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Showing results for tags 'road plates'.
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Thought this might be of interest to anyone creating their own City layout or anyone who wants roads to go alongside their modular buildings or city vehicles. I decided to have a go at creating my own road plates as a substitute to the standard ones that Lego produce. You can find PDF patterns available online for printing roads but instead of using those I designed these myself as I wanted them to look pretty close to the real thing. I then used a high quality digital laser printer and printed them on to 400gsm card which is the same stuff often used by commercial printers for printing business cards. Each one is cut to the same size as a standard 32x32 base plate and I rounded the corners which helps to prevent them from getting bent or damaged. The finished roads are quite thick and sturdy but they are thin enough that the edges can be tucked under the base plates on Modulars and other buildings which helps to hold them in place. They can also be overlapped which is useful for fitting around awkward sized buildings that don't fit the standard 32x32 size. I produced quite a few of these and just like the official Lego road plates, they can be arranged in many ways to create different road layouts. They don't have quite the same appeal as the real thing but I'm pretty pleased with the end result. Considering the cost to make these was a tiny fraction of what Lego charge for real road plates, I think this is a good cheap alternative that works well for anyone who hasn't got the space for a large permanent layout. Below are some pictures of my printed roads being used on a small tabletop City layout. Let me know what you think. **EDIT** Please scroll to the bottom of page 1 to see my second attempts at creating a more realistic road design.
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Hey! I just worked up my first Lego layout with Blue Brick, and I was hoping to get some comments and suggestions from some of you. I have a little free time on my hands here presently while we move back to the U.S., so I'm trying to use the time constructively. I'm not real sure of the exact dimensions of the space we'll have, but this layout should more-or-less fit into a medium-sized home's basement, don't you think? What do you think of the size of the layout, does it look too big or small? I think it strikes a good balance between being a decent-sized layout that's big enough to hold what I've got (plus a little room for expansion) without being grounds for divorce. Our son is only three, so I've tried to keep it as accessible as possible from all angles. I'm thinking of making the tables modular, so I can always add in another table in the future when/if we run out of room with this design. I mostly used the 3" x 3" tables in Blue Brick (and added on 1" x 3" tables for the harbor which was something of an afterthought). The table size isn't set into stone. One of my main questions is about the two crossovers between the two main lines. Is there a prettier way to do it? Do I need to get my hacksaw out and cut the switches they presently sell? I'm using PF track so I won't be using the 9V switch tracks with the shorter diverging track, unfortunately. Also, I won't be spending the crazy money that 7996 (Train Rail Crossing) is getting. It's a pity that Lego doesn't sell 7996 any longer as it's a very elegant solution, and I'm also more than a little bummed about the way they package the road baseplates. I won't be purchasing them unfortunately. Guess I'll have to find the time to build my own. Ok, well, thanks in advance for your input. Feel free to post graphics of your layout in this thread as I'd love to see what others have come up with. Oh, for the record; this is the parts list: 4x Right Switches 9x Left Switches 192x Straight Track 43x Curve Track 60x 48x48 Grey Baseplates 13x 32x32 Blue Baseplates and a handful of Flex-track Joe
