witchy

I have not worked with them, but Buildamoc seems like it could be relevant. They'd obviously take their own cut, but they offer a service where designers can contract with Buildamoc to handle the physical side, including printing stickers, and the designer receives a commission from the sale, which sounds like it could be a good match for what you need.

The instructions and parts list for the DM3 are out: https://drive.proton.me/urls/PQ8AG1JEXM#mDI70r4fpIh0

The wheels on the DM3 are custom (Breckland Bricks medium), and the rods are Breckland Bricks too. Everything else apart from the electronics is Lego. On the DM1U and the BE2 the wheels are normal Lego train wheels.

Cute!

Next in line turned out to be the BE2 battery-powered microshunter, very similar to LEW EL 16 but with a different cab design in the game. Doing the cab corners for this one was very interesting, with the small dimensions leaving litttle space for the complicated angles. This little thing is powered with a Studly Trains micro motor and a Circuit Cubes battery, with a 2:1 gearing ratio further slowing it down appropriately for simple shunting tasks.

I ended up also making DM1U, an old railbus that was turned into a utility vehicle for the railway company. Motorised with circuit cubes, designed for compatibility with both Kadee and magnet couplers, non-driven rear axle is intened to be compatible with ball bearings, and an unpowered build can be done without any third-party parts. There is one illegal connection (slight interference of stud logo) in the front, otherwise I'm not aware of illegal or particularly sketchy techniques. The printed tiles on the sides are designed to be easily replaceable by a sticker on a 1x3 brick instead. The roof is offset towards the rear by half a plate to create a refined shape:

This is a bit of an old question, and my apologies for only getting to it over a year later, but fundamentally there isn't that much one can do. If the usage of a large number of expensive baseplates is the problem, one option is to use a different, non-Lego material for the scenery. One example of this is the Corfe Castle station layout. Another solution is to only install baseplates under the track (or eschew baseplates altogether, and just use plates to build ballast and a small amount of trackside scenery): In this example the 90 degree curve is divided into sections, with 3 intermediate sections featuring 2 R88/R104 curves each, and a baseplate aligned to studs on the border of those curves. It may be necessary to shift the baseplates outwards slightly (leaving 5-6 studs of margin on the outside of the curve, compared to the normal 4 studs) as I haven't tested this build and this Bluebrick diagram is only an approximation. The gaps between the baseplates can be filled with wedge plates, or by overlapping layers of tiles at the border. If the problem is the space the curves take, one can either use tighter curves, possibly using transitions to make them look more graceful (but the transitions themselves always make curves take more space than a uniform-radius curve with the same apex tightness would), or do something other than curves. One option for tight curves is to hide them inside a tunnel, like in Ararat 1972: A variant of this with a double track and less hidden track can be done by starting a loop with gentle curves that disappear into a tunnel, where tight unseen curves turn the train around in small amounts of space: This works on the basic R40 geometry principle of substituting one straight for two opposed curves, and then a number of curves from the entrance side is replaced by wider-radius ones. The beauty of this pattern is that as long as both tracks replace the same number of R40 curves with the same type and number of curves in the same order (e.g. R184 followed by R136 and then R104, replacing one R40 section) , the track spacing will always work out the same. However, a loop isn't actually necessary. A point-to-point layout can be extremely narrow, while still retaining plenty of functionality. There is also a trick where instead of building a loop for trains to go around, they can disappear into a tunnel and reverse inside the tunnel, emerging from another side as if they had gone around a loop. I have a compact example with all curves R40, but if there is sufficient space available this concept would primarily benefit layouts with large radius curves and switches: At the top is a layout with similar features, inside a R40 loop. Underneath it is my concept for a layout that could represent e.g. a harbour on a mountainous coastline, with the harbour yard and its separate loading track on the left, a freight station on the right, and an engine shed on the upper right above the station. The tan baseplates denote hidden areas, where the trains running on the red mainline disappear through the black tunnel entrances. In the backstage area (also known as a fiddle yard) a train of up to 80 studs in length (in this design) can reverse and emerge from the other tunnel (as shown by the black arrows), or the locomotive can go around its wagons, rotate on the hidden turntable (purple circle), push its train back, and return from the same tunnel it entered, going in the opposite direction. The backstage also allows the operator to set up trains "out of sight", without interfering with the "presentation area". These trains can then perform shunting operations on the display part of the layout before taking a new train to "the rest of the world". With R40 curves and switches, there is actually no space saving compared to a R40 loop. However, if the radius of all curves and switches is increased to e.g. R104, and the trains are lengthened to 160 studs, the layout doesn't actually need to get any wider to accommodate this, while a loop would take 7x22 baseplates instead of 3x22:

For the outer curve my calculator is giving 65.24 for the long axis and 57.53 for the short axis. With the 9 studs of straights added, the total dimension on the long side is 74.24. The lengths are off by 2.24 and 1.53 relative to the normal grid, which is why you're seeing so much tension in the tracks. The inner curve is 46.12 (55.12 with straights) and 41.22, or off by -0.9 and 1.22 relative. Without using even tighter pieces (R32 for the inner loop) it's impossible to get the U-turn to fit in R40/R56 space on the short axis without the use of a couple of flex track sections. If you're fine with using R32 for the inner loop, you can get a close match to R40 by using: R88 R72 R56 half-curve R40 R32 R32 R32 R40 R56 half-curve R72 R88 This has a short axis length of 39.78 which is a half-plate off from R40, and the long axis length is 56.79 which is 0.8 studs more than standard. By using two S1.6 straight sections you can get the offset to +4, meaning that S4 and S8 will even it out to exactly standard dimensions. For the outer loop you could use: R104 R88 R72 R72 R56 R40 R40 R56 R72 R72 R88 R104 This is 56.09 on the short axis, and 75.34 on the long axis, or +3.3. With S1.6, S3, and S8 you would get back to the grid. If you don't want to use R32 for the inner loop, my next recommendation would be to use Rn44 which makes the gap between the tracks 4 studs instead of 8, which can then be brought back to the grid with either a dedicated S curve or with a S8, S4, Rc1, Rc1, R104, R104 assembly: R88 R72 R56 (half) R40 R40 R40 R40 R40 R56 (half) R72 R88 This is 44.22 on the short axis, close enough to Rn44 to not be an issue, and 58.13 on the long axis. If you use the R104 assembly, you can replace the 2x Rc1 with just a S1.6 to get back on the grid using S8, S4, S1.6, R104, R104. If you use the S-curve, you'd simply need S8, S4, S2 to be aligned. However, this option has the risk that trains on the inner and outer loop may hit each other at the spots where the tracks are closer, depending on their width and how they overhang in the curves. It'd need to be tested with your particular rolling stock to be sure. If your trains are 6-wide as pictured, the risk should be pretty low.

Trixbrix sells 2 stud gap switches. The 7 stud gap between the outer track and the middle track looks like a more inconvenient thing to accommodate, but not impossible. And it looks incredibly easy to move that track over by 1 stud to align it with the standard gaps if desired. The track isn't at MILS height to begin with, so someone wanting to use it in a MILS-based layout would have to build an adapter anyway, or alter the build to raise the track level. And if one is doing that, one might as well shift the track over and move the build's location relative to the modules too. Personally I find slavish adherence to The Standard Grid aesthetically unsatisfying. An 8-stud gap is too wide to make visually appealing double tracks or rail yards (and wasteful of space in the latter case), and a bit too narrow for station platforms for 8-wide trains (that in practice require at least 10 studs of clearance). With trains and buildings that are made with beautiful, realistic detail, willingly restricting oneself to toylike track geometries with R40 on the 90-degree grid is just immense waste of potential. The non-standard track spacing is a bit more challenging to work with, but also elevates these designs above the Lego-designed train sets. Studgate station would not look as good with an 8 stud gap between the tracks. The old train engine shed is an example where the 8 stud gap actually works and looks good, but not every pair of tracks can have the wall of an engine shed between them. I think focusing too much on accommodating the simplest track alignments would detract from the appeal quite severely. This design, the way it is, looks stunning precisely because it uses a tighter spacing for the inner tracks, instead of making a giant empty space between them or cutting the inner tracks down to a single one. That being said, spacings of 4 studs and 8 studs would be more practical. 4 stud gaps can be easily achieved with both dedicated switches, and with various combinations of R104 pieces, and the extra space would reduce the risk of wider trains hitting each other (in particular, nominally 8-wide steam locomotives whose rod and valve assemblies can often reach quite far to the sides) and look almost as nice and sharp as the 2 stud gap.

I actually tried making a Class 03 with the same chassis, but various proportions are just too inaccurate in this one so I rejected it. As an example, in Class 03 the rear axle should be behind the front of the cab, unlike in the DM3 where it is slightly forward of the cab. I find that these small shunters are really sensitive to subtle proportions or else they will look just wrong in some way or other.

The build is designed to be reasonably sturdy and swooshable (the best place to grab is by the grey plates just front of the rear axle), while partially disassembling in sections held in place by only 3 studs at most to give reasonably easy access to the battery: There are very few, if any, illegal connections (the protruding contacts on the battery's corners are accommodated by the cab sides being slightly rotated outwards), and apart from the issue of the ladders and side rods (and some slight flimsiness in the cab near the ladders as I accidentally ordered the wrong parts and had to substitute tiles where the design called for 41740 modified plates) there aren't any obvious structural weaknesses or parts that could fall off easily.

The wheels are Breckland Bricks, size M/#7 with traction bands (4 flanged, 2 blind). I'm not sure if the traction bands are entirely necessary; the locomotive weighs 319 grams and the cubit motor stalls instead of slipping the wheels, but I haven't bothered testing it without them. Being able to slip the wheels would be prototypical, but being limited by torque instead of adhesion is more practical. Other suppliers' wheels may also work, if they have the correct spacing of the pin holes to match the 32530s I used for the jackshaft counterweights. The model is a as-precise-as-I-could recreation of the in-game vehicle so the colour was chosen by the developers: The 1x1 rounded SNOT piece becoming available in light bluish grey was actually one major motivation to revisiting this build. I had made an earlier, 8-wide version whose proportions I was never quite happy with, so when I saw that I could make the lights I wanted I redesigned it according to precise scale measurements. The main missing detail is the air cylinders on the sides, where there just isn't enough room for something that would do them justice. Otherwise the 7-wide build didn't really cause any major problems, and means that the locomotive would look appropriately small next to matching 8-wide rolling stock. I also tried making a BR Class 03 version of the same chassis, but found that the proportions are actually almost entirely different in subtle ways that would've required through redesign of the frame and drivetrain.

In motion Derail Valley is a pretty fun train simulator game where you try to avoid getting into trouble while running trains in an environment practically designed to get you into trouble with unreasonable curves, unpredictable weather, uncomfortable gradients, and inconsistent speed limits. You do every task yourself, from setting points to keeping your locomotive fueled, and the time pressure of earning bonuses encourages exciting, reckless and absolutely unsafe practices (surely I can leave two trains running unattended while I couple up another group of wagons, what's the worst that could happen?). The DM3 resembles the BR Class 03 (and 04) in its layout, but is significantly heavier (around 50t) , stronger (360kW engine power), and faster (roughly 60km/h top speed). Its combination of two 3-speed gearboxes has given it a somewhat undeserved reputation as being difficult to drive, and makes the locomotive capable of pulling unreasonably heavy trains as long as it doesn't need to pull them uphill faster than walking speed. DM3 guide on youtube The model is built to BMR standards: 1:48 scale, making the model 7 studs wide, and compatible with both Kadee and magnet couplers at their standard positions. The physical build is still a bit WIP with the Kadee couplers being on their way from across the pond, and I might adjust some details a bit. Instructions, studio file and parts list will be published once I'm satisfied with the physical build. The model is powered by a Circuit Cube motor with a 12:20 gearing and uses Breckland Bricks wheels and rods. Third-party wheels are necessary for the build; third-party rods can be replaced with ones built from thin liftarms. The wheels must have their pinholes at the correct distance from the axle, so wheels from other suppliers (e.g. Big Ben) may or may not be compatible. The rods at the jackshaft end would fit behind the ladders just fine by the dimensions, but they are slightly bent outwards and there is enough play in the 3/4 pins to let them sometimes hit the ladder. The lights are LifeLites NanoLite LEDs on Circuit Cube adapters. The build is mostly pretty straightforward, with some elements that are trapped between other parts to hold them in place. The motor is installed between the middle wheels, the battery is in the cab, and the wiring and adapters for the lights have dedicated space under the bonnet but are fiddly to install. The cab roof and bonnet top are designed to detach easily to allow access to the battery. The cost is around £50-60 for the bricks, £30 for the rods and wheels, £35 for the circuit cubes, and £30-35 for the lights. Studio files, instructions and parts list are at: https://drive.proton.me/urls/PQ8AG1JEXM#mDI70r4fpIh0

My preference for sizing wheels is usually from the top of the rail to the top of the flange. If it doesn't create a problem with the front-to-back spacing (and in the case of steam locomotives, alternating flanged and blind drivers generally fixes that) it gives a good vertical spacing, and the slightly off axle positions can be covered with the external frame of the bogie by placing the bearing boxes a bit higher for visual effect. As a result, a standard #5 wheel represents 6.5 plates or very precisely 950-1000 mm in 1:48 (38"-40"). Recently I've been playing around with concepts for sprung bogies though, which are their own can of worms, requiring additional vertical clearance in exchange for the theoretically improved running qualities and making the design of flatcars extremely challenging. For extra accurate bogies, custom #4 (or even #3) wheels are great. Otherwise when working on normal gauge I try to design to accurate BMR scale on all axes (~1:48, meaning 7 wide for UK, 8 wide for US or continental Europe, and up to 9 wide for Nordic countries), and recess the top flanges of the wheels if using standard sizes. In 1:64 scale I sometimes use custom wheels in #2-#4 sizes, and choose their sizes more based on the overall effect relative to the other parts of the build, prioritising proportional consistency and physical practicality over exact dimensions. The main exception is the BMR intermodal standard, which sacrifices some accuracy for more versatility in building techniques. Consistency with the standard is far more valuable to me than slight imprecision in the proportions (and building containers with corrugated sides in 6.4 studs wide would be an almighty pain).

Love that Tm''. There is just something special about building cute little things in this scale. For the wheels, I've found that measuring wheels from the top of the rail to the top of the flange (or in other words, the average of the tread-to-tread and flange-to-flange diameters) seems to work best in my designs. It means that the axles would tend to be a little lower than on the prototype (as the midpoint between the rail and the top is half a plate above the wheel's actual axle) but it gives a reasonably prototypical appearance and vertical clearance from other parts. As a result, for 950mm wheels (~4.75 plates) the closest manufactured size would be 4.5 plates from rail to top, or 3.5 plates tread diameter. That would be a custom #3 wheel, but mounting #2 wheels a bit lower tends to work fine for me. If you can, I'd try raising the coach by half a plate compared to the original, instead of a full plate. Possibly the locomotive by half a plate as well. Small differences like that can be really significant in this scale, and I've had to do some awful things in my builds to get the half-plate offsets where I want them to be.

My smallest 4 wide models are designed to use a Studly Trains micromotor and a deltang controller with a small, generic LiPo battery. This is unfortunately more involved than just plugging things together, but it’s the most compact way I’ve found to motorise truly 4 wide models. The circuit cube motor can be just as suitable, if the battery and controller question can be solved.

I would do LBG+DBG; even if the DBG is lighter than the IRL colour, the contrast with other locomotives with black parts would make this one more distinctive. The second picture especially looks quite close to the LBG+DBG combination so it wouldn't even be much of a stretch. The one place where I think black parts have a place would be in the inner structure of the frame, behind the DBG details, to represent them being shadowed and slightly highlight the contrast with the LBG top. Combine that with a tasteful application of pearl dark grey and suitable silver on the cylinders, running gear etc. and I think it's going to look pretty striking.

I've upgraded Stephenson's Rocket with a number of improvements, including chimney stays (a regular Lego string) and improvements around the cylinders, especially the feedwater pump on the right cylinder which is now using a golden crowbar. Also, a brickbuilt stretch of accurate L&MR track as a display stand. More photos at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/198768132@N07/albums/72177720311012954 Studio file and instruction PDF at: https://drive.proton.me/urls/JA2SWZJ9YR#cDelYZR44v0W

Alright, so the most established definition of midi scale as a well-defined thing would be 5 plate tall figs, meaning it would be better to have yet another name for the 1:64 scale with 8 plate tall figs. It's getting hard with all these scale names , what even would be between minifigs and "midi"?

Oh, interesting. Midi scale is not a term I've heard before; it appears to be generally somewhat ill-defined with "midi scale" spaceships ranging wildly in their actual scale, with the only uniform factor being that they're a "convenient size" smaller than minifig scale but larger than microscale. I guess in that sense my relatively precisely defined 1:64/1:62.5 counts as a "midi scale", being a convenient size smaller than minifig scale L-gauge but larger than the HOish 4wide, or 2wide micro trains. Your well-defined 3wide (which seems to translate to a scale around 1:100-120) midi scale work is neat; I especially like the "studs towards end" solution to the SNOT details on the Chicago Metra passenger coaches.

The model is highly recognisable and the thoroughness of the detailing is impressive, especially with how I don't see any obviously illegal or particularly dubious connections. I particularly like the use of bucket handles as shades over the windows, and the side rods are quite nicely built too. However, some of the shapes are pretty blocky, especially near the lower front. For the cylinders I'd consider using 3386 brick round 1x1x2/3 with side stud with a 1x1 cheese slope on top to represent the characteristic shape of the I K, although this would make the cylinders all black. The size of the central buffer also seems similar to the cylinders in the prototype, so the 1x2 rectangle looks a bit big and square. A piece like 79194 plate 1x1 with bar handle (held in a clip by the handle) or 20482 tile round 1x1 with bar (bar inserted into a jumper hole) might give you a closer representation of the prototype in this regard.

L&MR trains obviously need some proper L&MR track to run on. Using jumpers for sleepers loosely inspired by Hod Carrier's brickbuilt narrow gauge track, but with a completely different general structure. The track on the left is easy to make and trains can run on any adjacent pair of tracks (legend says the L&MR track was designed to allow that for oversized loads at off-peak hours, but not all sources agree on what exactly the gauge of the central pair was). The track on the right lines up correctly with stud spacing and is compatible with standard narrow gauge tracks, but the central pair is too narrow for train wheels to fit properly. Edit: This version lines up with studs even on the outer plates, but the ballast bed ends up wider.

Regarding the drivetrains, here is my standard solution from Planet, a variant of which is also used by John Bull and the Lafayette-ish Norris. The brown goo is tungsten putty from a fishing supplies store, which appears to be by far the best material for ballasting (Planet has about 35 grams of plastic and motor, and I've ballasted it up to 70 grams total weight so far, and it still needs more to be motor-limited rather than adhesion-limited). It sticks to itself more than it sticks to ABS, so you can fill all reasonably accessible cavities in a reversible way as any residue can be swabbed off with a small ball of putty held by fine tweezers. The axle also doesn't need to be metal, I just tried it as another source of ballast (the small bevel gear is also metal, adding another 0.4ish grams to the loco). The mine cart wheels seem like a significant bottleneck due to their apparently extremely high resistance, so I'm waiting for an order of custom #2 wheels to see if it can be fixed by using Technic axles instead. If even technic axles fail to yield a significant improvement, custom ball bearing wheelsets using 18677 to hold the bearings could be the ultimate solution.

Just waiting for a few Bricklink orders to finish so I can photograph the physical builds in proper configuration. I'm also planning on making instructions for each model available to the public as soon as I'm done tinkering with each and have checked that they work physically. Also, a Norris 4-2-0 (aesthetically based off B&O Lafayette but not to precise scale: e.g. the drivers are too large when counting the flange, which I usually do in this scale, beause the front truck won't work properly if I use smaller wheels; the boiler is also a bit too short based on a quick search, but I didn't want to add another stud to the length due to proportions and structural considerations). This is also motorisable and the tender has been designed with electronics space in mind. I'm expecting it to have the best running characteristics of the locomotives I've made so far, as Planet and John Bull suffer from short wheelbases which reduces the weight available for adhesion and makes ballasting more challenging. I'm slightly concerned about the sturdiness of the driver mounting in this one though (nowhere near as sturdy as Planet, which is rock solid) as my earlier experiments with 0-4-0s showed that the motor loves to tear driver mounts apart. In the worst case I can add an ugly but functional set of external frames like in John Bull, but that would severely detract from the aesthetic.

I managed to figure out something reasonably satisfactory for the Camden & Amboy Railroad John Bull and its tender. The front truck is functional and the tender should have a reasonable amount of space for battery and radio equipment.