BricksMcgee

Very nice, suggests a small British railway station nicely. What’s the inspiration behind the name of the station, “Steward’s Rest?”?

Beautiful model - stood out for me!

I have bags of one of the original runs I’ve never used. If you’re U.K. based happy to part with them for a decent price.

Probably not this year. We’ve posted quite a few entries on the Twitter / Facebook / Instagram accounts and are planning to continue this for at least a few more weeks though - all accounts linked on the website linked in the OP. Yup, would agree. Pure builds is the ultimate aim, but I doubt LEGO would every produce rods and wheels to the designs we’d need. That seems a fair balance to me

I’ve seen a lot of cool LEGO railway models this year already thanks to this. We hope to post quite a few more of the entries we received over time too. Some of them truly take LEGO modelling in to the next level - the customisation, stickers, printing - it’s hard to tell they’re LEGO, and I think that’s what I find impressive! I’d say there’s a fine line between “just enough” and “too much” customisation, of course. I’m just not sure where that line is.

Hi all, The winners of the Brick Train Awards 2020 have been announced (there's a 15 minute announcement video if you prefer that), so here's a round up of the global winners (you can find winners in each category for Americas, Asia, Australasia and Europe linked there too); Best steam locomotive P2 “Prince of Wales” Samuel Sims Australia, Australasia Just a stunning model - all of the details and customisations made this the standout entry in a category with a lot of tough competition. I love the use of the bucket handles and the lining particularly. Best diesel locomotive Bangor & Aroostook Diesel Alexander Geary USA, Americas A superb rendition of this American loco - particularly impressive tube bending, as mine always end up messy! Best LEGO® Electric Locomotive Alstom Pendolino ED250 PKP Intercity Mateusz Waldowski Poland, Europe This was one of my personal favourites, and I'm glad it came through from the Europe region to win best global electric locomotive. The shaping work is beautiful, and the nose is well captured - definitely a hard profile to replicate in LEGO bricks! Best Other LEGO® Locomotive Narrow Gauge Climax Geared Loco Alexander McCooke Australia, Australasia Another standout model for me - it looks like its real life prototype so closely; it looks like an O Gauge model to me at a distance. Best LEGO® Passenger Wagon Amtrak Amfleet II Andy Tanjaroon USA, Americas One of three digital renders to make it through to the global awards, the profile of this passenger car is really nicely captured - I'd love to see it built in the brick. Best LEGO® Freight Wagon GATX Tanker Wagon Mateusz Waldowski Poland, Europe Another European win for this superb tanker wagon. The undercarriage details are nicely done, and the few smaller stickers/vinyls give it that little bit extra. Wouldn't mind a rake of these to run at home! Best TFOL Model JR西日本125系電車 / JR West 125 series Y.Higashibata Japan, Asia The TFOL awards was one of my favourite categories, as it bought out so much hidden talent I hadn't seen before. This render of a Japenese unit is superb; lovely shaping, and the cab front work leaves a smooth finish for some challenging angles. Best LEGO® Group Display MLTC Display Melbourne LEGO Train Club Australia, Australasia Not sure there's not surprise at this one - the MTLC layout at Brickvention each year is a huge collaborative work, and each section is beautifully detail - the photo above shows only half of the layout! Best LEGO® Individual Display 2020 City Tim Howell USA, Americas A lovely little city display - custom cars, vans, buildings and locos, and it looks more finished than my LEGO cities every did! This one has inspired me to set my own city up again - it's been 6 months since I moved house and much of my LEGO city is still in boxes! Best LEGO® Structure Blast furnace Yvonne Strijbos Netherlands, Europe This was another "wow" model when I saw the entry come in. The above shot is a render, but the builder has also built it in the brick, and it's a lovely piece of railway infrastructure - a lot going on in a relatively small space. Thanks to everyone who entered this year - and we have the happy news that the Brick Train Awards will return for 2021 in February/March, to allow contestants time to enter OcTRAINber too. We'll be looking at adapting and adding some categories to better suit model entries, as well as a few other changes based on feedback we've had.

Hi everyone, Imagine most people have seen them elsewhere, but results for the Brick Train Awards 2020 are now online at bricktrainawards.com/winners/brick-train-awards-2020.

Thanks, still plenty to do - a few rows of terraced houses are on the list, but not sure when we can access the model to continue at the moment, as it's stored in a friend's warehouse when not at shows. Hopefully later this year... Thanks - good shot of the Pendolino there!

Thanks - that’s our aim. We run mostly British locos and stock from many eras, and wanted a nice backdrop to run them on. Thanks! Still lots to do, but it’s a good start. Stockpiling parts for our next modules at the moment.

Hi all, Realised I have quite a backlog of displays and photos to share, so here's another one for you - Darrington LEGO Railway layout. This is currently our club's main display layout, and measures around 15ft x 12ft, or 4.5m x 3.4m in a doughnut configuration to allow space for operators in the centre. The photos here are from its last outing (thanks to COVID!) at Shildon Brick Show, held at Locomotion, a railway museum in the North East of England and part of the National Railway Museum here in the UK. The display has 4 operational lines ("Up" fast and slow, "Down" fast and slow), and centres around Darrington Station (below), which is accessed from a road bridge. This station is loosely based on Loughborough Central station on the Great Central Railway heritage line here in the UK. Darrington Station (labelled as Paxley, which we've since changed!), featuring the ticket office at road bridge level, and the waiting room on the platform. Darrington Station from the road bridge. Following the railway in this direction, we pass an abandoned wagon body, and approach Darrington Sheds. Darrington Sheds provides some basic facilities for steam locomotives, with a water tower and coal bunker for crews to use. Opposite the sheds sit some allotments - which British model railway would be complete without some?! Following the track around again in a clockwise fashion, we reach the final completed module, Felpersham TMD, a depot for more contemporary locomotives: LNUR is a cooperative of LEGO train fans - I built the majority of the landscape you can see here, and members contributed their locos and rolling stock for the weekend.

Good job - looks like the prototype. Nice choice of livery, too!

Love the curve of the roof - that's really satisfying to look at!

Aha, another lurker :) That'd be great, thanks Scott.

Good question, and one I don't know the answer to - I would suspect you can't trade them, as they're being gifted.

Really nice - even without moving rods it looks the part!

Thanks. Yep, I know our members have been disappointed about lack of shows this year (as have I), but understandable given the situation. We plan to add the winners to a new section of the website, this might include some runners-up too. We're posting a good handful on Facebook / Twitter too. They can be models of any age, no restrictions on when the model was built.

Yep, we found quite a lot from Pick A Brick walls in stores, and ended up buying some in bulk from Europe too. I used to live in Mountsorrel, Leicestershire. Small world! Thanks. I think this is going to remain a standalone display, but with more (potential) display modules to add in the future. We could length the section in the middle, or expand it at the Paxley end; we've had an idea for a seaside scenic section similar to Dawlish, which is enticing to me. The Angel of the North is one of the favourite things I've built - took a few iterations, but got there in the end. I keep meaning to get round to making one at twice the scale...

Thanks - it's a technique I really like and doesn't add a huge amount of time to set up / tear down. It's documented in more detail here, if you're interested - essentially, tracks are raised by 2 plates and we spread the ballast over the track. It takes a bit of running in - it can get caught in points in the the running space a loco needs, but it's usually fine after 15 minutes or so.

Hi all, The Brick Train Awards are new virtual, worldwide awards for LEGO train fans. The event is a collaboration between LNUR, the UK LEGO train club, and Brick Model Railroader in the US. In our first year, we have 10 categories: Best steam loco Best diesel loco Best electric loco Best "other" loco (for narrow gauge / smaller / larger scaled models) Best passenger wagon Best freight wagon Best TFOL (Teenage Fan of LEGO) model - this can be a loco, wagon or display Best individual display Best group display Best building/ structure Each entry is judged at a regional level (Americas, Asia, Australasia and Europe - we hope African LEGO fans can join us next year), and then a global winner for each category is awarded from those. We have a few prizes for our winners, as well as an exclusive Brick Train Awards winner’s brick, thanks to our really generous sponsors, including TrixBrix, BrickTracks, BMR, and BrickTrainDepot. Entry to the awards is free, and you can enter up to 3 models per category. Entry closes on July 10th 2020. Other rules are explained on the Brick Train Awards website at bricktrainawards.com. Questions welcome, but our FAQ hopefully covers almost all eventualities! For those who don’t fancy taking part, the awards Facebook page and Twitter account is posting a sample of entries which showcase some excellent train builders from around the world. Richard

Thanks - that was sort of the look I was going for. Used to live near the Great Central Railway as a child! It's brilliant - belongs to Isaac Smith (aka Smith Movies). His 121 Bubblecar ran on the layout too - looked fantastic! Thanks - I suppose the benefit of a smaller layout than normal is it gave me more time to think about smaller details. I've since added some hedges near the level crossing, and a water tower and coal bunker at the Ambridge end too.

Good point! EB missed our initial sweep of places LEGO train fans hang out, so should correct that I’ll post something in the next day or so.

Thank you. It’s been a pleasure to see so many models, and interact with many members of the LEGO train community I haven’t met yet, too. OcTRAINber is still going ahead - this won’t replace it - BMR guys put a lot of effort in to that too!

Hi all, It’s been quite a while since I contributed to the forum, nice to see it’s still so active! Ambridge & Paxley (few more photos, a track plan, and a video of the layout on this page) was a new type of display for me - an 18ft long end-to-end railway, with a station at either end, and connected by a single line. We usually run looped track which requires less effort to run during shows. It is also only 48 studs deep - I wanted to see what I could achieve with a much narrow scenery depth than I’d usually start with. The layout is based on a fictional rural branch line, with Ambridge being the terminus station and Paxley a through station (in future - it was a terminus for the purpose of its first show earlier this year). All of my station/display names are taken from villages and towns in the BBC’s “The Archers”, a long-running radio serial here in the UK. Between the station sits a small valley, home to the River Am and Ambridge Cricket Club.

That’s really kind, but we don’t really have a mechanism for that at the moment! Me too - so many brilliant models. I don’t think we’ll get to post them all, something we’ll have to work out a solution for if we want to run it again.

Thanks! I think the imbalance in prizes is a relevant thing we can look at next year (if we've recovered by then to run something again!), but it really depends on what the sponsors are willing to offer. As I said above, TrixBrix have been awesome on the European side, helping us out with shipping of other prizes too - not a cheap thing to do for 10 winners in Asia and Australasia each. We're not making a profit from the event, just covering costs (in fact, our LNUR train club is funding the winners' brick prints from our membership subs for Europe and Asia) - we initially discussed a small entry fee for the awards (e.g., $1) to help cover prizes, but our aim was to keep it free to be as inclusive as possible. I'm really enjoying seeing the entries: I'm blown away by some of them (which we're sharing some of over on the Brick Train Awards Facebook page), and it's amazing that so many of these builders seem to build in isolation from the community. Definitely agree on vendors - lots of great stuff out there these days to push LEGO models closer to model railways. We did a model railway show last year - my first in some time - and had lots of nice feedback from traditional model railway builders on how far LEGO can be dragged in to making decent loco / rolling stock models. And, of course, the inevitable few rivet counters who were enjoying a loco until they realised it was LEGO and not O Gauge :P It's been quite a while since I've posted on EB, so it's nice to be back, anyway!