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I'm happy to present my most recent build, a midwestern grain train from the late 1970's in the US. I've been working on it for most of this year, though the inspiration and some parts purchases date back to 2006. Towards the end of last winter I had been train watching and after about a half dozen trains, each led by a couple of black locomotives pulling a mile long monochromatic string of cars, it got me thinking about an underappreciated heyday. Between 1960 and 1990 American freight cars were a burst of color, and even had a few hints of the old school railroad pride shining through, e.g., Milwaukee Road spending the extra dollar to weld a plate on the side of their covered hoppers declaring themselves "America's Resourceful Railroad." The freight cars were 100% utilitarian in design, but in the bright colors they went a little further and said, "look at me," with each car taking a different hue. Since then, freight cars have drifted back to browns and grays only flashing a random graffiti tag for flare after a night of hanging around with the wrong crowds. I wanted to capture that era in the days just after KarTrak Automatic Car Identification's failure showed how dirty railroading in America can be. But how and what? I've always had a soft spot for covered hopper cars, in particular those based on the Pullman Standard 3 bay design. I had a go at these cars in 2006 Shortly thereafter, I started collecting 1x2 door rail plates and double convex inverted slopes in yellow to build a Milwaukee Road version. Those parts sat in a box and I hadn't returned to that prototype until now. On the flip side, I had most of the parts in hand that I needed to start testing this build. Happy with the prototype, I expanded to 5 different liveries. These covered hoppers are 6 wide, featuring custom decals. With their weight they need roller bearing trucks, to ensure the trucks match the width of the car they use custom truck sides from TrainedBricks.com. At this scale it is impossible to get all of the details, so in this design I focused on capturing the essence, e.g., a continuous slope for the bins from the end of the car to the bottom of the chute, using thin vertical and horizontal members on the ends of the cars. Several of the cars have prototypical placards 1/2 plate out from the ribbing. A couple of the cars consumed almost all of the double convex inverted slopes available on bricklink in the given color. As with most of my designs, these cars are designed to negotiate R40 curves, and in turn, replicating the form of the prototype gave me a true appreciation of the design of the actual cars. Of course, once you start down the rabbit hole of looking at covered hopper cars, you wind up seeing lots of other cool cars... and the potential to build in colors that do not have door rails (dark green). Well, next thing I knew, I also had a design for the ACF center flow covered hopper cars. Once more the covered hoppers are 6 wide. These cars were designed as a complement to the Pullman Standard cars to fill out the fleet and bring in a few more colors/liveries. Why stop at 8 cars? Good question, of course you need a Canadian cylindrical covered hopper, who doesn't need a cylindrical hopper car? So I built one too. Now I know you've all been there, you build a MOC and then discover you need a second MOC to support the first MOC (or in this case, a 10th MOC to support the first 9). When I started out I did not worry too much about what would pull these cars. I have a few period appropriate 9v locomotives, most recent of which are from 2014, a pair of SW1200's. While there was one major solution (FX Track) two problems remained, (1) my old 9v locomotives were not powerful enough to pull the full train, and (2) it has been over a decade since I've run 9v trains in public. I originally thought that I would eventually address #2 at some later point in time, but #1 escalated the need. So off I went to build a period appropriate PF locomotive. I returned to MNS, the same road as the SW1200's. Minneapolis Northfield and Southern was a spunky shortline with a long history and a large fan club for a railroad with just over 80 miles of track. They had a history of unusual locomotives starting with their predecessor, the never electrified Dan Patch Electric Lines and the first successful gas-electric locomotive that was the predecessor to diesel electric locomotives, to a fleet of massive Baldwin center cab locomotives built in the late 40's (nicknamed the "blue dragons"), and their last purchased locomotives the SD39's in 1968. These were essentially SD40's with smaller prime movers (and thus, lower horsepower). They were painted in a distinct dark blue with a single white stripe running the length of the locomotive. The SD39's served until the MNS was purchased by Soo Line in 1982 and one has returned to the shortline (Progressive Rail) that now operates a portion of the old MNS route. My 6 wide SD39 has a lot packed inside, including 2 PF train motors, 1 rechargeable PF battery pack, an IR receiver, a pole reverser, and four weight bricks. Fitting it all in required some compromises, like filling the cab with the IR receiver, and my desire to make the white stripe brick built as much as possible made fitting the battery a lot more complicated. One obvious tradeoff is that the long hood is 5 studs wide to hide the battery, I would have preferred to keep it 4 studs wide. But also a little ingenuity to plow through some of the challenges. If you look closely at the side views, just above the fuel tank you can seek a small patch of dark gray from the battery. I used an old school 4.5v motor plate with 4x8 cutout to drop the battery down below the white stripe and snotted studs to hold the tiles on that cover the side of the battery. The build uses custom stickers, 3-axle motor covers and fan housings from trainedbricks.com, and custom railings to keep them closer to proportional than the brick built alternatives. But I did have to use the classic train wagon ends as a nod to the fact that this is a Lego train after all. Okay... just one more problem, I didn't have a respectable MNS caboose. So now I needed an 11th MOC to support the 10th. The MNS purchased 3 new bay window cabooses in 1972 and like the SD39's, these served until the MNS was purchased by Soo Line in 1982 and one has returned to the shortline (Progressive Rail) that now operates a portion of the old MNS route. The caboose is 6 wide (8 at the bays), featuring custom decals, roller bearing trucks to match the hopper cars. The net result is my all new MNS grain train, with 5 Pullman Standard 3 bay covered hopper cars, 3 ACF 3 bay covered hopper cars, 1 Canadian cylindrical covered hopper car, an MNS SD39 and MNS bay window caboose. All in liveries that would have been seen in the late 1970's or early 1980's. The total length is about 11 ft. All of the cars are 6 wide. Click here for a mediocre video of the train in action I hope you enjoy the train. Questions, comments and constructive suggestions are always welcome The full album is here
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two 1930s American freight trains with ten new freight car MOCs - real world models
Murdoch17 posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
I've had these ten train cars built for months now (years in some cases!) and thought I'd better upload them before I forgot again. The two old-fashioned freight trains consist of the following items (in no particular order): - red standard caboose - two boxcars - three generic open-top wagons - flatcar with rail load - OCTAN fuel tank car - livestock car with cow - green streamlined caboose This green 1930's streamlined caboose was inspired by a very similar real-world Wabash caboose located on the Katy Rail-Trail at St. Charles, Missouri. This caboose model (along with the green streamlined one) is inspired build-wise by the Katy Caboose (as in, "The Caboose who got Loose" from the children's book) model I copied in late 2021 from TrainedBricks' MOC. These two nearly-identical boxcars were inspired by set 7597 (Western Train Chase) from the 2010 Toy Story 3 line. They are 99% the same except for colors in a few places, as not many train cars are identical to each other - especially freight! The simplest car of all: a flat car with railroad track / rails strapped to the top in four rows. These three generic wagons cars are actually British Railways plank wagon models, not American at all... but they work well enough for me! These cars were designed by the_chestertonian, but sadly he deleted all his photos. This is just a quickly-mocked up tanker car in OCTAN colors. It's nothing too fancy, but it does look good. (to me at least) This livestock car was heavily inspired by 2014 CITY set 60052 (Cargo Train) but with a roof for more realism. I can now understand why LEGO left it open top in the set, but I managed to make it work. The roof (which was designed with the same look as the boxcars) is even removable and the ramps fold down so you can take out the cow. Believe it or not, the freight cars wouldn't fit in this box in any other configuration! That's all I have... Thoughts? -
This green 1930's streamlined caboose was inspired by a very similar real-world Wabash caboose (Katy didn't own streamlined cars like this as far as I know) located on the Katy Rail-Trail at St. Charles, Missouri. The caboose model is also inspired build-wise by the Katy Caboose (as in, "The Caboose who got Loose" from the children's book) model I copied in late 2021 from @zephyr1934's MOC, The one shown later in this post is my own version of that caboose, which you can read about in it's own topic here, or you can see his original version in his own topic. I was going to put MKT (standing for Missouri - Kansas - Texas Railroad, the same owner of Katy caboose, and from where she gets her name) on the sides of the new caboose where the printed brick is but in printed 1 x 1 tile letters, but the needed green 1 x 4 Technic bricks were problematic, as was the two letter T's that I don't have. Also, the doors to the inside open, but there are no interior details. There are a number of similarities between the two caboose models. However, they are more different than alike for several reasons. For example, Katy has A LOT more SNOT-work compared to her newer cousin. Why, you ask? Katy's walls are all sideways to better represent planks of wood (typical in caboose construction up until early-1910's), whereas her opposite number has only SNOT in the base of the body / stairs and regular bricks everywhere else to represent more modern steel construction. (I also left the mouth and eyes off the new arrival.) Thoughts anyone?
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DISCLAIMER: This steam locomotive featured below was heavily inspired by pictures of @SavaTheAggie's 4-4-0 from 2007, visible here. I added a tender inspired by another Sava loco (his 4-6-0, also from 2007) as seen here. I also made the front bogie actually connect to the front of the loco. (before, in the original design it was totally free-floating) I also made a few structural / style tweaks here and there, to make it "my own". My dad is getting this loco for his 65th birthday, as I wanted to make him something he would find relatable to his own collection of 1990's / early 2000's 9v era trains, of which he has most of what was released. This engine is meant to go with a few copies of 10015 - Passenger Wagon, and a single 10014 - Caboose will accompany this engine. The loco isn't motorized however, but it can be by removing the tender's wheels and adding in a 9v motor instead. Sadly, when I gave it to him I forgot to get pictures of the whole train together... this older picture will have to do until I can get a proper one taken. Thoughts?
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1880's-style 2-6-0 steam engine - heavy 7597 MOD with working pistons and freight train
Murdoch17 posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
I've already built the Conjunction Junction freight train and The Caboose Who Got Loose (a MOD of a @zephyr1934 model), which you can see in the topics linked and in the pictures directly below. Until recently, however, the fact this freight train had no engine had been a major stumbling block: I looked up the 4-6-2 "Pacific" steamer from The Caboose Who Got Loose book, but it wasn't very eye-catching in the all-black color scheme. I also watched the Conjunction Junction music video and realized the engine pulling the cars is never actually seen / mentioned. This is just about where the steam engine I started this topic about comes in. Originally I had found a late-1930's 7-wide 2-8-4 (the link is to the designer's Rebrickable page) to pull this special freight train, but then I found out how expensive the eight driving wheels would have been from Bricklink. (two blind drivers by themselves are CRAZY pricy - about as expensive as the pre-packaged bag of one blind and two with flange!) So, late last week I went back to the drawing board, taking my set 7597-style MOD engine and tinkering with it. It emerged from the shop a late 1880's 2-6-0 instead of a mid-1870's 4-4-0 as it originally was. Adding working pistons is what forced me to stretch the frame and thus add in two more driving wheels. (NOTE: A four-wheel bogie truck can be easily added instead of the two-wheel one seen above... I just wanted to be cheap and not have to buy more small train wheels than was the bare minimum.) Here is the steamer as far as can be assembled right now. I'm only missing 36 parts until the loco can be completed, and another one part for Katy Caboose. (I slimmed down Katy's roofline to be 6-wide to keep it more in line with the majority of my rolling stock. I also added printed 1 x 1 letters saying "KATY" on the long sides... Not very accurate to the book I know, but it makes for people to understand what it is better.) I also took apart the original, generic green caboose I made for the Conjunction Jct. consist as I needed the parts, and because it was being replaced by the Caboose Who Got Loose. Also, if you are wondering what "WFP" stands for, it is a nod to the 12-inch gauge steam railroad I've ridden on MANY times as a child and adult. I've even displayed there some of my LEGO trains in the past as a part of Gateway LUG displays. To read more about the real Wabash Frisco and Pacific Railroad, check out their website with awesome 15 engine roster and history sections. NOTE: They don't have a 2-6-0 at the real WFP railroad or a engine numbered 289. This was a gap I naturally filled in, kind of like a fan-fic story but with a steam engine instead. Two boxcars from a part of the Schoolhouse Rock educational cartoon series. This specific early 1970's Grammar-themed rock-n-roll music video featured a diminutive stereotypical train conductor, two hobos (one fat and tall, and one small and skinny), and a train with words on it... not just any words, but CONJUNCTIONS, as the name of the video and location is Conjunction Junction. A tanker and a third boxcar. Refrigerated boxcar and stone hopper. Heavily inspired by Zephyr1934 / Trained Bricks MOC of "Katy" from the classic children's book "The Caboose who got Loose" by ex-Disney animator Bill Peet. Zephyr's version can be seen here. I didn't want to use stickers for Katy's eyes like what's being done by the original builder, so I decided to use the eyes from set 43186 (Bruni the Salamander buildable character) from the Disney Frozen II line . I also added a actual mouth, as just the two eyes without something between them looked kind of odd, most likely because of the specific eyes I chose. The MOC I based this on used a different method for the mouth using a lot of SNOT-work.... I used a brick with 2 studs on the sides and two quarter tiles to give her a open mouth. The "rear" of the caboose is the forward facing part closest to the engine, which is a part of Katy we never see in the book. Confused yet? I took some liberties with Zephyr's design, such as changing the ladders at each end to black from red, removing two wheelsets + the roof chimney, and redoing the roof itself to be much simpler. (This last one was done because I couldn't figure out the original MOC roof's curved design!) I did keep the basic SNOT-work design for the body, but made it so both halves would be stud-inwards. I also changed the roofline to be six wide instead of eight as on my inspiration's model and added the name KATY to the left and right sides. All of this makes the models less accurate to the book it's based off, but I don't really think anyone in the general public will notice. (The general LEGO community might know of some discrepancies and fellow train modelers not of the LEGO-type will not care even if I did make it accurate, as it's not a "real" train.) - More to come when the engine is completed, hopefully by March 1st! - Comments, questions, suggestions and complaints welcome! -
Katy, The Caboose Who Got Loose - a MOD of a MOC based on the children's book
Murdoch17 posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
Heavily inspired by @zephyr1934's MOC of "Katy" from the classic children's book "The Caboose who got Loose". His version can be seen here in his topic. As for the book itself, it is a children's picture book written and illustrated by ex-Disney employee Bill Peet. (You might know him from his work on film "The Sword in the Stone" which he storyboarded and designed the characters of.) Anyway, Wikipedia had this to say about it on it's entry for the (quite wonderful and well-done) book: The Caboose Who Got Loose, published in 1971, tells the story of Katy Caboose, a caboose who is tired of being dragged around at the end of the train by the Engine. She dreams of being part of the beautiful sceneries she passes during her trips, but she cannot because she is always on the move. One day, when the engine is pulling the train up a steep mountain grade, the caboose is jolted loose from the train and flies back down the track towards a turn. Upon arriving at the turn, she has too much speed and she flies into the air off the track. Luckily she gets wedged between two trees, and she spends the rest of her days happy living in a beautiful place. I didn't want to use stickers for Katy's eyes like what's being done by Zephyr1934, so I decided to use the eyes from set 43186 (Bruni the Salamander buildable character) from the Disney Frozen II line. I also added a actual mouth, as just the two eyes without something between them looked kind of odd, most likely because of the specific eyes I chose. The MOC I based this on used a different method for the mouth using a lot of SNOT-work.... I used a brick with 2 studs on the sides and two quarter tiles to give her a open mouth. The "rear" of the caboose is the forward facing part closest to the engine, which is a part of Katy we never see in the book. Confused yet? I took some liberties with his design, such as changing the ladders at each end to black from red, removing two wheelsets + the roof chimney, and redoing the roof itself to be much simpler. (This last one was done because I couldn't figure out the original MOC roof's curved design!) I did keep the basic SNOT-work design, but made it so both halves would be stud-inwards. All of this makes the models less accurate to the book it's based off, but I don't really think anyone in the general public will notice. (The general LEGO community might know of some discrepancies and fellow train modelers not of the LEGO-type will not care even if I did make it accurate, as it's not a "real" train.) Now, as a train head, this model and the book it's based on only bother me in two ways: There is no red light for the end of train, and where in the heck did the conductor go when Katy landed in the trees! It certainly makes a guy wonder what kind of Mickey Mouse-organization this railroad is running here! As usual, comments, questions, and complaints welcome! -
Nexus Force ALCO RS-11 diesel loco with freight train - LDD MOC (so far)
Murdoch17 posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
A utilitarian space / Arctic freight train for my ice-bound Nexus Force base... it may not look very spacey, though. (I tried, it's more difficult than it looks!) This MOC features: - ALCO RS-11-like four axle diesel loco - boxcar with removable top and opening doors. - Nuclear waste flask car. Try not look at the glass sections for very long! - two couple of sectioned gondolas loaded with comet / meteorite samples.... and maybe a few frozen aliens inside! - bay window caboose for nuclear flask guards and train crew This model was originally a ALCO MRS-1 (which you can see in his instructions store here) built by @SavaTheAggie, but has been so severely modified that it no longer looks like the prototype loco. So I went searching and found another ALCO locomotive, a RS-11 that looks (kind of) like my new loco. Both my MOC and the new prototype have the four wheels, and the same basic hood and cab design as the MRS-1 that preceded it. I changed out the original grille bricks at the rear for grille tiles SNOTed-in sideways for a more consistent look when compared to the roof vents. I added back in Sava's maintenance cabinets from the MRS-1, yet attached them differently using newer parts. I also shortened the frame by six studs to fix the spacing problem created by the missing two wheels. The long hood of the loco has been designated the rear. The printed Nexus Force logo (from CITY Arctic 2014) goes on the curved 2 x 2 x 2/3 slopes on the front and rear hood ends, underneath the lights. This boxcar was heavily inspired by Time Gould boxcar design from the dying days of the 9v-era, otherwise known as 2008. (You can see it and his entire vintage train it came from, here on Rebrickable for free.) The roof comes off this car type and the loading doors open up. This nuclear waste flask car is loaded and ready for delivery to a waste storage facility at an undisclosed location. These open air gondolas are loaded with icy meteorite fragments, which may or may not contain hostile alien life frozen inside! No interior on this part of the train, as it's too crowded inside due to needed SNOT-work for the bay windows. This car was originally puzzled-out from this MOC's pictures. I'm already parting out the diesel engine, but the train will have to wait. You can see more details on the arctic / space base shown above in this thread in the Sci-Fi forum. Be warned, it needs to be updated with some newer stuff I designed! Thoughts? EDITED 9/6/21: added nuclear car photo and updated the main picture. -
Maintenance Of Way (MOW) track construction train with steam and diesel locomotives - real world WIP
Murdoch17 posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
Does you track need to be repaired after a major storm? Want to connect Point A to Point B with a brand new rail-line? Did the Flying Kipper have another accident on the main line? Or maybe you want to upgrade the signaling and double track the line at the same time? Call out the Maintenance Of Way (MOW) train to fix all these problems and more! This train consists of a late-1950's diesel locomotive, or a mid-1930's large eight-driving wheel steam engine and six specialty cars: - a (working!) crane car - depressed-center rail wagon - a (working!) ballast hopper - a tanker car - workman's tool car - caboose The 4-8-4 steam loco is new-to-me, and began life as a 2-8-4 Berkshire type built by Plastic_Goth and purchased from Rebrickable a seen here. To make this steamer, I upped the wheel count of @Plastic_Goth's locomotive by another leading axle, making it into a 4-8-4 Northern-type from the original 2-8-4 as built in the instructions. The new piston / wheel assembly is entirely my own work, as is the completely new 7-wide tender. The inside of the cab features two gauges and the firebox door. This model was originally a ALCO MRS-1 built by @SavaTheAggie, but has been so severely modified that it no longer looks like the prototype loco. So I went searching And found another ALCO locomotive, a RSD-12 that looks like my loco. Both my model and the prototype have the six wheels, and the same basic hood and cab design. The long hood of the loco has been designated the rear with a double red light. This car carries liquid weed killer for use after the track has been laid. This stream crane model was heavily inspired by Whoward69's instructions for a set of crane and match truck train cars. I modified the original model seen here. (sadly, it seems his Flickr profile and pictures has been deleted) I originally meant for the crane to have ropes to move the boom, but it got confusing on which rope went where so for now it's moved by the H.O.G. (Hand Of God) method. The crane can spin around in 360 degrees and lift anywhere up to 90 degrees straight up. (Their is a double set of pins keeping the boom from going too low, as well.) The heavy-duty depressed-center wagon has brick-built arms to secure the cargo of prefabricated railroad track in place. This model was inspired by a coal hopper on an older website called LGauge .com. I turned the old finger hinges into new pin-orientated ones and colored the car yellow to match the MOW paint scheme. The hopper's bottom doors open and can dump 1 x 1 round plates / bricks onto the tracks for ballast. This old passenger car carries the workmen and their tools. The caboose features two ladders (one per side) and more of those fancy printed 2 x 4 tiles. If you like what you see in this topic, check out the home base of the train and assorted other vehicles in this thread here! Thoughts? Comments, Suggestions, & Complaints always welcome! -
Rotary snow plow YO with 2-8-0+0-8-2 Garratt (Double Consolidation) and caboose - finally FINISHED!
Murdoch17 posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
This rotary plow-fronted train is ready to keep the other trains running in the worst winter weather using good old-fashioned steam power! 100% fictional history of the steam engine type (and the whole train, really): In late-1929, Thomas Carter was Chief Mechanical Engineer for Brick Railway Systems (BRS), and on vacation to visit family in New Zealand. He was about to get on the train in Christchurch, when he was passed by a new NZR "G" class 4-6-2+2-6-4 Garratt steam engine. Remembering how he was having problems getting the next "big thing" built back in America, and that he was having a steam power crunch when it came to rotary snow plow duty up in the Rocky Mountains, he contacted the engine's manufacturer, Beyer, Peacock and Company, and talked about a possible contract in America using the New Zealand "G"class as a starting point. Once he got home to BRS company HQ in St. Louis, Missouri, he got the upper management's final okay, and began final design on the new "DC" class of Garratts. (DC standing for Double Consolidation, as it is really just two Consolidation 2-8-0 type loco wheel-set's back-to-back with one boiler.) All in all, six of these (assigned numbers 4834 - 4840 by the railroad) were made as a trial run in 1930, but the Great Depression worsened in 1931-33 so no more were ever ordered. (originally, 10 locos more were planned for general freight service but were never built, which would have brought the grand total up to 16 engines.) Six engines were permanently paired off of with a dual snow plow team: two DC engines on each plow, with each engine team working the two track main line, one team per track, one way, until they met at the halfway point of Continental Divide (also known as the town of Summit Point), which was a vital steam-era crew exchange and refueling point near a inter-state highway. The third team of two engines and it's plow (The one marked YO seen above) was used as replacement engine for the two crews already mentioned, and were only used if another rotary crew was down for regular maintenance or due to an accident. After diesels came on the scene to replace the steamers (plows and engines alike) in the mid-to-late 1950's, the only two steam engines left of the DC type in North America were pushing the spare steam rotary plow YO. One of these locomotives (no. 4840) was found to have a severely rusted water tank and front engine frame, and was thus kept for spare parts to keep the other loco (no. 4839) running. This severely impacted the surviving engine's ability to push the rotary plow hard enough to make it through the dense banks of Colorado snow. After a few unsuccessful modification attempts to keep the 34-year old engine going, it was decided to send the entire train (plow, engine, and caboose used for the train) to a railroad museum in Missouri. They would also be sent with all the remaining parts from engine 4840 as it might be prudent to re-steam the engine in the future. So, in 1963, the YO and 4839 were sent to National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, where it still sits today. (The following part of the story is actually true!) This steam powered rotary snowplow was inspired by the real-world Denver and Rio Grande's narrow gauge plow "OY", as now seen on the Cumbres and Toltec RR in New Mexico / Colorado. I've decided to name my plow "YO" in tribute to my inspiration, using a 2010 Toy Story printed part for the "YO" designation. Oh, and yes, the front "blade" does spin around, but is not motorized. This model has been updated since the last time I uploaded this, with a better plow shroud because the old one would fall off when I looked at it funny. This one is not upside down on the bottom half like the old one, but it is MUCH more sturdy. (I was inspired by @dr_spock's rotary snowplow to build my own plow. Take a look at his Flickr as he's got a bunch of cool designs there!) The rear of the plow features the coal tender with a ladder from the water tank-top down to the magnetic coupler. (Before anyone says anything about Garratt loco's not being ever sold into the North American market, I'll say this is not from our reality, this is my own railroad mirror-world and does not follow our history as closely as it could. I mean, I've got steam loco's running into the 1970's on main lines hauling premier passenger trains for goodness sake!) This engine was originally inspired by two SRW locomotive works products. (Both were Garratt models made by @SavaTheAggie and formerly available on Bricklink until LEGO sadly removed his instructions) I reworked the model from Sava's 4-6-2+2-6-4 to a 2-8-0+0-8-2. I also added the forward water tank and aft coal bunker from his 2-4-0+0-4-2 Garratt, a custom boiler designed by me and medium Big Ben Bricks drivers to make it from a fast passenger loco into a slow freight hauler. (or in this case, a snow plow pusher!) The engine is flexible to a degree more than this, but not by much. It goes though R40 curves and switches just fine, though. A simple caboose, for the protecting the rear of the snow plow train. I used a pair interesting windscreen parts for the cupola windows. Inspired partially by 2001 My Own Train set 10014, (Caboose) but in blue. NOTES: Finally finished 10/7/2020! -
1930's freight train with 1898-style 4-8-0 Mastodon steam locomotive - real life MOC
Murdoch17 posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
It is the early 1930's. The dark days of late 1929 has worsened into a economic depression of truly epic proportions. Worse, the drought starting in summer 1930 (lasting until above average rains stopped it in 1941) caused the dreaded Dust Bowl and the mass migration of (most) of an entire generation of farmers and their families westward. This time frame also led to the rise of hobos, wandering, jobless people trying to use the one mass transportation still running across the dusty, windswept nation: The freight trains. The backstory on this train is as such: The engine, number 6519, runs daily from Lawrence, Kansas yard to where it finally services the Rust-eze factory in Moberly, Missouri. The line branches off and curves to the left in Columbia Missouri, while the main goes straight on to St. Louis. The rest of the regular freight is worked at the Columbia yard, expect for the acid tanker and the two marked generic boxcars. That tanker goes to the factory too, as it's a chemical component for Rust-eze. Rumor has it that the Rust-eze plant will be moving closer to St. Louis, or even shutting down soon, maybe by early 1934. The engine used to be a heavy-hauler out on the main, but has been relegated to branch line work, as it's 1898-vintage pistons are wearing a bit thin and she is overdue for a overhaul. Unfortunately, with the current depression, she has been reassigned to light branch work with a limit on her speed. Hopefully, they will scrape up the money to get her in the shop soon. This early 1900's-era engine model was first designed as a 2-8-2 Mikado before having the front pony truck removed and a 4 wheel bogie from set 10194 (Emerald Night) added instead, turning it into a 4-8-0 Mastodon - type. The rear pony truck was removed as well, with the 79111-style boiler shortened and cab re-arranged. Then, as of late September of this year, I completely rebuilt her from the wheels up to use the Disney engine boiler you see here. The running gear was originally a Scotnick invention from his 9F, but now comes from my MOD of the Constitution Train Chase set. So, basically, the only thing original left is the tender. Together, these several different engines from four different eras and five separate builders come together to create this one steam engine, which I have numbered 6519. The coal tender was inspired by Anthony Sava's Pacific 4-6-2 model's oil tender with the letters "BRS" added in the middle of the tender using printed 1 x 1 tiles. I was inspired by this photo by JB Lego to build this boxcar as seen here. They are made to haul pallets of cargo, specifically Rust-eze chrome restorer in 55-gallon drum containers for commercial packaging at this facility into smaller containers. Inspired by the green tractor trailer from CITY set 4204 (The Mine), this bathtub gondola is carrying boulders from the mine destined for the gold refinery where they will be opened up and the metal extracted to make coins and ingots. This drop side flat car was first part of set 2126 (Train Cars), but it didn't really have a purpose. It was hauling uprooted evergreen trees in the set, but that didn't look very good, so I changed it to generic freight. (My layout's resident hobo and his trusty guitar usually catch a ride on this piece of rolling stock.) The hobo is trying to get home to his family, which lives in Glenncoe, Missouri. Sadly, he picked the wrong train, as this only get's him halfway there. He's going to have to ride the blind of a steam engine tender on a passenger run to get home. (that's the area between the first car and tender, it's very dangerous because you're balancing on the coupler!) This dangerous liquid tanker was modeled after a real tanker car you can walk through in the Museum of Transportation's collection in St. Louis, Missouri. The real deal hauled hydrochloric acid for Monsanto starting in 1940 up into the late 1960's. I'm backdating the car ten years to fit into my mid-'30's freight train. I have adapted this UK inspired model of a brake van by Fireglo450 (see it here) to once again be a more American-inspired caboose. The caboose has no interior, and the red marker light can go on either end of the model to represent the end of whatever train it is being hauled behind. Here you can find other topics of interest mentioned in the text, or that are similar enough to be placed alongside time frame-wise I have this passenger train, that goes along with the freight train in this time period. (No, the hobo does not ride this one home.) and this branch-line station that is from the same late-1890's era, and on the main line from the San Francisco to New York (via St. Louis, of course!) Here we see the (100% fictional) Moberly, Missouri, Ruste-eze Factory. It seems to have made it to better times, with this picture taking place in the early 1950's. Any thoughts, comments, or complaints? -
Having built one of Caltrain's switchers, I decided to follow up with another piece of maintenance-of-way equipment. Caltrain inherited much of its equipment from Southern Pacific, and these cabooses (two total) are no exception. International Car Company (by then a subsidiary of PACCAR) built the steel-bodied C-50-9 series of cabooses for the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1980; the model number indicates they were the 9th order of the C-50 series. The two units reside in the San Francisco terminus on Caltrain. My understanding is that JPBX tacks them on to work trains and uses them around Christmas for a "Holiday Train" special service. Despite this, and despite the relatively large number of these cabooses owned by Southern Pacific, I found it hard to locate diagrams. Fortunately, the Western Pacific Railroad tacked on 6 units to the Southern Pacific order (source), and I was able to find a drawing of that to work from. Internally, this model is a riot of SNOT; there are studs pointing in every direction, including upside-down! I'm particularly proud of the technique I used for the bay windows, where 1 x 2 x 1 panels close flush with sloped tiles. 2x3 tiles made some details sturdier, but the real MVP is Brick, Modified 2 x 4 x 2 with Holes on Sides! Finally, for this model (as well as the MP15DC) I tried out a new "sticker" technique. Inspired by a frustrating experience with trying to cut and align sticker paper, I instead printed the caution stripes on regular printer paper, then attached them to the model with an ordinary glue stick. The longer "open time" allowed me to reposition the "stickers" slightly while applying them, making them easier to line up. Next step: printing up some gigantic Caltrain logos. The end! Full gallery here, pending moderation.
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"I've been working on the railroad, all the live-long day!" This train consists of a ALCO diesel locomotive (specifically a RSD-12 type) and six cars: - a (working!) crane car - depressed-center rail wagon - a (working!) ballast hopper - tool / worker bunk car - weed killer tanker - wide-vision bay-window caboose. The train model features several neat printed pieces found in several Juniors sets and and seven generic track workers. (as seen below) ...while the roadbed crew consists of: -Bucket-lift truck from set 3179 (Repair truck) -Dump Truck from set 7789 (Lotso's dump truck) Drill vehicle MOD from 7936 (level crossing) Front end-loader from set 7630 (front end-loader) ...and a official's inspection car MOC - not yet built This model was originally a ALCO MRS-1 built by Anthony Sava, but has been so severely modified that it no longer looks like the prototype loco. So I went searching And found another ALCO locomotive, a RSD-12 that looks like my loco. Both my model and the prototype have the six wheels, and the same basic hood and cab design. The long hood of the loco has been designated the rear with a double red light. (no picture taken yet of this car) This car is not your ordinary tanker car - it contains weed killer for use on the ballast the train lays down. This stream crane model was heavily inspired by Whoward69's instructions for a set of crane and match truck train cars. I modified the original model seen here. I originally meant for the crane to have ropes to move the boom, but it got confusing on which rope went where so for now it's moved by the H.O.G. (Hand Of God) method. The crane can spin around in 360 degrees and lift anywhere up to 90 degrees straight up. (Their is a double set of pins keeping the boom from going too low, as well.) Here we see how the crane is hooked up to the depressed center flatcar most of the time. The heavy-duty depressed-center wagon has brick-built arms to secure the cargo of railroad track in place. This model was inspired by a coal hopper on an older website called LGauge .com. I tunrned the old finger hinges into new pin-orientated ones and colored the car yellow to match the MOW paint scheme. The hopper's bottom door open and can dump 1 x 1 round plates / bricks onto the tracks for ballast. (no picture taken yet of this car) This is the workers tool car. In reality it's empty, but it's supposed to have rows of racks for tools, and a special box for broken tools to be fixed when they get back to the division HQ. The caboose features two ladders (one per side) and more of those fancy printed 2 x 4 tiles. This is where the job site foreman has a little office. The med kit is also located here. This is the headquarters for my Maintenance of Way operations for Brick Railway Systems. I was inspired by set 60009 (Helicopter Arrest) from 2013 for most of the building, while most of the inside details came from set 10027 (Train Engine Shed) in 2003 a whole ten years before the other set was even produced. As for the billboard on the roof, I borrowed the letter's design from my brother's model (with his permission), and put them on a billboard to spell out OCTAN. The tracks on the side of the building are for my ALCO RSD-12 and it's accompanying six car work train to sit and await their next task. The inside on the lower floor is furnished with a lathe, drill press, fire extinguisher, oil drum, and a vise. The upper floor (the break room) has a table, a few chairs, coffee machine (with paper cups!), fireplace, and a recycle bin. I will be updating this with the two missing pictures soon. As for the digital items, I will built them as funding allows. As usual, Comments, Questions and Complaints are always welcome!!
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After I created my 4-4-0 American loco, I set about designing some rolling stock. So far I have designed and built two passenger cars and a caboose. I'm probably going to work on a baggage or combination car next. Which of the two passenger cars do you like more (just the windows are different, both have seven rows of seats inside)? Below are some pics and also a link to my brick shelf where you can download the LDD file for each. Feel free to borrow, make or modify my design. Hope you like! https://bricksafe.com/pages/sed6
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Hi all, hopefully it's okay to put all the train stuff together in one thread - I don't have that many train MOCs yet, plus all things belong together somehow. A few of you might know me as a car builder mainly, however, from the beginning I was interested in the different elements of Lego layouts - cars don't mean that much to me without a proper surrounding. That's why I've also built some other stuff over the years - which leads to the question of a proper scale. Scale When dealing with several types of vehicles and buildings, scale becomes an important aspect, that's why I've tried to find a proper graduation of widths for vehicles (like others did, too, but a bit larger since I'm developing things with the cars in mind): Some more info about this subject you may find in this EB thread: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/97314-citytown-vehicles-range-of-possible-widths/ The Monorail Regarding trains, I started in 2013 with a PF-driven Monorail train: The EB thread you may find here: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/82147-moc-monorail-train-7w-with-powerfunctions/. There are some developments going on regarding the Monorail, too, but that will be shown later. The GP38-2 The GP38-2 you can see in the photo above was a first step into the "real" Lego Train world in 2015. I'm a huge fan of those great US Lego train layouts plus I wanted to see what trains and especially locos would have to look like to match the other stuff I’m building, especially the cars. I soon found out that even 8w might be too small for one of those gigantic American locomotives I wanted to build, that’s why I opted for 9w (plus railings), which furthermore looks quite good on the Lego rails with their large scale. When looking for a proper livery I soon found out that the St. Louis - San Francisco Railway (“Frisco”) would be a good choice since the rather simple logo could be built completely out of Lego quite easily. There don’t seem to be too many of them in Lego, I’ve seen 2 or 3 of them since, I guess, but maybe that’s rather due to my lack of knowledge in this field. The GP38-2 has gone through some changes recently to make it more fit for its duties (see below) - it originally had body-mounted couplers which didn't work out - and to improve its handling so that it might be more or less finished right now. This is what it looks like today: Some more pics on Flickr. The loco has moving radiators, propelled by an M-motor, connected with the front lighting and operated via the IR receiver so that you have a bit of a startup procedure and the possibility to let it idle properly which is otherwise rather difficult when mimicking diesel-electric locos with Lego. Some specs: Scale: 1/43 Length (platform): 50 studs Length over couplers: 42 cm Width (platform): 9w Weight (with 4 batteries and two aluminum dummies): 1,130 kg The Hump Yard Originally meant to pull a (probably rather short) cargo train within a collaborative layout I recently thought about having a hump yard in order to get some more action on the layout. The GP38-2 had to be modified for that purpose (especially regarding the trucks), plus there had to be a second loco (a GP15-1, still a WIP) to push the cars uphill with 2 locos combined (which also proves to be a big improvement when pulling rather heavy cargo trains through curves). I also built some cars (also WIPs, except the caboose below). On a meeting with fellow builder Steffen Kasteleiner (see https://www.flickr.com/photos/29666619@N04) I was able to use two of his magnificent tanker cars so that there were already 5 cars to be humped, as is documented in this video: The main point here is the decoupler for which I used the great and well-known decoupler design by CamelBoy68: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/80286-decoupler/ However, I added a spring so that you don't have to operate it any time you want to decouple a car. The downside of this is that you have to take off the decoupler part when pulling the train out of the yard. Still thinking about a solution to set down the whole spring unit for that purpose. Another possibility would be to pull out the sorted trains at the opposite side of the yard so that the hump is omitted completely. But that would require even more room. Of course the switches are operated by hand at the moment, I just edited that in the video. I'd love to enlarge the whole thing - however already a baby hump yard like this requires a lot of room. The Caboose Now for the caboose: Some more pics on Flickr. The caboose is also 9 studs wide, of course, the cupola even 11 studs. I would have loved to build the cupola in 10w, however, I wouldn't have been able to build the roof in the style I've wanted. I've already been told on Flickr that there should be done more regarding the trucks, however, I haven't found a proper solution for that purpose yet - in fact you don't see much of the trucks from above at this width, but that might not be a proper excuse for you train guys! One aspect in the title is still missing: containers. You may spot the 9w yellow well car with a 7w container in the video which is still in the making. Containers are an important aspect regarding scale since you can't use the usual 6w containers in such a surrounding. Plus containers are quite important to me because they are some kind of interface between road and track vehicles. There's already a proper container truck, there's a 7w container design with a special stacking lock, and there's a (hand-operated) reach stacker in the making. Hopefully this can all be presented together in the near future. 100% Lego. Thanks for reading all this stuff, more to come! -
Similar to my thread of a year ago, wanted to share a couple more freight cars I've been building on the side: Conrail N6A I've shown this Conrail transfer caboose in a couple of my threads, but never formally, so here it is. The prototype is one of several classes of transfer caboose Conrail inherited from the Penn Central. The model was designed almost two years ago, and I got around to putting it together last year. The "skirt" that covers the tops of the wheels is typically the toughest thing to model on American freight cars: if you run on R40 track, the bogies usually need to pivot enough such that the wheels will scrape... this isn't a problem on the N6A because it's quite short; no fancy engineering is required to compensate! The geometry of the skirt and such are still similar to that of my earlier flatcar. And with stickers Brickshelf Gallery PRR G43 Like the caboose, this gondola might have shown up a few times, but never formally. The G43 is a 52' gondola built during the last decade of the PRR. Most of them went to PC and then Conrail. This model was designed and built last year. The dimensions are very similar to the aforementioned flatcar, and it's basically built the same way: the structural component (the sides) is studs-out, and the floor and trucks are studs-up. Once again, much of the work done to make the skirts work on the flatcar are applicable here. Thus, the hardest thing here was figuring out what to do about the shallow trapezoidal part in the middle - eventually I went with wing plates. Finally, this probably should have been dark red or reddish brown, but all three colors seemed to somewhat off, so I ended up going with the most common. I also looked at weathered designs, but its a little bit too difficult when there are a lot of large, exposed parts like the wings. Brickshelf Gallery Alaska Railroad 15800 Series This is a side-dump car, typically used for MoW work. Technically Wikipedia thinks its a type of gondola. As you can see, the specialized feature of this type of car is that it empties sideways: unfortunately the model does not have this feature! This car has actually never been posted: I only recently completed the design and model: Doing the textures on the sides was a little big challenging, especially trying to "blend" it with the ends. On the prototype there are a ton of funny angles that are hard to model in LEGO. Construction is otherwise typical: studs-out for the body, studs-up for the chassis. Those droid-body things are really good for the big pneumatic pistons. Brickshelf gallery Finally, this is a repost, but here is the gondola and caboose running with my EMD Model 40:
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Hello everyone! Lately I became interested in Lego Trains (and other non technic themes). I purchased 60052 and decided to mod all of the wagons. I started with crane wagon but paused because of missing parts. I then decided I wanted caboose. I based my caboose on caboose from this forum MOC: Conrail N7E Caboose #21165 Here are the results (so far): IMG_0521 by Wiktor Boroń, on Flickr I really wanted to make it red but I quickly realized I don't have enough red parts. I decided to make "paint pattern" together with light bluish gray. This is my attempt on diagonal "painting" IMG_0522 by Wiktor Boroń, on Flickr I made it 8 studs wide but I am considering to changing it to 6 or 7, in my opinion looks too "fat". IMG_0523 by Wiktor Boroń, on Flickr Unfinished rails on both ends, "homemade" windows. IMG_0525 by Wiktor Boroń, on Flickr Unfinished interior, leaving for later. IMG_0524 by Wiktor Boroń, on Flickr Underside of the roof. I always wondered if ill ever find use of lime and... other colors. Thanks for listening :)
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A Pair of Wide-Vision Burlington Northern Cabooses - 6 Wide MOC
Freezingvettes99 posted a topic in LEGO Train Tech
I wanted to share a couple of my Burlington Northern Wide-Vision Cabooses with everyone. I built them a while back and really like how they turned out. I believe I was able to capture the prototypical look fairly well, it took me several attempts to get the height and length just right before I was happy with the result. I went with the later version of the BN Cascade Green caboose with the windows welded over for simplicity purposes and the BN Freedom caboose was that way so I didn't have to decide on that. Feedback always welcomed. Untitled by freezingvettes99, on Flickr Untitled by freezingvettes99, on Flickr 2017-02-16_09-42-37 by freezingvettes99, on Flickr 2017-02-16_09-42-18 by freezingvettes99, on Flickr -
My little red caboose or cabin car in Pennsylvania Railroad terminology. Bobbers were simple wooden frame cabooses built in the 19th century. PRR made theirs with steel frames. That permitted their bobbers to be used in pushed service without being crushed. Their choice to use steel allowed their boobers to last well into the 20th century. PRR Bobber Caboose by dr_spock_888, on Flickr They were called bobbers because 2 axles gave a bobbing ride. I guess the modern ride equivalent would be of the U.K.'s Pacer railcars. Bobbers have a child's toyish feel to them. Maybe because many little children toy caboose designs are based off them.
