SavaTheAggie

My LUG-mates are trying to get me to finally pull the trigger on my Yellowstone design. I also have plans for an updated Berkshire. Outside of that, I have many plans for MOCs, but they're more city related than train. --Tony

None of my freight is lubricated, andy locomotives have no gears. Some of them are lightweight, though. --Tony

Texas Brick Railroad displayed at the Texas City Train Festival 2015 this last weekend inside the Texas City Museum. If you ever get a chance to visit, its worth the trip, I think. The Festival was a complete success, and our layout was pretty good. Below are some highlights. Full Gallery TexasCityTrainShow2015_024 by Tony Sava, on Flickr Shadows of the layout from Ed's Berkshire's headlight. And video: --Tony

Thanks all, I really appreciate it. This was a fun change - not building solely on a prototype. It came together pretty quickly, too, in spite of all the plates. Heck - gathering the parts took longer than building it. :) --Tony

Bluebonnet Station by Tony Sava, on Flickr A few weeks ago I posted LDraw images of a station I was designing. I have now finished it in real Bricks, with some changes to the original design. FULL GALLERY Bluebonnet Station 4 by Tony Sava, on Flickr Bluebonnet Station 5 by Tony Sava, on Flickr Bluebonnet Station 7 by Tony Sava, on Flickr Bluebonnet Station 2 by Tony Sava, on Flickr Bluebonnet Station 12 by Tony Sava, on Flickr --Tony

Until ME or someone else comes out with a good gentle switch, I'll be building all of my locomotives to be compatible with standard curves (and thus switches). --Tony

You're going to have to break off bits of the locomotive's frame and attach them to the trucks. When I first started building steam engines I tried to keep things like the couplers and cow catchers attached to the frame, but with LEGO track geometry it just isn't possible. You may even want to consider breaking off parts of the front and back decks as well. EDIT: even moving the pivot point on your trucks as far outward as possible, it'll still cause you headaches turning corners. --Tony

That is a fine piece of work. Its obvious to see the care and attention to detail that went into it. Well done. --Tony

Probably a little of both. But specifically, yes, very very true to the prototype: https://en.wikipedia...rn_Railroad_425 She wasn't always blue, though. The blue is a more recent thing, and even more recently they've moved her headlight to the middle of her nose and the bell where the light was. Personally I'm not a fan, so I'm leaving her as a "point in time" type of MOC. Back in the 90's, this is how she looked. --Tony

Thanks all, I appreciate the comments. I don't recall the gauge of wire I used, I'll have to check when I get home. In the meantime, if anyone's interested, I've created this YouTube video of the new and improved #425 at Brickworld this year. --Tony

Thanks all. TBRR has quite a few members who believe in building giant trees... and it's amazing at how much it can change a layout. And yet we still need more! :) --Tony

FULL GALLERY Blue Mountain and Reading locomotive #425, Pacific class (4-6-2). This is the second version of this locomotive that I've built, a near complete rebuild from the ground up. The only remaining piece from the original model is the front section of the boiler. She's powered by two PF motors in the tender, and is fully track compatible with a fully functional 4 wheeled pony truck. The only custom items are the BBB XL drivers that have been painted blue to match the prototype, and the wire inside the flex tubing to hold its shape. For the curious, here's a photo of my original version: --Tony

Last weekend, Texas Brick Railroad participated in the Galveston Railroad Museum's 2015 Train show. This year we were given an entire room to ourselves, which is a high honor considering what limited space the museum has to offer. This also had the added benefit of keeping us segregated from the other traditional layouts during tear-down, as we are *always* the last to finish and leave. Our display was broken out into three distinct layouts - a fanciful mutli-layer layout by newcomer Joe, a collaborative Town layout, and a collaborative rural/farm layout. Photos are below: Full Photo Gallery Some highlights: Joe's Multi-Layered area (with brick-built monorail on top) GalvestonTrainShow2015_009 by Tony Sava, on Flickr Nathan's construction area GalvestonTrainShow2015_023 by Tony Sava, on Flickr Tim's schoolhouse GalvestonTrainShow2015_057 by Tony Sava, on Flickr The Town: GalvestonTrainShow2015_017 by Tony Sava, on Flickr Taxis waiting for fares GalvestonTrainShow2015_055 by Tony Sava, on Flickr Old MocFiller's Farm grows yet again GalvestonTrainShow2015_030 by Tony Sava, on Flickr Ed's pumpjacks GalvestonTrainShow2015_038 by Tony Sava, on Flickr All hail the Princess Train! GalvestonTrainShow2015_050 by Tony Sava, on Flickr Thriller Night! GalvestonTrainShow2015_052 by Tony Sava, on Flickr --Tony

Thanks all, I appreciate it. --Tony

Thanks all! No, there are no plans for an interior. I don't plan to buy or use many (if any) 1x1 medium blue plates, so its a little rough on the inside. I took inspiration from a single photo of the track side of a station I found in a Google search. But I mainly only took the window placement and basic two story design from it. The color, style, platforms and the street side of the building was all me. --Tony

It started off as a scrap build meant as background filler for train shows, but in the end it turned out better than I thought. I'm sure I'll add more detail ad the months progress and we do more shows, but overall its done. --Tony

Those of you who follow me on Flickr have more than likely already seen this. A few weeks ago I decided to create a station to use up spare medium blue 1x2 plates I picked up off the LEGO Store Pick A Brick wall. What started out being an idea of using up scrap parts became a very involved, relatively detailed build I'm a bit proud of. There's a few bits that need ironing out, a few places where some parts overlap that shouldn't, but nothing that I can't fix in real bricks. So here she is: Bluebonnet Station: And here's the other side (from a slightly earlier version) The next step will be getting all the othe parts collected (including more medium blue 1x2s :P) --Tony

I worked up a BlueBrick version of the layout. It should be mostly accurate, but it hasn't been vetted by my club. --Tony

Wow, thank you all for your exceptionally kind words. I've provided my club the link to this thread, since not all of them visit Eurobricks. We really appreciate it. Those are official LEGO leaves. That's quite the compliment, thank you. No automated controls. Ed's just crazy enough to chase trains with other trains. The layout was something like 30x10 feet. I don't remember the exact dimensions. TBRR does not have a club house, and none of us have our own layouts at home. We only get to play when we get together at displays. You are much too kind, thank you. We ended up not going with the Kam Konnects. They were simply too expensive. We went with an in-house solution - one of our members is a carpenter by hobby and trade, and created some really fantastic tables for us. They're designed to be 3x6 baseplates, but are only about 2.5 inches tall when the legs are folded, and weigh about 22 lbs. For a table - that's just awesome. --Tony

Thanks all, it was a fun layout - lots of nice long stretches and gentle curves to really put the speed queens in our fleet through their paces. The Daylight wants to run so fast I have to slow her down, not because she'll derail on the ME curves, but simply because I'm afraid she will (I ran her two full laps at full speed with 7 or 8 passenger coaches - that was a lot of fun - scary, but fun). They fall apart in transit too easily, but once they're assembled and put in place they are awesome. I ran some of my biggest engines through at top speed and nothing happened - no derailment, no buckling, no issues of any kind. Setup and tear down went pretty quick, too. The minutia is easy for us for no other reason than - we've done it before. A lot of the detail is already installed and just get put down in place. Half of the minifigs and other details have "their place", so we simply put them down where they go. The rest just get sprinkled around. The flowers and trees get placed in empty spots, special figs like Wall-E and Eve are always paired together and get placed where kids can find them. This layout took us about two days to set up chronologically, but we weren't working the whole time, and once the vehicles are unloaded, the tables set up, and track and buildings are all out (2-4 hours), we usually just take our time with the rest. We usually keep adding to layouts, here and there, until an hour before tear down anyway. :) --Tony

Members from Texas Brick Railroad (TBRR) were in attendance of last weekend's Brick Fiesta 2015 in Austin, TX. Our layout was our largest to date, and featured 5 independent loops of track, two of which used no standard LEGO curves. For a short period of time, we had a record 6 trains running simultaneously (technical difficulties prevented it from lasting longer). Here are some photos: FULL GALLERY The Rock Cut Old MocFiller's depot and Tower 17 (Partially new to TBRR) Expanded Old MocFiller's Farm (partially new to TBRR) A Grand Curve Industrial Row (new to TBRR) and the Princess Train (which won Best Train) Jeff's Internet Cafe (new to TBRR) Rear of the Posh Emporium (new to TBRR) Brownstones! Tim's Schoolhouse (new to TBRR) Five independent loops of track Happy Little Trees --Tony

Thanks all, you're very kind. I did, indeed, change the loading dock. I'm much happier with it now. Much better by Tony Sava, on Flickr Yes, this and many of my newest builds will be incorporated into Texas Brick Railroad's layout at Brick Fiesta 2015 next week. Without the risk of hyperbole this has the potential to be our best layout yet. Not a bad idea. I'll look to adding something to the roof. I'm not sure it'll get done before Brick Fiesta, though. Yes, I can feel your hatred. Soon your training will be complete. Give yourself to the track side! Do not underestimate it's power! :) --Tony

I don't know where I downloaded the photo of the model I used for inspiration, otherwise I'd post a link to it, and I'm not willing to upload it because I don't have permission. However, the palisade log bricks are representing corrugated metal walls. The middle section is made of bricks, so I used 1x2 tan plates. I may go back and replace the front and back (but not the sides) with plates. I only have the one photo of the side, but looking at the source image the facade might be all brick. --Tony

In a continuing effort to have more buildings and "stuff" that "interacts" with the trains on our layouts, I've built this warehouse. It's designed to be able to stand alone, or be modular building compatible. I based it off of a photo of a traditional model railroad scale building, and I've mostly built it out of a combination of scrap parts, club stock, and "stuff I bought off the PaB wall because I might need it one day". I'm not happy with the length of the platform, and once I get my hands on some 1x3 brown tiles and more plates I can make it a bit longer, but I can't extend it too much more without encroaching on other areas. Warehouse #7 by Tony Sava, on Flickr Warehouse #7 by Tony Sava, on Flickr --Tony

Thank you all. My build table has been a mess, so I haven't had a chance to take any better photos of it. No, it doesn't have an interior, though it does have a floor. The roof is a little fragile, so I'm not sure an interior would be all that accessible anyway. --Tony