My New Train Room

[woofmcmoose]

Hi all, So pleased I have finished refurbishing our 'study' that I wanted to share the results. My girlfriend and I have so many books (mostly hers) and lego (mostly mine ) between us we decided we needed something a bit more fit-for-purpose that the hodgepodge of Ikea furniture we had:

Here is the room stripped out, its about 2.5 x 1.9m :

Starting on a whole wall, built in desk and shelves:

Then the highlight, the train track, which runs at the height of the door frame.

Over the window:

Over the door:

And to add some interest on the wall opposite the desk, over a canyon:

Finally joined it all up last weekend, then spent a few evenings this week constructing the canyon and bridge, which is my first real attempt at 'realistic' (or at least interesting) terrain.

The view from my normal standing height:

From a little higher, so you can see the river:

Canyon wall 1:

And the other wall, I've now exhausted all my grey bricks!!

On the whole I'm pretty happy with how the 'furniture' turned out; woodwork is almost as fun as lego.

The shelves are 16 studs wide the whole way round, then 48 studs wide on top of the bookshelf, so there will be plenty more scenery and a station (or two) added in due course.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

[garethjellis]

what a fun project, it looks good! i am looking forward to seeing the end project photos!

[kieran]

Fantastic, this will be a load of fun for sure, looks great well done

[v6TransAM]

That's cool and you built it yourself.

Debated doing something similar in my Transformers room, since I can literally go around the walls on top of the display cases.

Trying to figure out an arrangement for my 4 yr olds room.

[Technic-Kobaltz]

Love it, look forward to future updates. The scenery under the bridge is spot on. Nice one!!! As for the wood work....

Edited May 17, 2014 by Technic-Kobaltz

[TheLegoDr]

Nicely done. I haven't been into trains too much, but this is a really great idea!

My LEGO room already has built in bookshelves, but they are floor to ceiling, so I wouldn't be able to go on top of them unfortunately. But maybe I can figure something out.

I will be interested to see some updates.

[Hrw-Amen]

Looks good so far, keep us up to date with photographs.

[Man with a hat]

Nice. I have seen trains going over high shelves before, but putting in a bridge like that is a great idea.

[emilstorm]

That is fantastic, makes me wish we had an extra room... Have fun with it

[eurotrash]

Excellent!

Now you just need to knock a few holes in the wall and run it through the rest of the house...

[KringlesBricks]

Excellent!

Now you just need to knock a few holes in the wall and run it through the rest of the house...

X2! ha-ha

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Very nice!

I like the river under the bridge!

[woofmcmoose]

Thanks for the comments!

I took a short video last night from minifig's eye view:

As you can see the scenery is virtually non-existent currently aside from the bridge and my girlfriends first MOD/MOC of cloud cuckoo land. 48x48 plates are on order, so hopefully I'll start on the station, switch yard and other bits above the bookshelf soon. I can see this taking a long time to finish, but the building is fun so don't want it to be over too quickly.

Now you just need to knock a few holes in the wall and run it through the rest of the house...

I did float this idea as the original plan was to put the train round the ceiling of our landing (complete with bridge over the stairs), but my suggestion to do both rooms and have a tunnel through the plasterboard between wasn't received with enthusiasm!

Edited May 18, 2014 by woofmcmoose

[Aaron]

That is a very nice concept you have created. This efficiently maximizes the distance the train can travel given the size of a room, as opposed to a table layout.

[kieran]

What do you do when running, do you have a step to stand on? Or can you see that high from the floor?

[rockethead26]

My LEGO room already has built in bookshelves, but they are floor to ceiling, so I wouldn't be able to go on top of them unfortunately. But maybe I can figure something out.

You could always tunnel through them ;-)

[zephyr1934]

Looks great, though I think you got the ratio of books to lego backwards (grin). The idea of including the bridge is a good one. You might wind up with a few more of those multilayer MOCs before you are done.

[woofmcmoose]

A quick update on progress.

The line is now high speed certified:

In the back of that shot, you may have spotted cloud cuckoo land, well here is a closer look:

It was MOC'd by my girlfriend from the Cloud Cuckoo Palace, the 1x6x5 panels from last years delivery truck, the roof of the City Heavy Lift Helicopter , an Explorien's Hover-tron and a few other bits and pieces. We've not yet had any cat on the line incidents (either Unikitty or my actual cat, who mostly seems puzzled by the trains).

On the opposite side of the room we have a comparatively boring little station:

Meanwhile engineers are busy installing track on the 48x48s on top of the bookshelf, to provide three separate lines:

Integrating the 4.5/12V switches did require the minifig to put his circular saw to work on some spare flextrack.

Emmet and crew are laying down the foundations for some buildings:

Just enough room for two 16x16 modulars with a 3 wide pavement (sidewalk to you Americans) and a 16 wide road (pavement to you Americans?) between that will cross the tracks:

First building is up, a condensed modular petshop:

The second one is going to be a little more special and train related.

And finally some more video action taken during the build:

What do you do when running, do you have a step to stand on? Or can you see that high from the floor?

I can see most of the trains and scenery from standing, though do use a box/chair to turn them on and off and get a better view. When running on the 16 wide sections you can easily see from 1/2 way up the wheels even when sat at the desk.

Oh, and just because I like the photo! Zoooooooooooom:

Edited June 4, 2014 by woofmcmoose

[Dr Leg O Brick]

This is a fantastic idea and extremely well executed! I'm really loving the overall feel and look of the track layout, great concept in regards to how you did the bridge and the river under it. Also great work on the photography and filming of the track, I eagerly await more!

[Redimus]

It's a brave man who test runs his Horizon Express on a line that high for the first speed test... I made the mistake of running a HE loco on it's own fast round my much lower lever track, and had to pretty much rebuild it from scratch afterwards!

[zephyr1934]

Looking good!

Just enough room for two 16x16 modulars with a 3 wide pavement (sidewalk to you Americans) and a 16 wide road (pavement to you Americans?)

Grin, that gave me a chuckle.

[JupiterTwo]

Nice work @WoofMcMoose , you're an inspiration! I'd wondered about doing something like this, great to see a well implemented example. I'll have to work on persuading my girlfriend that it's a good idea, and brush up on my diy skills

[gifinim]

What an excellent use of the space, and it still allows you to display models as well as having a functioning layout. The bridge is a really nice touch!