history, but unfortunately only like 5% of the LDD's were mirrored, maybe less.

 

Storage is very cheap now, but it still costs money. Money that could be received by ads, but I'm guessing there's also a technical limitation of attaching files to this forum.

 

Still.. it's sad, and mostly un-reversible. It's like history, people don't learn from it.

@hsousa hopefully, these restored photos will allow this topic to be revived.

Any other thoughts?

Edited September 5, 2021 by Murdoch17

[hsousa]

Ahah yes, thank you for your effort, the tunnels look good indeed.

 

My rant was not directed to you (sorry), but to my late coming out. Everything was revolving around Mocpages and now with its disappearance I just cannot find any free castle and trains Mocs :) My bad then

[Murdoch17]

15 minutes ago, hsousa said:

Ahah yes, thank you for your effort, the tunnels look good indeed.

 

My rant was not directed to you (sorry), but to my late coming out. Everything was revolving around Mocpages and now with its disappearance I just cannot find any free castle and trains Mocs :) My bad then

Check Rebrickable for some pretty cool paid and free instructions @hsousa. I host some of my LDD files (about 64 of them) on it's sister site, Bricksafe. Rebrickable has some other cool features too, such as allowing you to upload LDD files to check them for color errors in preparation for uploading to Bricklink. That's how I get my digital models built in real life.

[hsousa]

Thanks for the link, did not found any castle digital model but I've found your page there. Really nice work on the railstation, looks really nice. I like the use of 4733 diagonally to host the roof of the front windows, never thought one could do it like that !

Thing is, I don't have neither the parts nor the space and certainly not the time to even attempt to build anything other than following instructions for the occasional set we offer to the kids:

I mainly use these LDD files as I used the old catalogs of the 80's: an inspiration and also hoping for time and space to try and create my own mocs/dioramas :)

 

 

Thank you once again.

Edited September 6, 2021 by hsousa

[Paperinik77pk]

Nice modular tunnels!!! Compliments to your dad and to you for taking back a good idea and making it better!