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Showing results for tags 'narrow-gauge'.
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TRAIN TECH Help, General Questions & Talk to the Staff
WesternOutlaw posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
Hello All: I'm starting this topic as a way for LEGO Train fans to ask questions about sets, track compatibility, power systems, and any other questions pertaining to LEGO Trains. All are invited to participate. Edit: Please note that set discontinuation should be discussed in the appropriate thread. -
Hi everyone, this my first post on Eurobricks and I wanted to share my latest MOC. The 24 Class runs on the Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand line under the company KTMB. The 24 Class locomotives were built in Japan by Toshiba Electric Co., and were introduced on the KTMB Railway in 1987. The 24 Class pulls both passengers and freight with a top speed of 120km/h. I had a lot of fond memories of this loco pulling the train from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) back when I was a kid. Here, the LEGO 24 Class locomotive is a hefty 8-studs wide and roughly 50-studs in length. The locomotive is controlled by a PFX brick (sounds and lights) and is powered by a single L-motor. The locomotive runs on the narrow gauge track (4-studs wide) by TrixBrix. The actual locomotive runs on a narrow gauge track (metre gauge track) hence running on the standard LEGO track would be out of scale. It was definitely tricky to fit the speaker, PFX module, battery box, lights and L-motor all within the body that has a lot of SNOT techniques. The bogie was another challenging aspect of the build but after many trial and error the loco can finally handle the narrow gauge curves and switches. Heres the actual 24 Class and my LEGO 24 Class I also made a short shunting video. At the start of the video, you'll hear the engine start sound followed by directional headlight change. The sound of the horn is of the actual 24 Class horn that was recorded and programmed into the PFX brick. As the 24 Class increases in speed, the engine sound picks up accordingly. The locomotive takes both the curves and switches from TrixBrix with ease. I have also submitted these photos and YouTube video to the Brick Train Awards under the 'Other Loco' Category. Hope you all enjoy the video!
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Ever since I've finally managed to get a pile of the small train wheels, I've been building, or at least designing not only new narrow-gauge locomotives, but also narrow-gauge rolling stock, and I figured I'd just make a single thread for all of it (both completed & LDD images of planned builds), and update it whenever I get new designs finished or complete actual builds & post pics of them in the original post. EDIT: I have decided to just start new threads for additional narrow-gauge train stuff, and then link those topics in this thread, which will be linked in my signature, rather than bumping this thread every time I finish a new narrow-gauge MOC. Therefore, from here on out, this is basically a library of all my narrow-gauge stuff, including locomotives, so enjoy! So without further ado, first up is the Balin & Sons Mining Co Heisler locomotive & ore carts I made back in 2011 & posted about early 2012: NG Loco by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr Next on the locomotive roster is the Balin & Sons Mining Co RR 8-ton Plymouth biofuel switcher: Plymouth 8-Ton Right-Side by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr Next up is an Inter-Modal/Flatcar (it's used as a flatcar when it's not hauling shipping containers). I've included a pic of the Inter-Modal Car with one of my "standard" shipping containers & an updated version of the Heisler Locomotive I made almost 7 years ago to show how it compares with the more or less standard sized locomotives I use for my narrow-gauge stuff: Empty Intermodal Front Quarter View by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr Here's a design for a narrow-gauge hopper car, which is a 6-wide modification of a 4-wide version I had designed in LDD 6 years ago, then just kinda shelved. It's based on the narrow-gauge coal hoppers that are on the East Broad Top Railroad, although I could only make these 2-bay hoppers instead of 3-bay due to space constraints. EDIT: Thanks to discovering that LEGO made 1x1 black letter & number tiles with white print, my 2-bay hopper is no longer inspired by the East Broad Top Railroad's 2-bay hoppers, but it now IS an East Broad Top RR 2-bay hopper, complete with EBT reporting mark & typical hopper car numbering scheme: EBT Narrow Gauge Hopper Side by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr This is a narrow-gauge tank car I came up with last night (after pulling my hair out repeatedly trying to come up with something that looked reasonably decent & wasn't too flimsy). While the ladder attachments on the current build are pretty flimsy, I'm planning to use BrickArms U-Clips to clip the 3rd rung up from the bottom to the railing in order to stabilize it. Of course the nice thing about this here design is that the main tank body is made entirely from really common parts which are available in many different colors, so I could easily make a small train entirely of white, black, yellow, green, etc tank cars: Narrow Gauge Tank Car WIP by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr And Last for now (but not least) is a workable narrow-gauge train car I came up with earlier this week (and modified 2 times since then) in the Balin & Sons Mining Co RR livery (of course it is entirely possible to make this in different colors, but part of the reason I went with mostly black with red highlights is that black train doors are the easiest type to acquire on BrickLink, especially thanks to the new Grindlewald's Escape set having a matched pair in it). The slightly elongated bogie is one I'll be using for all my narrow-gauge passenger stock & I'm planning on using a variation of it for when I try to model the East Broad Top RR's 55-ton GE Center-Cab Diesel that they got about 15 years ago from the Algoma Steel Works in Saul Ste Marie. Also of an interesting side note is that for standard gauge trains, for the most part, I use the 26L train base plates for passenger cars/coaches, and the 24L train base plates for freight cars & medium diesel locomotives. EDIT: After messing around a bit, I found a way to make some workable 6-L narrow-gauge bogies that work with a standard 6x24 LEGO train car base plate & are held on by 2x2 turntable plates. I already tested it & it can handle any standard LEGO narrow-gauge curved track configuration, so here's the improved version: Narrow Gauge Coach WIP v2 by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr Anyways, I hope you all like these narrow-gauge cars & are inspired by them. Like I said at the beginning, I'll update this post whenever I come up with or build more narrow-gauge rolling stock.
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[MOC] Balin & Sons Mining Co. Narrow-Gauge 8-Ton Plymouth Locomotive
Laura Beinbrech posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
I know it's been a while since I posted any completed train MOCs, especially narrow-gauge ones, however I recently had two strokes of good fortune that allowed me to finally get some long-abandoned projects finished. The first bit of good fortune was getting into one of the drafts at BrickFair a month ago, and said draft involving two of the LEGO Friends 41130 Amusement Park Roller Coasters. And to make a long story short, I managed to get ALL the small train wheels & axles from both sets, which meant that I could finally at least start work on my narrow-gauge stuff again. The second bit of good fortune was when I was at my LUG's monthly meeting yesterday, and one of the guys who runs a second-hand LEGO store brought 2 bins of unsorted bulk LEGO to the meeting to sell. I managed to get a few more sets of small train wheels, axle plates & the 2x2 plates with small towball that I use as the couplers for my narrow-gauge trains. But the piece de resistance from that lot was a matched set of small LEGO City car doors, which were the main (and critical) missing pieces for this particular build. So, after sorting all my recent narrow-gauge train parts, I got to work & finally built the small narrow-gauge diesel locomotive that I had originally based on the mining locomotive that came with the LEGO City set, 4204 "The Mine", however, after further modifying the locomotive so that I could put a second coupler on the front (after all, what good is a switcher/shunter that can only couple to cars from the back, right?), and the more modifications I made to it, the less it looked anything like the mining locomotive & the more it looked like some of the 8-ton Plymouth Gas/Diesel locomotives that were commonly used for yard work on Narrow-Gauge railroads in the US during the 1940's & 1950's, so that's what it ended up as. ;) So without further ado, I present the Balin & Sons Mining Co. Railroad 8-Ton Plymouth Bio-Fuel Switcher: Plymouth Hauling Ore Carts by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr In the years following the Final War, as demand rapidly grew for various ores, particularly Iron, Titanium, Tungsten & Mithril (the main components of Unobtainium alloy used in laser-resistant armor plating & for making certain high-end weapons), the dwarven deep-mining outfit known as Balin & Sons rapidly expanded in the territory of what would become the Federal Republic Of America. However, due to the fact that much of the transportation infrastructure was in shambles after the Final War, and they needed some way to get their goods to market, Balin & Sons Mining Co. began to build narrow-gauge railways from their mining operations to the standard-gauge main-line freight railroads (mostly Norfolk-Southern or CSX) for hauling ore & other mineral products. Soon after, various small-time locomotive works began to pop up in the Federal Republic to meet the demand for small, narrow-gauge steam & bio-fuel locomotives, one such being the reincarnation of the old Plymouth Locomotive Works in Plymouth, Ohio. Plymouth 8-Ton Right-Side by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr While small, the Plymouth 8-ton switchers were perfect for working staging yards at the mine heads to sort ore carts into trains for different destinations along a particular narrow-gauge route. They could even haul decent sized trains on their own, albeit rather slowly. 8-Ton Plymouth Front View by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr 8-Ton Plymouth Rear View by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr And a bonus pic of the Plymouth hauling part of another narrow-gauge project I hope to be posting about later on this week or next week: 8-Ton Plymouth w/Intermodal Car by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr Anyways, I hope you enjoyed looking at my little narrow-gauge diesel (well, biodiesel at any rate) locomotive as much as I enjoyed making it. :)
