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In this latest model series, I decided in order to keep the "toy like" proportions of it's inspirational genesis, set 71044. (Disney train) Now, people who know my design style are probably scratching there heads right now in confusion, as I don't EVER build in 8-wide for trains. But in order to make it look as good as possible with the original 2010 Toy Story figures and their stretched appendages, I had to do 8-wide. Loco Number 1 - 2-6-0 Ten-Wheeler w/ passenger train This train is meant to be built from sets 7597 (Western train Chase from Toy Story 3), 71044, (Disney Train and Station) and set 10014. (Caboose from the My Own Train series, albeit a bit bigger width-wise!) I also used the 1955 Disneyland RR passenger car instructions from @TJJohn12, as seen on Flickr here. I just recolored them and simplified them for this model. The coal-burning straight stack-styled locomotive is a mish-mash of two steam locomotives, (both 4-4-0 type) from the Toy Story set and Disney train model. I just stretched out the Disney model, added a blind driving wheel to either side (making it into a 4-6-0), and repainted it into a Toy-ish color scheme. Oh, and I built a brand new tender from the rails up, which will use 1970's red 12v-era wheels. (I hate the new Powered Up wheels without the metal axle, so this was my only choice!) The locomotive is missing these printed parts, which are colored wrong on the model for visibility. They are as follows: - the green 1 x 4 printed number "1" bricks, two on the loco and two on the tender. - a single printed red 2 x 2 brick with "1" print for the headlamp. - one 2 x 2 printed round tile for the firebox door in the cab. This baggage / coach car is styled after TJJohn12's free instructions. I did change the color scheme a bit, with black windows. black roof, and red doors, instead of red doors, reddish-brown roof, and red windows. Two of these are also going to be built, and were designed with TJJohn12's instructions. (with some subtle design changes by me for ease of ordering and a slightly simpler design) Now, I know passenger train's are not supposed to have cabooses, but this one does as I couldn't figure out a good red light arrangement for the rear-facing passenger car. Thus, this 10014-styled caboose was created in 8-wide. The yellow 2 x 4 tile on the both sides of the car are actually supposed to be this printed red part of the same size. Loco Number 2 - 4-4-0 American w/ freight train This freight-hauling locomotive is meant to be built from sets 7597 (Western train Chase from Toy Story 3), 71044, (Disney Train and Station) and set 10014. (Caboose from the My Own Train series, albeit a bit bigger width-wise!) I also used set 10013 (Open Freight Wagon, also from My Own Train) as a guide for the pipe-carrying car, plus model 15 (Tanker) from set 10183, Hobby Trains for the tanker car. This loco shares the same tender as my other Western 8-wdie loco from this time period. The engine itself, however, is an enlarged version of 7597, in yellow and blue. It's also meant to have inside pistons as it's an early-to-mid 1860's locomotive. (thus the lack of visible pistons!) The locomotive is missing these printed parts. They are as follows: The four yellow 1 x 6 bricks are supposed to be printed with this number 2. while the headlamp is supposed to have two of these printed yellow 1 x 1 tiles. The firebox door requires this print. Inspired by a @wildchicken13 model from Bricklink, back from before Lego bought them out. This boxcar is not inspired by any specific car in particular, and was done freehand without looking at other 8 wide boxcars. The four doors slide open. Model 15 (Tanker) from set 10183, Hobby Trains was the inspiration for the tanker car. It should feature this print on the 2x2 round white tiles. This model was built from instructions seen at the Old Workhorse's Lego Ideas page as seen here. (I am not affiliated with the creator of that page, I just used their free instructions, visible further down in the updates section, to build the traction engine seen above.) The model has been attached to an 8-wide flat car for transportation across the county. This 10014-styled caboose was created in 8-wide for my passenger train, but has been redone in yellow for the freight train. Loco Number 3 - 2-8-0 Consolidation w/ military train This entire military transport train was inspired by sets 60052, 79106, and 79111. This train also has a couple play features, such as a rotating Gatling gun, moving steam engine side rods, and a exploding jail car wall. This eight-wide model is a complete model of my own design, and is inspired by the steam engine from the 1970's Western film, "Breakheart Pass". I included working pistons, and a more cohesive color scheme of red and green, with a splash of yellow. Big Ben bricks' medium size wheels, 4 flanged and 4 blind, are meant to take the place of the gear wheels. You can buy them at his site here. The tender and cab walls are supposed to have four of this printed red 1 x 6 piece inserted into them: The front headlight is supposed to have two of this printed 1 x 1 placed on it. This horse car was originally a cattle car from set 60052, (2014 Cargo Train) but I've re-purposed it for my Army officer horses. These cannons are from set 79106 (Calvary Builder Set) and were placed on a generic flatcar for transport by rail. The rotating Gatling gun you see here was taken from set 79111. (Constitution Train Chase) This car has the basic "look" of the 1955 Disneyland MOC trains cars from TJJohn12, albeit without the clerestory roof, which instead has a walkway for train crew / soldiers on lookout during fuel stops. The jail car you see was originally from set 79111. (Constitution Train Chase) while gaining the styling of the 1955 Disneyland MOC trains cars from TJJohn12. This car has one play feature that is sure to blow you away: the back wall can be removed to get at the jail cell via the "dynamite" on the outside of the back wall. When pushed back towards the other end of the car, the lever on the left side pops the back wall out and the bad guys can escape! Loco Number 4 - 2-8-0+0-8-2 Garratt w/ rotary snowplow train This blue train is marked (4-8-0+0-8-4 Garratt, for heavy duty rotary snow plow jobs) number 4, and joins the family of similar mid-1880's engines such as the large 2-8-0 for military transport, the inside-piston 4-4-0 for freight, and the fancy 4-6-0 for passengers. This 8-wide Garratt-type steam locomotive is perfect for use on the mountainous terrain of Colorado Rocky Mountains, with it's double steam locomotive pistons sets. (Before anyone says anything about Garratt loco's not being ever sold into the North American market, I'll say it's an lost experimental prototype to help with a motive power shortage. It may have been seen by the owner as a economical way of sending one locomotive to do the job of two.) 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 four of this part from the original Toy Story sets as a sort of marker. The rear of the plow features the coal tender with a ladder from the water tank-top down to the magnetic coupler. This 8-wide engine was originally a SRW locomotive works product, (made by Anthony Sava and formerly available on Bricklink until LEGO sadly removed most of his models.) I reworked the engine to have working pistons and side-rods plus a longer frame. This made it from 2-4-0+0-4-2 to a 4-8-0+0-8-4, among other smaller updates to the engine. I also substituted a Disney train-style boiler onto the engine to backdate it to the mid-1880's or so. The rear of the steam locomotive. This part in black goes on the water tank and coal bunker walls (it's the number 4). Even with the added pistons, the engine can go around corners and switches quite easily. A simple caboose, for the snow plow train. I used a pair interesting windscreen parts for the cupola windows. Loco Number 5 - 0-6-0ST shop switcher Locomotive number 5 is an eight wide model of a generic 0-6-0 saddle tank steam engine from the later half of the 19th century, and was inspired by a @ScotNick build of Stanley from Thomas and Friends for the stripe work, and this build of Percy (also from Thomas) from the L Gauge site for the front of the boiler/ piston assembly. The 1 x 1 black tiles on the coal bunker should have the number "5" printed on them. Also, Big Ben Bricks' medium size wheels in yellow (4 flanged and 2 blind ones) are needed to take the place of the six 40-tooth gear wheels when built in real life. You can buy the wheels at his site here. The Wichita Xenia Yazoo & Zephyrus Rail-Road (Stock market trade name WXYZRR) was a mid-19th / early 20th century enterprise also known as the Wasted, eXausted, Y bother & Z*. (*No one could figure out an insult to the railroad that started with the letter "Z") The railroad started in Wichita, Kansas in 1868, then went straight through Xenia, Oklahoma, while then meandering into Yazoo, Colorado and barely making it into Zephyrus, New Mexico by 1875. Other stations included several army forts dotted along the route through Oklahoma and Colorado, along with scattered mining camps and agricultural towns across the maps of New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The railroad is hardly mentioned anywhere in writings of journalists, except in scathing "letters to the editor" of various newspapers about lack of the promised service on the line in the early years. Also, the much derided company slogan "last railroad you'll ever need" did not work out well for the new railroad, but it did vastly increase questions fielded to the main office about coffin, headstone, and various other memorial shipments from all over the area from which the railroad served. It is therefore shocking the railroad lasted as long as it did, a substantial fifty-six years from incorporation in 1867, to it's sale at auction in 1923! The old WXY&Z railroad had about 35 locomotives on the books at the maximum, but most of these were already very old when purchased and broke down frequently so they were chronically in the workshop for some reason or another. In fact, the seven additional 4-4-0 locomotives purchased third-hand from engine dealers were of the long-obsolete inside-piston variety of the mid-1850's, yet were bought in the early 1870's! However, what the railroad lacked in regular service motive power, it made up for in the snow plow-train department. A single prototype of what would later be called a "Garratt" (a doubled-power-unit steam loco with a single boiler not normally found in North America) was first run on the "High Line" between Fort Legoredo, Colorado and Glencoe, New Mexico in the steep Rocky Mountains. This is where the railroad really shined, in keeping the trains running through steep mountain passes with a single experimental train with a rotary snowplow at the head end... of course, there were other plow trains, but only two rotary trains. (One would work from either end of the Glacier Gulch Pass, and meet in the middle on a passing siding. The Garrett would be on one train, and two regular locomotives pushing the other.) After 1923's closing of the railroad, it was bought wholesale by a consortium of stock brokers from Denver, with plans to redo the line with less sharp grades and more snow sheds. However, during this reconstruction, the 1929 Great Depression began, leaving half the line with old grades though most of Colorado mountains, but new grades on New Mexico were finished in time. The passenger car fleet was upgraded, but the freight engines (downgraded passenger power, really) and rotary plows remained vintage as far back as 1878 for motive power. The older inside-piston locomotives went for sale once the Depression really started up, and one was snapped up for a potential history museum in Glencoe, while the rest were scrapped. Then, a miracle happened: the movie industry intervened, and several production houses bought some of the oldest rolling stock, engines, and the line was given enough cash to stave off it's dismantlement until 1941, when trains of heavy munitions from companies on the line came rolling through for the War effort, making the line the busiest it had ever been. The profits from this, and the later 1950 / '60's movie companies use of the stunningly scenic "High Line" line for motion pictures saved the line. When the good times started to dim in the early 1970's, the railroad was jointly bought by the states of Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, & New Mexico for tourists, occasional movie trains, and the freight that still used the line, as the original stock broker consortium had by then been dissolved. The "new" WXYZ railroad, (the town names were shortened to just the initials for simplicity's sake) was thus founded in March 1st, 1971. It has been running, mostly non-stop and is closed during the three winter months of December, January, and February for running of the single remaining rotary snowplow to get the line ready for opening day on March 1st of every year since the early 1970's. (NOTES from the writer: Only Wichita (Kansas) and Xenia (Illinois) are real-world towns, with them being based in name ONLY on real places. Yazoo, for example, is really a river in the state of Mississippi, while Zehyrus was simply because I needed a "Z" name that sounded plausible, and the Colorado Zephyr train was on my mind at the time. The rest of the story is also fiction, as no Garratt ever rode the rails of North America.... ever. Also, the WXYZ logo is an old Union Pacific logo from the early 1910's, while the railroad name's initials have never been used ANYWHERE on a railroad.) EDITED 2/25/21: added 0-6-0ST shop switcher to this post.

The Moonlighter train is owned by the Nexus Force, and is a retro-futuristic stream-liner mix of old-school steam technology, but with hyper-modern safety features designed specifically for use by Nexus Force personnel as a very high-speed, high-security ground transport between the northern-most city of St. Nicklaus and north-pole-hugging outpost of Ice Station Odyssey, around 500 miles away. (this all takes places on the ice-bound planet of Beta Polaris, which orbits what we here call the North Star, far away from Earth.) Thus this makes it a space train! Unlike the slower Earth trains, the Moonlighter type of space-train is super-streamlined, and can go up to speeds of up to 110 MPH (135 is the loco's top possible speed) on it's special track, with super-elevated curves and long straight-away's over hundreds of miles, all while using Positive Train Control (PTC) on the the mostly double-track mainline, where all vehicle crossings are flyovers and switches virtually non-existent once out of St. Nicklaus city limits. This train runs along with nine other identical versions of this train (10 total trains in all) on the route with up to seven in running order on the route and at least two in the maintenance shed / in emergency backup storage at any one time. They are numbered 2000 through 2010. The Moonlighter engines themselves are based off the 4-8-4 GS-6 "Daylight" of the Southern Pacific Railroad of Earth (known on Earth for the lone GS-6 class survivor, 4460), but with only two leading wheels instead of four, turning it from a "Northern" type 4-8-4, into a "Berkshire" 2-8-4 type steam locomotive. The loco is equipped with ditch lights and a large headlight. The Nexus Force logo goes onto the nose of the streamlined pilot and the rear of the observation car, while the engine's number goes under the cab windows. The two forward tanks are for oil, and the rear tank is for water. The engine is equipped with a water scoop (like on the old New York Central steam locomotives) for refilling the water tank on the fly. There is a ladder from the tender-top deck to the coupler level behind the engine for access to the trailing passenger cars, and two ladders on either side of the steam loco for entry into the enclosed control cab. Three of these passenger cars go on the Moonlighter, with two before the dome car and one immediately after it. The recessed panels are the platform doors. One of these vista-dome cars goes in the middle of the train. (You may have noticed there are no exterior platform doors on this car. I decided not to add them because they didn't look good with the dome.) The rear observation car is currently missing it's rear curved windows, but it will have them when built IRL. The Nexus Force logo goes on the rear of this car, as previously mentioned above. This moon base-like space base model is where the Moonlighter travels to, and was inspired by set 60036 (Arctic Base Camp), with a rooftop shield generator partially lifted from set 75098 (Assault on Hoth) and a sensor array inspired by set 76157 (Wonder Woman VS. Cheetah) The base consists of eight separate, interchangeable, modular sections, all of which have opening roof / wall sections for ease of access. These sections include (but are not limited too): a common bunk room, a spaceship control tower, a fusion generator, communications room, break room, and several more. As you can see, I joined the base to the rail-line with a short siding for freight deliveries, and for the servicing of steam locomotives on services such as the Moonlighter. You can see more the Nexus Force stuff in this thread here in the Space sub-forum.

Named for nearby Fort Legoredo, the town of Glencoe was first settled in 1869 by the people following the Wichita, Xenia, Yazoo & Zephyrus Rail-Road through the Colorado on towards it's junction with the Union Pacific to create a branch off of the First Transcontinental Railroad. Usually these towns die off once the construction teams move on, but this town didn't because of one crucial fact: Valuable veins of silver were discovered by the Construction crews in a attempt to tunnel through the side of Raindance Ridge. This new wealth happened to be right up the tracks (about a mile or two) from the City. The town (and fort) continue to have a booming industry in the 21st century, with tourists flocking to the Wild West town, movies being shot on-site, and more recently, the reopening of the silver mines because of advances in mining techniques. (seen above is the town in the 1950-70's TV / Movie boom) The railroad still stops at Fort Legoredo depot (shown above) and the town of Glencoe, with a Native American reservation and the preserved Army Fort nearby. US 1880's LEGOREDO MODULAR TRAIN DEPOT I originally got this basic model from a page on Bricksafe by user @sed6 as seen here. I revised the freight door to be movable, changed the roof color to dark red from black, building color to sand green from tan, plus I added a "cast iron" heating stove and it's chimney flue to the model for late-1800's period look. I have named the Fort Legoredo passenger depot after the famous set number 6761. (Fort Legoredo)  The model features the separate entry doors to the station premises for cargo and people on the both the street and track sides. There is also plenty of outside seating on both the left and right sides, yet they are still under the roof awning to be protected from rain. (three seats per side) Inside we have the freight area (on the left) and the passenger area (on the right) with a connecting door between the two. The passenger section also has the heating stove which currently is keeping the coffee hot. (or is it boiling the water for tea?) This part of the station also has three inside seats for weary passengers and a cash register for ticket dispensing. The station is modular, and comes apart in four sections: - Left platform end - Right platform end - Station roof - Station building 1870's LEGOREDO CITY This bank was partially inspired by set 10255 (Assembly Square). The rear of the bank also has a modified safe from set 10217. (Diagon Alley) along with two bank teller's windows and a desk. This barber shop was inspired by set 6765. (Gold City Junction). The barber shop features two chairs taken from set 10246, (Detective's Office) along with a sink and cash register. This general store is supposed to be modeled after the one in set 6765 (Gold City Junction), but with updated parts and expanded collection of items for sale. Inside, we have a cash register and a not-yet-finished interior. Hank Haystack from the LEGO Movie owns and operates this store. This saloon was inspired by the bank in set 79109. (Colby City Showdown) It features a typical saloon swing-open door, a cash register, and several spots to sit down and order a drink and is owned by Doc Brown from Back to the Future. (Hey, he can't drink it, doesn't mean he can't sell it!) Being on a corner, much of the building is left to the imagination as I wanted to avoid lift away floors to keep with the vintage 1990's Western feel. This sheriff's office was taken almost wholly from set 79109. (Colby city Showdown) The rooftop cannon has been removed, and a sticker-based sign from set 7954 (Woody's Roundup) has been placed up there instead. The floor of the building has also been redone, and most of the odd colored part removed. The rear of the building features the sheriff's office and his armory, plus the jail cell with it's exploding front wall. This blacksmith's store was heavily inspired by 2011 Ninjago set 2508. (Blacksmith Shop) I revised the colors scheme, removed the rotating rear wall, and added a holder for the sign. The roof still folds open like the original set. The post office was mostly taken from set 40305 (LEGO brand store), which has been reworked into a post office. There is a hanging sign out front in the shape of an envelope, and the sign on the top of the building clearly defines the building's purpose. (though the inside is empty at this point!) This spooky boneyard was made from sets 70420 (Graveyard Mystery), and set 75965 (The Rise of Voldemort) put together, end to end. I disabled the Voldemort "rising from the grave" function, although I did keep some caskets open-able as a feature because grave robbers were a thing back then! I also threw in a Doctor Who weeping angel to guard the place as it it seemed fitting (I am having this as a bit on a bit of a science-fiction / slight steampunk bent after all anyway, right?) US 1880's TRAIN MODELS - PASSENGER This train is meant to be built from sets 7597 (Western train Chase from Toy Story 3), 71044, (Disney Train and Station) and set 10014. (Caboose from the My Own Train series, albeit a bit bigger width-wise!) I also used the 1955 Disneyland RR passenger car instructions from @TJJohn12, as seen on Flickr here. I just recolored them and simplified them for this model. The coal-burning straight stack-styled locomotive is a mish-mash of two steam locomotives, (both 4-4-0 type) from the Toy Story set and Disney train model. I just stretched out the Disney model, added a blind driving wheel to either side (making it into a 4-6-0), and repainted it into a Toy-ish color scheme. Oh, and I built a brand new tender from the rails up, which will use 1970's red 12v-era wheels. (I hate the new Powered Up wheels without the metal axle, so this was my only choice!) The locomotive is missing these printed parts, which are colored wrong on the model for visibility. They are as follows: - the green 1 x 4 printed number "1" bricks, two on the loco and two on the tender. - a single printed red 2 x 2 brick with "1" print for the headlamp. - one 2 x 2 printed round tile for the firebox door in the cab. This baggage / coach car is styled after TJJohn12's free instructions. I did change the color scheme a bit, with black windows. black roof, and red doors, instead of red doors, reddish-brown roof, and red windows. Two of these are also going to be built, and were designed with TJJohn12's instructions. (with some subtle design changes by me for ease of ordering and a slightly simpler design) Now, I know passenger train's are not supposed to have cabooses, but this one does as I couldn't figure out a good red light arrangement for the rear-facing passenger car. Thus, this 10014-styled caboose was created in 8-wide. The yellow 2 x 4 tile on the both sides of the car are actually supposed to be this printed red part of the same size. US 1880's TRAIN MODELS - FREIGHT This freight-hauling locomotive is meant to be built from sets 7597 (Western train Chase from Toy Story 3), 71044, (Disney Train and Station) and set 10014. (Caboose from the My Own Train series, albeit a bit bigger width-wise!) I also used set 10013 (Open Freight Wagon, also from My Own Train) as a guide for the pipe-carrying car, plus model 15 (Tanker) from set 10183, Hobby Trains for the tanker car. This loco shares the same tender as my other Western 8-wdie loco from this time period. The engine itself, however, is an enlarged version of 7597, in yellow and blue. It's also meant to have inside pistons as it's an early-to-mid 1860's locomotive. (thus the lack of visible pistons!) The locomotive is missing these printed parts. They are as follows: The four yellow 1 x 6 bricks are supposed to be printed with this number 2. while the headlamp is supposed to have two of these printed yellow 1 x 1 tiles. The firebox door requires this print. Inspired by a @wildchicken13 model from Bricklink, back from before Lego bought them out. This boxcar is not inspired by any specific car in particular, and was done freehand without looking at other 8 wide boxcars. The four doors slide open. Model 15 (Tanker) from set 10183, Hobby Trains was the inspiration for the tanker car. It should feature this print on the 2x2 round white tiles. This model was built from instructions seen at the Old Workhorse's Lego Ideas page as seen here. (I am not affiliated with the creator of that page, I just used their free instructions, visible further down in the updates section, to build the traction engine seen above.) The model has been attached to an 8-wide flat car for transportation across the county. This 10014-styled caboose was created in 8-wide for my passenger train, but has been redone in yellow for the freight train. US 1880's TRAIN MODELS - U.S. MILITARY This entire military transport train was inspired by sets 60052, 79106, and 79111. This train also has a couple play features, such as a rotating Gatling gun, moving steam engine side rods, and a exploding jail car wall. This eight-wide model is a complete model of my own design, and is inspired by the steam engine from the 1970's Western film, "Breakheart Pass". I included working pistons, and a more cohesive color scheme of red and green, with a splash of yellow. Big Ben bricks' medium size wheels, 4 flanged and 4 blind, are meant to take the place of the gear wheels. You can buy them at his site here. The tender and cab walls are supposed to have four of this printed red 1 x 6 piece inserted into them: The front headlight is supposed to have two of this printed 1 x 1 placed on it. This horse car was originally a cattle car from set 60052, (2014 Cargo Train) but I've re-purposed it for my Army officer horses. These cannons are from set 79106 (Calvary Builder Set) and were placed on a generic flatcar for transport by rail. The rotating Gatling gun you see here was taken from set 79111. (Constitution Train Chase) This car has the basic "look" of the 1955 Disneyland MOC trains cars from TJJohn12, albeit without the clerestory roof, which instead has a walkway for train crew / soldiers on lookout during fuel stops. The jail car you see was originally from set 79111. (Constitution Train Chase) while gaining the styling of the 1955 Disneyland MOC trains cars from TJJohn12. This car has one play feature that is sure to blow you away: the back wall can be removed to get at the jail cell via the "dynamite" on the outside of the back wall. When pushed back towards the other end of the car, the lever on the left side pops the back wall out and the bad guys can escape! US 1880's TRAIN MODELS - MAINTENANCE OF WAY ROTARY SNOW PLOW This blue train is marked (4-8-0+0-8-4 Garratt, for heavy duty rotary snow plow jobs) is pulled / pushed by an 8-wide Garratt-type steam locomotive is perfect for use on the mountainous terrain of Colorado Rocky Mountains, with it's double steam locomotive pistons sets. (Before anyone says anything about Garratt loco's not being ever sold into the North American market, I'll say it's an lost experimental prototype to help with a motive power shortage. It may have been seen by the owner as a economical way of sending one locomotive to do the job of two.) 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 four of this part from the original Toy Story sets as a sort of marker. The rear of the plow features the coal tender with a ladder from the water tank-top down to the magnetic coupler. This 8-wide engine was originally a SRW locomotive works product, (made by Anthony Sava and formerly available on Bricklink until LEGO sadly removed most of his models.) I reworked the engine to have working pistons and side-rods plus a longer frame. This made it from 2-4-0+0-4-2 to a 4-8-0+0-8-4, among other smaller updates to the engine. I also substituted a Disney train-style boiler onto the engine to backdate it to the mid-1880's or so. The rear of the steam locomotive. This part in black goes on the water tank and coal bunker walls (it's the number 4). Even with the added pistons, the engine can go around corners and switches quite easily. A simple caboose, for the snow plow train. I used a pair interesting windscreen parts for the cupola windows. US 1870's WESTERN MILITARY - FORT LEGOREDO This is an updated and enlarged form of sets 6769 / 6762, (Fort Legoredo) with new parts and some modifications to the original set. These new parts include two cannons which oddly are missing in the original sets. I have heavily modified this model by adding Technic pins to hold the sections together, and by filling in the gaps in the wooden walls. The jail cell has also been enlarged and opened up for play-ability, plus a train platform had bee placed at the secondary gate for loading and unloading soldiers and equipment. The yellow flag is supposed to have this print: http://www.bricklink...35pb107#T=C&C=3 while the tan plates above the main gate are to have printed 1 x 1 tiles spelling out "Fort Legoredo". (which are sadly not in LDD) The back of the fort features the commander's office and jail cell below. I removed the originals set's trap door and enlarged the cell. The main gate has been greatly enlarged to allow for wagons to enter the fort. The secondary gate allows for rapid deployment of artillery and troops off of trains and into the fort. The commander's office is above the jail. I plan on adding a custom Confederate officer into the cell. Not much to say about this part... US 1870's WILD WEST MINI-FIGURES Commanded by General Buford Armstrong, the garrison at Fort Legoredo is ready for anything... or so they think! Just some local folks, including retired sheriff Woody, Jessie the cowgirl, the current sheriff (Rodger Walker, top row in black) two deputies (lower row), two ladies, and two citizens. Just some local folks, including a old miner 49er, a couple ladies, the honorable Mayor Peter Johnston (with white beard, lower row) and three citizens. The Blackheart gang is led by the genius gunslinger the "Man in Black" whose name is not known by anyone still living. Also he plays harmonica during raids, giving clues and help to gang members in code as he does not speak much. (lower, center) This gang features other criminals such as (top row from left to right:) "Sister" Sarah: she infiltrates the train at a previous station sometimes disguised as a Catholic nun. She then makes mental notes of where the valuables and safe are kept, and how many guards their are Tuco "the rat": This man puts ties on the tracks to stop the train, then blows the track behind it. He also can blow the safe door easily, no matter how thick the metal. He also knows most locks better than most locksmiths (just in case), and keeps a running table in his head of how much dynamite he has left to use. "Hot-Lead" Luke: He takes care of any guards (permanently) and relives the passengers of their watches, gold and and cash, with help from Sarah. "Smiley" Feared sociopath, and is said to kill the train men of each train they rob, though the bodies have never been found. he also makes sure no-one looks at the robbers as they leave or tries to be a hero. These hardened railroad men are as follows: Top: Tom Hardy; senior locomotive engineer and perpetually two weeks from retiring (or so he says) Joseph Barbara; station master of the Fort Legoredo depot, always punctual and runs through life like a well oiled machine Middle: E.S. Hawkins; division manager and a bit of a eccentric. Stops by the Legoredo station every now and then and demands a train be chartered to a fictional / impossible place (such as the ghost town of Grave Stone). He says he's serious, but in actuality he just likes to keep people guessing on his next sentence! Lower: Sidney Flattery, junior fireman of engine Number 3 and is very proud of keeping the girl running like clockwork. Alex; locomotive engineer of engine 3 and sometimes old No.1 when Tom Hardy is busy or unavailable. These Native Americans are of the tribe displaced by the US Army and the silver miners in the Raindance Ridge area back in the 1880s. They went onto reservations, which they then left under cover of darkness for their even older ancestral burial grounds: known only to their lone elder, the much revered Chief Big Bear. When they arrived, they found two people already there: Doctor Emmett Brown and his wife Clara, who had decided to take a 20th-century shortcut through an 19th century world and got lost. Chief Big Bear could somehow tell that Doc Brown was a man "from many sunrises from now" (aka the future), and offered to help him if he could help them. So, Doc drew up the plans for the time train, and, with the help from his inventions and the native americans, worked to keep the hidden valley a secret for ten years, all while getting parts for the engine from opening a saloon in the nearby town of Legoredo City. (He can't drink it, but he can sure sell it!) US 1870's MODULAR EADS TRAIN BRIDGE Here is my final design of the St. Louis bridge, commonly known as the Eads bridge because of it's designer, James B. Eads. It uses Indiana Jones roller-coaster ramps for the arches, which looks pretty cool. The bridge is nine tracks total in length and 19 bricks high from base to track. (this means about fourteen brick of clearance between arch top and floor, so some ships could pass through!) First, a little background info from Wikipedia (which is also where this picture came from): "The Eads Bridge is a combined road and railway bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, connecting St. Louis and East St. Louis, Illinois. The bridge is named for its designer and builder, James B. Eads. When completed in 1874, the Eads Bridge was the longest arch bridge in the world, with an overall length of 6,442 feet (1,964 m). The ribbed steel arch spans were considered daring, as was the use of steel as a primary structural material: it was the first such use of true steel in a major bridge project. The Eads Bridge, which became an iconic image of the city of St. Louis, from the time of its erection until 1965 when the Gateway Arch was constructed, is still in use. The bridge crosses the St. Louis riverfront between Laclede's Landing, to the north, and the grounds of the Gateway Arch, to the south. Today the road deck has been restored, allowing vehicular and pedestrian traffic to cross the river. The St. Louis MetroLink light rail line has used the rail deck since 1993." This is a rough representation, as it is missing a lot, (I.E. no car deck, missing tunnel under downtown, and lack of the East St Louis ramp approach.) Here is the modular component, of which three of these big sections together via eight Technic pins (four per section) to make the whole bridge. The modular component of the bridge's design also makes it a LOT easier to carry as the whole bridge with the three sections weighs about 10 pounds total. US 1870's WESTERN STAGECOACH, TOWN CARTS, SNAKE-OIL SALESMAN VEHICLE, US ARMY CANNON CART + AMMUNITION WAGON "Come one, Come all! Gather 'round for a cure to end the all-too-common cold!" It may say "bait shop" on the side, but it really is a patent "medicine" store, where Anton Dewey Cheatum makes his own brand of lethal cures using rattlesnake venom, whiskey and his special addictive ingredient... one or two tastes, and you'll come back for more until you drop (dead). Usually this happens after he has fled town in his red wagon with the citizens hard-earned cash. This Express Stagecoach model was mostly taken from set 79108 (Stagecoach Escape) from the 2013 Lone Ranger theme. I removed some of the random colors to give it a more unified look, and replaced red with yellow as the main color for this stage while the rear baggage ejection feature still works as originally designed. Here we see inside the stage, with the roof removed and doors opened. The brown box on the roof is the safe hauling the silver miner's pay, disguised as a steamer trunk to fool bandits. These wagons are for my townsfolk and their businesses. The yellow crates hold various liquor bottles for the Saloon, and the other wagon is headed for the mine with TNT and a barrel full of Whiskey. This 1860's US Army covered ammunition wagon with cannon is inspired by set 6716 (covered wagon) from 1996's Western theme. The cannon can come detached from the wagon, and become ready for action very quickly. Revered among the west are the lawmen, the get-it-done type of folk, like Wyatt Earp, for example. This is the ride of not a single one of those type of men. The wagon you see here is the official Mayor's carriage of the town of Fort Legoredo. This wagon was used for the second though fifth mayors, with the first (the one who died before this wagon was delivered) being the only truly honest and good one in the bunch. He was pushed off of Boulder Cliff Canyon in 1872 by cattle ranchers for giving the Native Americans a fair share of the land they were owed in a treaty that was signed by all involved.... unfortunately, this mattered not to the ranchers. The next eight years and four mayors were full of lust, greed, bullets, and backstabbing. It wasn't until 1880 that a real era of economic boom and social change began in the Fort Legoredo area. (The snake oil delivery wagon, mayor's wagon and the two town wagons were designed by Baskerville bricks (seen at this Bricklink store here.) with some added flourishes by me.) WILD WESTERN STERN-WHEEL STEAMBOAT The captain of the Proud Mary is Thaddeus Sweeney, better known as "Old Man Sweet-tooth", for his habit of chewing saltwater taffy when the going gets tough and and giving candy out to the little children whenever he lands at small towns and native american villages such as Lone Tree, Nebraska, or Fort Legoredo, Colorado. He usually plies his brand-new-for-1872 stern-wheel steamboat up and down the Rapid River, with the Missouri River in Iowa at one end, and the the mighty cliff face of Showdown Canyon Springs at the other end in the middle of Colorado. Thaddeus is the only one he trusts to handle his ship, as he says the Rapid River is too treacherous for many newer pilots, as the wrecks that litter the shoreline prove. However, even Captain Sweeney admits from time to time that age is catching up to him, and he has been looking for a suitable first mate for the Proud Mary for some time. The name of the ship is the Proud Mary, after the Creedence Clearwater Revival song of the same name, as I figured it would be appropriate. The rear paddle moves around 360 degrees and simultaneously slides the gray piston parts in and out on both sides. WILD WESTERN RAILROAD TRUSS BRIDGE This through-truss bridge design was originally downloaded by me (I don't remember the name of the original designer who created the bridge) from the LEGO Factory / Design By ME page in 2010-ish and was never built in real life due to questions about it's strength. I came across it again while looking at my MOCpage account's older files and made it into the version seen above using newer parts and a longer frame quite a while ago. (and as to those original questions about it's strength: It's built like a safe, as I can pick it up with a single finger by the top..... just don't drop it, because the reddish brown parts won't survive the landing!) More recently, I revised the deck where the track goes to be able to take the RC track up and be able to put down 9V down more easily. (We run 9V trains at shows in Gateway LUG.) In short, the track is now more easily removable to become 9V, 12V, or even a road bridge. The bridge fits any of my trains, and should fit all official LEGO trains except for double stack containers such as sets 10219 (Maersk Train) and 10170 (TTX Intermodal Double-Stack Car). WILD WEST RAILROAD WATER TOWER This model was inspired by fellow builder @Pdaitabird and his water tower, as seen here on his Flickr page. I have re-purposed the model for my Wild Western town / railroad. The tower top rotates a full 360 degrees with the water pipe, allowing the engineer to pull up, get his loco full of (imaginary) water, shove the pipe away, and move on. US 1860's WESTERN SILVER MINE AT SKULL ROCK This Wild West model was originally LEGO set 79110 (Silver Mine Shootout) from the 2013 Lone Ranger theme. I added a more reinforced right wall and a real base-plate to support the model, as I know from experience it can be pretty flimsy if handed wrong. I also added the collapsing water tower from set 79111 (Constitution Train Chase) to the front corner as another action play feature. The model has also been heightened by five bricks to allow for regular train cars to pass through, but unfortunately it still isn't wide enough for custom locomotives with side-rods to fit through. (yet!) The natural rock formation (the skull) on top of the mine gives it it's name, and features a carved out section for two cannons to protect the mine, either from Native Americans wanting their sacred mountain back, or desperadoes looking to cash in on the (supposedly cursed) silver. You can see many more details on the mine can be seen in this topic. NOTES ON THE POST EDIT 1/16/21 Added new 8-wide trains and new overall pictures of the Western town / Army fort. As usual, comments, Questions, and complaints are always welcome!

I've been split in scale since I began building LEGO trains with all my shunters, freight wagons and latest passenger train being 7-wide or 1:54 and all my older locomotives and passenger wagons being 6-wide or 1:60. With almost all of my buildings close to true minifig-scale, I've been contemplating to unify my scale for a few years now but I couldn't decide to go for either 7 or 8-wide...in addition to being pretty much satisfied with most of my 6-wide models as they are. Well, no more Presenting my favourite Danish State Railways’ (DSB) locomotive redesigned to 8-wide and digitally rendered in two versions and liveries... DSB Litra MZ The powerful Litra MZ locomotives were built by Swedish Nydquist & Holm AB (Nohab) and Danish subcontractors on license from General Motors. 10 MZ (I) were built from 1967-1969. 20 MZ (III) were built from 1972-1974. 61 in total were built across all four variants (I-IV). Quite a few are still used today by private railway companies either domestic or abroad, in Iran, Norway and Australia. My model of DSB Litra MZ (I): DSB maroon livery used in the 1960/70s with the highly recognizable crown and wing logo on the front. Scale: 1:46 Length: 56 studs from buffer to buffer Width: 8 bricks Bricks: 1.264 Powered: 2 x L-motors, 2 x AAA battery boxes + 2 x SBricks, 1 x AAA battery box + 1 x SBrick/PFx Brick or 2 x BuWizz battery boxes Control: PF with SBrick, PFx Brick or BuWizz Designed: 2020 My older 6-wide version from 2016: https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/119474-moc-the-danish-state-railways-dsb-locomotive-litra-mz-i/ All renders are done on the very high setting in Stud.io with all of my own custom decals added in the PartDesigner tool. Upgearing from 20 to 12 teeth with a ratio of 5:3....more speed, less power PF L-motor design with good advice from some of the Brick Train Depot guys. Credit to Duq for coming up with the original idea of using the T-piece. 3-axled bogie: The center wheel will utilize a black hockey puck as a blind driver or a 2 x 2 round tile with open stud and 1 x 1 round tile placed on top on it as the alternative. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=47576#T=C My model of DSB Litra MZ (III): DSB "modern" red & black livery used in the 1980s. Scale: 1:46 Length: 56 studs from buffer to buffer Width: 8 bricks Bricks: 1.331 Powered: 2 x L-motors, 2 x AAA battery boxes + 2 x SBricks, 1 x AAA battery box + 1 x SBrick/PFx Brick or 2 x BuWizz battery boxes Control: PF with SBrick, PFx Brick or BuWizz Designed: 2020 My older 6-wide version from 2011 and redesigned in 2015: https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/172599-moc-herningværket-vestkraft-is-complete-set-of-locomotives-and-wagons Part of the fun and what set LEGO trains apart from pure model railroading is the inclusion of minifigs, so whenever and whatever I always try to make space for them and also keep on some play features and interiors. The 8-wide body is quite roomy and has a fairly correct interior. 2 x PF L-motors with either 2 x AAA battery boxes + 2 x SBricks, 1 x AAA battery box + 1 x SBrick/PFx Brick or 2 x BuWizz battery boxes can be utilized: Both locomotives with DSB Litra MZ (I) in front of the later version DSB Litra MZ (III) in the background: Technical addendum: For the first time ever I have used technical drawings overlayed with LEGO scaled grids to get the dimensions right or as close to right as possible. The models haven't been built yet but some smaller builds have been used for testing during the design phase. My slightly shorter test train didn’t really like driving through R40 curves, no surprise there Too much length overall and the wheel sets in both ends of the bogies are also pretty far from each other producing some drag. Going through isn't impossible though but rather uneven and a tiny bit struggling, especially with added wagons. There are no problems driving on straight tracks and through larger radii curves. To my surprise however was the finding that the total number of parts were the same or even slightly less than a similar 7-wide model So henceforth, 8-wide it is

This station was inspired way back in 2013 by a long since expired Ideas project (link to my inspiration: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/34642 ), which was doubled in size and now features a double tracked platform + canopy and quad-sided clock tower. NOTE: You may want to cut two base-plates to a 8 x 40 size where the gaps are at the end of the platform. The station proper has removable upper roof and second floor sections. The top floor "floats" on tiles, and is removable to reach the sales counter on the main floor. Also removable is the platform and train canopy, as it is connected to the station via Technic pins. The double track train canopy was inspired by CITY set 60103, Airport Air Show, while the clock faces are supposed to feature this print: http://alpha.brickli...0pb024#T=C&C=11 The street side of the station has space for 8 printed 1 x 1 letters, allowing you to name the station what you want. If i ever did build this, which I probably won't, I would name it Glenncoe, after the location of a 12 inch ride-on real steam railway, The Wabash Frisco and Pacific Rail Road at Glencoe (spelled with only 1 "N") Missouri. (See their pretty cool website here: http://www.wfprr.com/default.htm ) The second floor has the switching control room and station managers office while the lower floor has the ticket desk and inside waiting rooms. By the way: the upper floor floats inside the walls on some tile-topped pillars, and is not connected to the build by studs in any way. NOTE: This train station most likely will never be built by me as I already have 3 stations as of now. But it IS build able in real life, so if anyone of you guys want to take a stab at this station, be my guest and please post the pictures both here and in your own thread. As such, here is the LDD file to the whole model, grouped so you can edit the station as you please: http://www.moc-pages...1463871791m.lxf Once again, questions, comments, and complaints are welcome!

I'm working on an open summer wagon. The prototype has an overhanging roof with a horizontal blue support running under it. I've used jumpers on the end windows and on top of each vertical support to centre a 7w roof. Then I've used jumpers to fill in the rest of the horizontal support between the windows. Is there a better way to do this?

Since the 2018 Hogwarts Express (set 75955) is lacking in realism, (with the engine and tender in particular!) I decided to revise my custom version with ideas from the set, including printed 1x4 curve tiles with Hogwarts Castle printed on them. The locomotive is a heavily modified version of LDDModelmaker's Black 5 model with some parts from set 79111, Constitution Train Chase. The tender features a three wheeled bogie design modified from the one in Anthony Sava's ALCO MRS-1. The middle axle moves side to side, as to allow going through switches and curves without issue. The inside of the cab features two gauges and the firebox. In this false-color image, the red parts slide, the blue ones stay put to allow for the loco to go around curves and switches. (BTW: There are parts underneath that keep the sliding bogie from falling out.) The roof and side wall of each coach come off independently from each other, to reveal four seats for students and / or the occasional teacher. The Hogwarts Express is usually made up of four corridor BR MK I passenger coaches, although sometimes a special fifth coach is attached with an open floor plan. (however, in this Lego design, they are all open floor plan!) Also, the end car is not accurate to the films, but is what I prefer to the alternative: a gangway leading nowhere with no red light on the end. In-universe / Film History for the Hogwarts Express: Leaving from Kings Cross' Platform 9 & 3/4 to Hogsmeade Station at exactly 9 AM, the Hogwarts Express carries students (and sometimes faculty) to and from Hogwarts' School of Witchcraft & Wizardry in the Harry Potter series of books and movies. It has been seen in every Harry Potter film, from it's first appearance in the beginning of Philosophers Stone to it's (so far) last at the end of Deathly Hallows. (part two) The Hogwarts Express is usually only in the film for a short while, and it is generally a pleasant journey from Kings Cross to Hogsmeade, although Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and a certain Flying Ford Anglia might beg to differ! This 100% fictional version of Hogsmeade station (as in, not really based on any of the Harry Potter films) was inspired by several sets, mainly set 21324 (123 Sesame Street) and bits of my older Hogsmeade station MOCs from years past. The model is modular, and features a detachable track-side platform, ground floor, second floor, and roof. The platform is five tracks long, and starts three studs away from the rail head, making it a breeze for larger engines with wider pistons to pass through unrestricted. The street side features the same basic look as the other side, but in this case their is a staircase.... which could cause a problem for luggage trolleys as their is no ramp! As also used on the rail side, this Hogsmeade 1 x 4 tile should be placed on the four exposed studs on the second floor. The upper floor features the station master's office with an little break room for an off-duty engine crewman to sleep in. Also up here is a fireplace and two desks, one of which has an oil lamp on it. The lower floor features a bench for passengers out of the Scottish fog and rain. Also, the two ticket booth's share a single cash register, so the two ticket agents best be extra sure how much money goes where and who did what! Every floor & platform is grouped separately in LDD, as shown here. As usual, comments, questions, suggestions, and complaints are always welcome! EDIT 10/27/2020: Hogsmeade station LDD model replaced, screenshots and words updated accordingly. Real life pictures coming eventually. (Hopefully soon!)

At long last I present to you all my second steam engine: The Canadian Pacific G2 Pacific I was pleased with how this one turned out especially the smokebox on the locomotive. It took longer than I wanted and that is because I had other things around me to consider. But I would see to it that it would get through for you guys. Runs of 2 L motors housed in the boiler with the IR receiver and battery box in the tender. I know it is rather bulky for a small steam engine. But I wanted to make sure that I could get in as much details as possible.

In my fictional universe, the train starts at Chicago (Illinois), with stops at Springfield (Illinois), St. Louis (Missouri), Memphis (Tennessee) before terminating at New Orleans (Louisiana). The 2-6-0 "Mogul" steam engine & it's four car train is painted in dark green, thus giving the train it's name the "Emerald Express". The train consists of 1 baggage / passenger car (also known as a "combine"), two passenger coaches, and one observation car. These train cars were inspired heavily by instructions made by @TJJohn12 for his Retlaw Combine car and passenger coach, as seen here. The model has been remade by me to be four studs shorter, six studs wide (instead of eight), and no longer for use in a Disney theme-park setup, as it instead plies the rails of my 1920's - to 1950's setup. These cars now come with new inter-car connections and inset entryway doors. (plus the rear platform on the observation car) This Mogul type loco was originally made from set 79111, (Constitution Train Chase), with some features of TJJohn12's MOC of the E. P. Ripley locomotive (seen here) from Disneyland and set 10194 (Emerald Night) for good measure. This model has been through many versions since it was first built in 2013, but I think it's as close to perfection as I will get with the chosen brick-based medium. It pulls the Emerald Express of dark green - colored train coaches as seen in the other pictures. The sides of the steam engine's tender features the letters BRS, standing for Brick Railway Systems, which is my fictional railroad company. This combination baggage and passenger car (known as a combine) relies heavily on techniques taken from Retlaw baggage car built by TJJohn12. The two identical day coaches have inset doors I designed myself. The observation car of the Emerald Express. The rear deck isn't the best, but it works using the parts available in dark green... a not too common color in some brick varieties! EDIT 11/5/16: Added newer engine pics and ldd file for engine and tender as (removed) EDIT 12/9/16: Put in pictures of version three of the engine, with the placement of the domes on the boiler revised and the headlight moved to atop the boiler. EDIT 7/23/18: Added revised pictures of the locomotive to the thread, although I have by this point taken a wheel set off the engine to make into a 4-6-2, not a 4-8-2. Alas, I need to take the pictures again, and update the thread. It should only take another year or two... EDIT 6/25/2020: Added newly revised coaches, engine and comments on said models to first post. Real world pics coming soon(ish)! EDIT 7/7/2020: Added new real world pictures of the completely updated four car train. Comments, questions, and complaints are always welcome, so please give feedback!

These Baldwin diesel RF-16-like locos were inspired by set 10020, (Santa Fe Super Chief) for most of the basic body work and and fellow Eurobricks user @Legownz for the knife-like Sharknose front end. (Thank you for that ingenious design!) The cab and booster units feature no interior details because I have no need for such items on my layout.. that and retrofitting all my trains with inside details would be quite costly. NOTE: I had to shorten the front A-unit by four studs because it wouldn't fit in my storage box anymore with the longer front-end. Thus I had to order a shorter 24 stud train baseplate to get it to fit, the results of which you can see when comparing the two diesel units. (the B unit is noticeably longer) The rear of each of the locos feature doorways to the next engine compartment, and / or the passenger train itself. The name of this train is a play off the Missouri River Runner, a real train that Amtrak runs from Kansas City to St. Louis. The Meramec River is a body of water that runs next to the 12-inch gauge Wabash Frisco & Pacific, so I switched the name to the Meramec River Runner. Never mind the fact the Missouri Pacific used to run on the roadbed the WFP now uses up from the 1850's until about the 1940's, when it was rerouted to it's current, alignment and abandoned the old one to the eventual WFP use from the late '50's to today. ...and In case you were wondering, WFP stands for Wabash Frisco and Pacific in both the real world 12-inch gauge RR that is located in my hometown and my fictional take on their railway. Combination baggage and passenger car three identical passenger coaches for the train The observation car of the Meramec River Runner. The real Sharknose diesel's looked like this (picture from Wikipedia). All 109 "A" cab units, 51 "B" booster units, or 160 total locomotives were built between 1950 and 1953, and almost all were scrapped. Only two A units survive, hidden away since 1981 in a railway warehouse in Michigan due to thievery by supposed rail-fans. (Items such as instruction manuals and builders plates were stolen.) Anyway, on January 10th, 2020, Trains Magazine reported that the two surviving units will be going to a museum for preservation. (Yay!) You can read more on Wikipedia here about the class type. Any thoughts, comments, or complaints? EDIT 5/5/2020: The locomotives are finished in real life, and new pictures have been uploaded for everything. Enjoy!

This modular Victorian-era train station was inspired by set 71044, Disney train and Station. It now has a chimney flue featuring two fireplaces, freight area with dual sliding doors, and a loading platform five tracks long. The large clock on the tower is gone, replaced by a double sided, smaller version above the main door to the platform, while the word GLENNCOE (a slight misspelling of a real Missouri town... the real town only has one "N" in it's name.) goes above the right hand door, as this is the name of the station and the town it serves. Also in that general area of the model, you can see I removed the second floor balcony, as I thought it looked better being replaced by a window. The street facing portion of the station should have the year 1891 on the studs above the two main doors. (This was the year the 100% fictional station was built.) The upper floor features the station master's office with desk and telephone, along with a much later addition than 1891, a computer to track train movements. The lower floor features the cargo depot with opening mailbox, and passenger waiting room with ticket desk. Six public waiting chairs are also included on this level. The station comes in several large, easy-to-take-apart sections: -tower roof -second floor hallway roof -second floor -first floor NOTES: There probably was a station in Glencoe (the real Missouri town, not my idealistic version of it) at one point for the Missouri Pacific RR, though I doubt it was this fancy if it was there. The rail line passed through there from the mid-1850's to the mid-1940's, when it was moved to it's current alignment, and the old one abandoned to nature. However, a little 12-inch gauge ride on railway now calls Glencoe home, as it has since the late 1950's. This station (and any of my LEGO trains lettered for the Wabash Frisco and Pacific, the name of the small 12-inch gauge line) are a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the rail line that has had such an impact on me growing up.. and still inspires me today! EDIT 5/17/2020: Added real world pictures! As usual, comments, questions, and complaints are always welcome!

First off: I did not design this steam engine! I modified it heavily to suit my tastes from this Eurobricks post (link here) from user @damangos. I did, however, rework my original 7 wide Emerald Night tender from 2014 instead of the 6 wide tender used by damangos in the original model, and I also reworked his model to suit my tastes and be cheaper on BrickLink. The engine in question is modeled in LNER dark green, and is numbered one higher than the A3 engine series ever went, though it is still called the the Emerald Knight. (just the set 10194's name with an added K, as you may have noticed.).... and yes, it's a bit dusty. I just noticed, and it's too late to retake the pictures now. (It's been sitting in a open-top bin waiting for the coaches to be built for a while, and I thought I dusted it thoroughly.) LNER is the name of the railroad that built the locomotive (like it's real-world inspiration, the Flying Scotsman, 4472), and it stands for London North Eastern Railway. The number 2509 was chosen because the A3 class of engines never went that high in numbering. (2508 was the highest, and was the last one built in the mid-1930's.) These four regular coaches, (and one guard's coach, seen below) are inspired by the recent Hogwarts Express cars, to save money on wheels and train car bodies / frames. They don't have any of the interior details the Hogwarts Express has, though. I based the colors of the coaches on a inverted set 10194 (Emerald Night) coach color scheme. I always thought the colors looked better like this, and it avoids the problems of the tan 1 x 4 x 3 train windows used in the original set. (which are very expensive!!) Fictional locomotive backstory: Fictional locomotive backstory: This is loco 2509, built January 1936 as the very last A3 to roll out of the factory for London North Eastern Railways (LNER). It was given the name Emerald Knight, a name which, while being the name of a wining racehorse from the mid-1800's also matched it's dark green paint job. The engine was usually assigned the the Kings Cross to Scarborough line, hauling the Scarborough Flyer until being withdrawn in 1965. The engine survived WWII in remarkable shape of maintenance during those hard years due to the heroic actions of it's engine and shed crews who were said to have taken a shine to "well-riding" and "good tempered" engine. Steaming never was an issue, and the fire was always roaring right when you wanted it according to a fair amount of it's crews from 1940 to 1947. British Railways (BR) took over in 1948 and the engine was painted "Express dark blue". Loco 2509 soldiered on for 17 more years until 1965 when it was deemed unnecessary for future use and sold for scrapping. Thankfully, unlike 99% of the rest of it's class (except for the Flying Scotsman, which was also saved), it was not condemned to the scrap line for very long, as it was saved in 1966 by the Lego Rail Transportation Society (LRTS), a preservation group with aims to restore the trusty engine to it's former glory. LRTS backdated the loco to it's original 1936 exterior specifications, while keeping abreast of any interior improvements made to it's sister loco "the Flying Scotsman" (loco number 4472) over the next forty years. In early 2018, the engine was rolled into the shop for it's new boiler ticket tear-down, when it was announced it would wear LNER dark green again instead of the BR dark blue. The engine rolled out of the LRTS shops on December 26th, 2019, just in time for the engine's 84th birthday celebration in January 2020. Well, that's all I got for now... just need to get my layout up and running again! Comments, questions, and complaints are welcome as usual!

I originally got this basic model from a page on Bricksafe by user @sed6 as seen here. I revised the freight door to be movable, changed the roof color to dark red from black, building color to sand green from tan, plus I added a "cast iron" heating stove and it's chimney flue to the model for late-1800's period look. This station will go along with my western stuff on my layout as seen in this topic here. The platform side of the station. There is plenty of outside seating on both the left and right sides, yet they are still under the roof awning to be protected from rain. (three seats per side) The model features the separate entry doors to the station premises for cargo and people on the both the street and track sides. Inside we have the freight area (on the left) and the passenger area (on the right) with a connecting door between the two. The passenger section also has the heating stove which currently is keeping the coffee hot. (or is it boiling the water for tea?) This part of the station also has three inside seats for weary passengers and a cash register for ticket dispensing. The station is modular, and comes apart in four sections: - Left platform end - Right platform end - Station roof - Station building I was originally going to build the Disney station in blue, but the projected price was out of my budget, so I settled for this one. This is is just as good, if not better, because everybody's got a Disney station now, but nobody but @sed6 has one of these custom depots. (and mine is different from his to boot!) - Real life pictures to come: December 25th, 2019.- Real life pictures added, 12-16-19! Thanks for stopping by, and if anyone needs bigger versions of these pictures, they are view-able at my flickr feed. Comments, questions, and suggestions welcome!

Here are all the pictures of my (and a few other members of Gateway Lego User Group) Wild West era-stuff on display at Our Lady of the Snows' Way of Lights display, in Belleville, Illinois until December 31st. (excluding Christmas and New-Years eve, they are closed those nights.) These only are some of models I have been making since 2014, more can be found in this thread here. There are a ton more tables (and themes!) at the show, so come on down to view them all, this is only a small inkling of what's there! (sorry mod's, had to do that last bit.) US army Fort Legoredo, circa mid-1885. The town of Legoredo, part 1: general store (in front, next to fort) Doc Brown's saloon, (corner lot) train station (obviously placed) The town of Legoredo, part 2. post office (in white with red flags) Sheriff Woody's lockup (next to the water tower) barber shop (with the deck on the second floor) Bank (the big impressive building) blacksmith's shop (small shack across from the bank) rear-wheel steamboat Proud Mary and the Boulder Cliff Canyon through-truss bridge. Also, Stinky Pete's house nearby. Rapid River Village, part 1. The posse is chasing down the escaping convicts on the handcar, while the train is making up for lost time and might beat both of them! (I was inspired by the 1990's LEGO Loco video game opening cinematic with the handcar being chased by the train, if you couldn't tell.) Rapid River Village - part 2, with skull butte and the village elder's tepee's on top. Also, see if you can spot the tail end of the Delorean time machine in the tunnel! NOTE: This is not all my stuff - the Indian village on the tan base-plates was designed by Gateway LUG member Chris Curtis, and the red stagecoach was brought in by a third member. My father designed the three elevated wooden box-risers next to the skull mountain, under the cubed tan felt. Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions? Please leave them below!

As seen here on EuroBricks, user @Carefree_Dude tried his hand at making the new Disney train have working pistons and getting rid of the hideous no-metal-axle wheels. I was very much impressed with the results, and took the pictures and reverse engineered them to have a similar 4-6-0 of my very own. (If the tender looks familiar, it hasn't changed at all from the last version.) However, as you may have noticed, the pistons are different, as they gave me a ton of trouble figuring them out, so I imported a design of my own previous use that I know works. The rear of the loco features a ladder to the tender-top, where the hatch to the water tank is found and also where the neatly stacked wood pile is located . These passenger cars were mostly inspired by set 10014 (Passenger wagon) but repainted red instead of green and with fancy part 30613 "Brick, Arch 3 x 6 x 5 Ornamented" on the end of the cars. I might be mistaken, but Flickr user The Shubes (Isn't he on Eurobricks too?) may have been the one to inspire these coaches with his own red versions of set 10014 as seen here. The end of my passenger train features this little four wheel caboose. It was designed after set 10015 (Caboose) with some features taken from set 7597 (Western Train Chase) This design is now finished in real life, after a record six days from designing on 10 / 20, ordering on 10 / 21, to being built on 10 / 26. That's really fast service by my standards!

The 4-10-4 (four leading, ten driving, four trailing) "Rainhill" wheel arrangement was so named after the Rainhill Trials of October 1829 in Rainhill, England of which the famous Rocket was the only entrant to complete the Trials. The Rainhill type was designed in 1927 and built in early 1928, though it was originally called the "Gigantic" type, but the planned Centenary of Steam celebration sealed the deal on the naming of the type. (Unfortunately, the plans for the potential celebration were postponed in July 1928 and finally cancelled one day before the Stock Market Crash of 1929.) The steam locomotive prototype of the 4-10-4 Rainhill type was painted a dark red and gray color-scheme with a light gay box on the tender and was sold by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1928 to Brick Railway Systems, but due to technical teething troubles and because of it's unusual color scheme was nicknamed the Red Demon. The engine worked the trans-continental route on the "pan-American Limited" passenger train from New York to Los Angeles, with the Red Devil or one of it's type worked the portion west from St. Louis to Las Vegas. The Red Demon original engine (number 7957) worked this route from 1930 until being bumped to freight duties in early 1958. The engine then worked freights with it's thirty-nine brother's in diminishing numbers until this one was sidelined in 1971, the last of it's kind. The Red Demon was pulled out of the mothballs in 1973 for potential use on the 1976 American Bicentennial train but politics intervened and Texas and Pacific 2-10-4 number 610 got the job instead. After that, the engine's future looked bleak until the "Save the Red Demon 7957" Committee was formed which raised enough money to restore the engine to working order by 1978 and has kept the engine indoors and in tip-top shape ever since under the Red Demon Incorporated moniker. This company uses five former Brick Railway Systems-styled coaches on fan trips, but they are wholly owned by Red Demon Inc. The tender features the name of the railroad (Brick Railway Systems) on it's side, with a light at the rear and a ladder to the top deck. In reality, there was no 4-10-4 type of steam locomotive. It was strangely skipped over in the age of steam... none of this wheel arrangement were ever built. The name Red Demon was chosen because the 4-14-4 type of Soviet Russia was the closest analogy to my loco... except mine works fine, while the Russian one never did much as it spread the track, ruined switches and pulled the freight cars' couplings apart due to it's raw power. The second reason for the name is the Red Devil, a heavily modified South African 4-8-4 engine with a gas producing combustion system and many modern improvements. That cape gauge engine worked beautifully, but was mothballed in 2003. As of 2018, however, the Red Devil is again puling fan trip trains in South Africa! The three regular coaches, all in the same color scheme as the engine. The Pan-American Limited's observation car. The whole train. Comments, Questions, Complaints, and Suggestions for the future are always welcome! EDIT 4/2/19: main post reformatted, pictures replaced with new ones and text updated.

Welcome aboard the Astro-train! This stream-liner was a mix of the 1910's Earth train called the "Bipolar" built specifically for use by Classic Space forces as high-speed, high-security ground transports for senior level officers such as Benny. Unlike the Earth version, the Astro-train is super-streamlined, and can go up to speeds of up to 400 MPH on special track, with super-elevated curves and long straight-away's of tens of miles.\ BUILDER'S NOTES: In reality, I liked my original take on the Classic Space Aerotrain, but it can't be built due to design and motorization issues. thus, I stretched the design into the model you see here but with my Super Bipolar at the head. This will be able to allow the engine to pull freight cars, (such as Benny's road car on a flat car) too. This model was inspired by both a 1999 version of the original, real-world Bipolar engine built by user Legosteveb and by a digital-only design by @Sunder to create the Super Bipolar you see in my picture above. Note, the two 4 x 2 slopes should have this CS print while the four white 1 x 1 tiles should have this "60" print. Also, a bonus for this engine model is if I ever show off this train at a LEGO show, I can replace the middle wheel-set on the loco with another person's 9V motor swapped in to power the train. This is the baggage car, and like the rest of the train, all the doors open. (Although there are no interior details, so it can be whatever you want it to be inside!) These are the two passenger cars. The observation car. This is the complete train. I'm planning on building this in 2019 in real bricks, at some point, hopefully. Anyway, comments, questions, complaints, and suggestions are always welcome!

For my first post I'd like to share something I built a few months back. This is my first actual post so please do be gentle :P I decided to design a much more fleshed out version of the 60051 High Speed Passenger Train by adding various types of new custom passenger cars and locomotives. I implemented some ideas from the 10233 Horizon Express, which is quite noticeable from the pictures below (such as the all-black 10233 inter-car bogey). Firstly I wanted the design to be much more detailed and to use more advanced building techniques such as those seen in 10233 than what is standard for a City set. For instance, I wanted my passenger cars to be intermodal articulated (cheers Duq :P) to really catch that high speed train vibe. Additionally, it had to have functioning doors and fairly detailed interiors. However, common limitations prevented me from doing particular designs such as a restaurant car as an interior four studs wide simply would not be enough for me to create a bar/lounge that didn't look like it was being choked by the walls of the car. If anyone wishes to build/use the designs, I'm more than happy to upload relevant .lxf files for you all :) just be sure to credit me properly. So without further ado, have at it! 1. Inter-car bogey (10233 design in all-black) Express2 - Bogey by Bartybum, on Flickr 2. Short end coach Express2 - Coach End Short by Bartybum, on Flickr 3. Short coach middle Express2 - Coach Short by Bartybum, on Flickr 4. Short locomotive Express2 - Engine by Bartybum, on Flickr 5. Long coach middle (No end coach as of yet, as I'm yet to design one) Express2 - Coach Long by Bartybum, on Flickr 6. Long locomotive Express2 - Engine Long by Bartybum, on Flickr 7. Super locomotive (uses inter-car bogey and is therefore inseparable from the rest of the consist) Express2 - Super Engine by Bartybum, on Flickr At this point I asked myself, why stop at one storey? Why not follow the footsteps of the Metroliner and go double decker? Naturally I did :) 8. Two storey coach Express2 - Two Storey Coach by Bartybum, on Flickr 9. Two storey transition coach Express2 - Two Storey Transition Coach by Bartybum, on Flickr Obviously since this is Lego, you can switch around cars if need be, so you can make whatever configuration you want. Two examples: Express2 by Bartybum, on Flickr Express2.1 by Bartybum, on Flickr Since LDD doesn't do stickers the abrupt disappearance of red and dark grey from the nose looks just a bit jarring. Keep in mind that these designs are built with the implication of the stickers on the nose already being there. Now that all's said and done, just hit me up in the replies if you'd like .lxf files, more than happy to give them out :) EDIT: .zip files in reply section

The Bureau of Unexplained Phenomenon's train does not officially exist and you never saw it. All photograph's taken of this train are mangled by some unknown force while still in the camera, and it never seems to stay still for long enough to get a glimpse at the engine crew. The passenger cars are are only marked with the Bureau's logo on the sides for a clue to their ownership. The 2-6-0+0-6-2 Garratt steam locomotive pulls a four car train, consisting of what seems to be a baggage car, a sleeper, diner, and observation car. All four cars (and the engine) are marked in a dark blue with light gray accents and the Bureau of Unexplained Phenomenon's logo on the sides (not shown). According to the scattered reports of varying age, the train's scientist crew catalogs the odd happenings around the USA since the Bureau's founding by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, such as un-dead uprisings in the 1970's, ex-confederate vampires in 1875, time travelers from the 1980's in the 1880's, attacks by mutant giant ants in the late-1940's, and an entire town being held hostage by a giant blob from outer space in the early 1960's, just to name a few of the more prolific cases that we know of. Other reports suggest the train is not merely cataloging the happenings, but tracking them via a rip in space-time continuum in the Pacific Northwest that is waiting to be opened to it's full inter-dimensional potential. This man on the far left is supposedly one of the senior operatives of the mysterious Bureau, a Mister Graves. Mr. Graves has more recently (as of 1926) been keeping tabs on Lord Sam Sinister (far right) Senor Palomar (second from left) and Alexis Sinister's (second from right) plans for the inter-dimensional portal that is located in the pacific northwest of the USA. Mr. Graves has ingratiated himself into the evil trio's inner circle but is keeping deep cover on his plans for the portal. Rumors suggest the three are looking for the portal to release a being of immense power into our world, a event that Mr. Graves is no doubt trying to secretly prevent at all costs. This steam locomotive was originally designed by Anthony Sava but with fake pistons and with small-size friction bearing wheels. I added working pistons and Big Ben Bricks medium flanged and blind driver wheels as see here at Ben's website. In my model, gear wheels are used as stand in for the custom wheels that are not in LDD. Even with the added pistons, the engine easily can go around corners and switches. The rear of the loco. The baggage car is supposed to contain all kinds of mobile equipment for tracking strange type of hyper-matter and ecto-plasmic energy fields, among other things. (In reality, all these cars are empty) The dining car and sleeper. This is where the on board crew sleeps in one car and eats in the other. This car is called the war room. In reality, it's a remodeled business car, turned into a room full of charts and chairs and devices for listening for Sasquatches and detecting dragon smoke. It also messes with enemy listening devices and destroys track-side cameras of passers-by. Can't be too careful with the future of the world on the line! NOTES: In reality, I just wanted to build a small passenger train out of dark blue pieces to match the engine I posted a couple months ago to Flickr. I thought at first about making it for the president of the railway line, but a fictional secret government agency from the 1920's works just as well. Comments, questions, and complaints are always welcome. This train could possibly be built in 2019, but I'll have to see.

A good friend of mine inspired me to build this loco after showing me a hover train from a TV show he watches. I changed it to reddish brown and then ran with the idea from futuristic hover mono-rail to 1930's streamlined Mountain-type steam loco. Other than the hover train from Legend of Korra, this model is not based on any specific prototype, though it bears resemblance to the South Australian Railway 520 class 4-8-4, and the Pennsylvania Railroad T1 Duplex type. This 4-8-2 steam locomotive is actually mostly already built in real life from a disused streamlined model I have lying around, all I have to do is fix the tender and build the cars, since the original cars I had for the engine are being reassigned. The tender is supposed to have "WANDER LINES" as the railway name in printed 1 x 1 tiles and 6847 on the engine's cab walls... but these printed parts are sadly not in LDD. The Combination baggage and passenger car, which I call an "express baggage", though it is actually called a combine in real railroad slang. These three identical coaches were practically copied from my dark green Emerald Express train-set models, but are remade in brown, black, and tan to match the steam engine. This observation car features a rounded rear end, in a stylized homage to the Santa Fe Super Chief series of sets. Comments, Questions, and complaints welcome!

Historical background: The experimental Aerotrain was built by General Motors using hard riding Bus Bodies for coaches, a new untested (and quite complicated) air cushion suspension system, and an under-powered motor originally made for switching locomotives. Two of these trains were built in the 1950's as a way to entice passengers back onto the railroads and out of their automobiles. The hard-coupled unit had one engine and 10 cars attached, including the observation car. These low-slung units toured the United States as a test of it's abilities. Needless to say, it was a tremendous failure. It toured on four roads including the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe, New York Central, Pennsylvania Railroad, & Union Pacific before eventually being sold to the Rock Island for Chicago Commuter Service. In 1966, after less than a decade of service, one locomotive & two cars were sold to the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin, while the other locomotive and two cars were sold to The Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri. The train can come apart (unlike the prototype Aerotrain) into 6 sections: 1 engine, 4 coaches, 1 observation coach. Model Notes: The original train had ten cars, which would be hard to do in Lego (and it's kinda pointless as 9 of then are identical) I have five cars on my train, four identical coaches and one observation coach on the end. My Inspiration for this model came from this Brickshelf account here: http://www.brickshel...ry.cgi?f=497396 and i give 99% of the credit for the model to Brickshelf user enquete-art. The other 1% comes from me, such as the reworked front bogie, front and back windshields, window work and using this numbered tile in red: http://www.bricklink...sp?P=3070bpb063 I used a lot of SNOT to hold the diagonal windows & front engine slopes in place. other than that, it's pretty straight-forward building. I found this picture on Google. It comes from a 1950's General Motors ad for the Aerotrain. It has been used by several different blogs and groups according to my search, so it should be okay to post here. Comments, questions and complaints welcome!

The model seen here is originally based upon the Brick City Depot "Winter Village Train Station", which can be seen here. I recently (2018) updated windows and doors to be white to give better contrast to the other chosen colors, and I extended the platform clock away from the wall and double-sided it so both ends of the station can see it. The following is a fictional backstory on Barretts station that I have written. (Their is a real Barretts station in Missouri, but it looks nothing like this an is not as old as my model is supposed to be. That station's history is nothing like this one!) This station was built in 1901 in Barretts, Missouri for use by Brick Railway Systems. It stands on the old Pacific Railway of Missouri right-of-way, which first ran through the area in the mid-1850's. The station is a wooden structure with a stone fireplace, indoor waiting area, and a freight storage room that was added to the station in 1928. The upper floor is for the telegraph operator, which as of 1977 the telegraph has been replaced with a computer for the dispatcher to locate any train in his sector at any time using advanced software. Here is the street side, with the date the depot was built proudly displayed. The upper floor has the computer for the dispatcher. In true Lego City style, their are no stairs to the top floor. (Though I still need to add the coffee machine up here.....) This is the lower floor, with a waiting room and ticket seller. The freight storage room off to the right was added later in the 1920's, and connects to the station via a door cut into the wall. Two sliding doors allow for cargo to be loaded onto the platform side, or out the street side for loading onto a truck. (This freight room also conveniently features a ramp for wheelchair-bound passengers to ascend into the building.) Here is the modular side of things: One left and one right platform, the station proper, the control room and it's roof are all connected by either pins or a very few studs. As usual, comments questions, and complaints are always welcome! EDITED 2/20/17: Updated the screenshots into real-life pictures. EDITED 7/24/18: Updated the model's real-world pictures and associated text.

I really liked the Winter Village train station when it came out, but it it is so small, with no back wall / roof. I tried for many months and multiple design changes to get it to work, and then I recently stripped away most of the basic framework underneath to give it a cleaner foundation. This last attempt finally gave me the needed inspiration for the model as shown below. This is the result, with the LDD file available here at Bricksafe. I added a freight office, a bathroom (the toilet design was stolen from the Modular Pet Shop set but the sink is my idea) and a "stone" fireplace. Their is a loading dock for the freight section, and two detachable platforms for added track-side length. Most of the rear wall opens up 90 degrees to allow access to the inside, and the roof comes off for viewing the passenger section. The tower should have three of this clock print, while the reddish brown 1 x 4 tile on the rooftop-sign should have this "Mount Clutchmore" print. The rear features a small truck loading platform with sliding door for the freight depot, plus the fireplace. (By the way: the window closest to the staircase is the ticket seller's window.) Here you can see all the many details of this model, including the removable roof, left and right sections of platform, swing open wall and the station itself. This new station might be built at some point in the future to replace my other rural station, of which about 60% of the older one's parts will be use to built this newer model. Fun Fact: This is my first building designed for my own personal LEGO town to include a bathroom! As usual, comments, questions, suggestions and complaints are always welcome!

From 1919 to 1962, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (known as the Milwaukee Road) had these five General Electric-made behemoths pulling trains under the wires from Chicago to Seattle. They were called the Bipolar's for each of the locomotive's 12 motors had only two field poles, mounted directly to the locomotive frame beside the axle. The motor armature was mounted directly on the axle, providing an entirely gear-less design. These locos were so powerful they could out-pull modern steam locos, and what used to take two steamers took just one bipolar. However, after a disastrous 1953 rebuilding by the railroad's company shops (who had no clue how to work on a electric loco) the engines were prone to failures and even fire. And so, in 1962, four of them were scrapped with the lone survivor, numbered E-2, towed to the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis Missouri, where it has sat silent even since, as seen above. The slightly stylized LEGO version of the locomotive was inspired by a 1999 version of the Bipolar electric locomotive built by user legosteveb and by a digital-only design by @Sunder. With this updated, more curvy model, the classic orange and red scheme was impossible, and so as the yellow and red of the previous model type. Thus I was forced to invert the red and yellow to the fictional scheme seen. (The black number boards in front and rear should say "E2" in printed 1 x 1 tiles.0 The loco frame is split in three sections as per the original engine. The front and rear section can pivot slightly to make the engine go around curves. Since the last uploading of this model, the wheels have been re-arranged into two groups of seven (they are joined near the end of the frame, with the exact middle section floating freely between the two ends) and the body of the engine has been extended for a total magnet-to-magnet length of 70 studs. The model should perform well on R40 curves / switches, as this picture attests to it's flexibility.... though until it's built in real life, it will remain untested. The newer model is only 1 plate higher than the previous version, with the same length and width. As you can see, it's my longest single locomotive yet designed with 14 axles total. (I'm not 100% sure my articulation attempts in all the boogies and the frame were enough to work on standard LEGO track, but I guess I'll just have to see when it's built in real bricks latter this year!) The passenger train, and the rear car in particular, were inspired by the Milwaukee Road's Olympian Hiawatha service from Tacoma, Washington to with the rearmost car being a Beaver Tail observation car, which were out of service by 1961. (you can read more about these odd-looking cars here on this Wikipedia page.) Actually, I'm not sure the Beaver-tails were ever used all the way to the West Coast on the Olympian, but since it's LEGO, who really cares! That's all I have done for now, and as usual, questions, complaints, comments and suggestions are always welcome! (real life pictures coming to this topic as soon as possible, but the LDD file for the whole train is available here at Bricksafe)