Tag Archives: LEGO

ANNOUNCING Knuckle Couplers for LEGO® Trains!

We have a very special announcement for you today. BMR, in partnership with Brickforge, has been working on a replacement for the old LEGO 9v era magnetic train couplers. Today we are ready to officially reveal this project that we hope to have available for sale late this summer. We’ve put together a video to introduce you to these new couplers.

Now let us take a look at these couplers in greater detail.

Continue reading ANNOUNCING Knuckle Couplers for LEGO® Trains!

LEGO Announces 10277 Crocodile Locomotive

After several weeks of (intended?) leaks and gossip all over the internet, Lego finally does what we all expected it to do a week before Fathers Day: It released the much anticipated Crocodile! As expected, it’s based on the Swiss Railways Class Ce 6/8 II. The model will be 7 wide, which is a first for TLC, and is meant both as a display model and combined with the Powered Up! Hub (88009) and a L-motor (88013), controlled by the Powered Up! app.

Here’s what Lego has to say about it:

Remember those happy childhood hours spent playing with toy train sets? Now you can escape your responsibilities and head back to those joyful days with this LEGO® Crocodile Locomotive Building Kit – but this time, it’s strictly for adults! Take your time with the build, then immerse yourself in the sublime engineering as you explore the features and functions packed into this impressive model. 

Build and display a railway icon. Unwind with this rewarding building challenge as you create an authentic, displayable, LEGO® model version of the iconic Crocodile Locomotive.

Clear your mind and escape the daily grind with this fulfilling building project. If your passion for toy train sets has never really left you, you’ll love recreating the amazing details of the Crocodile Locomotive, a vintage classic from the golden age of rail travel.  Impressive attention to detail Inspired by the Class Ce 6/8 II locomotive, first built for the Swiss Federal Railways between 1919 and 1927, this beautiful LEGO® model is packed with realistic details. With side rods that move as the wheels turn and posable pantographs that move up and down, there’s lots to explore. Lift the roof to access the crew compartment and use the 2 minifigures to bring the story of this iconic train to life. Add the Powered Up components (sold separately) to motorize your locomotive.  Spark your passion for building The Crocodile Locomotive (10277) is part of a collection of LEGO® model building kits for adults who love beautiful design. This model also makes a great gift for anyone who loves model trains.

• This LEGO® Crocodile Locomotive (10277) model kit is perfect for adults looking to build a vintage locomotive model or for anyone who loves trains and is looking for their next hobby project.

• Enjoy a rewarding challenge as you bring this buildable model train to life. Then explore the features and functions packed into this set, which celebrates the classic Crocodile Locomotive train.
• Discover amazing details with authentic features true to the original Crocodile Locomotive. The 2 LEGO® minifigures with tools, display track and plaque provide lots to explore after building the classic train.
• Ideal for model train fans, railway enthusiasts and LEGO® lovers, this building kit for adults makes a creative gift or birthday present to transport building fans to a world of total relaxation.
• This train model measures over 6” (16cm) high, 20.5” (52cm) long and 3.5” (8cm) wide, making it a beautiful display piece to show off with pride.
• You can jump right into this immersive building project since no batteries are required. To motorize your locomotive, add 1 x 88009 and 1 x 88013 Powered Up components (sold separately).
• This building set for adults comes with coffee-table-style building instructions with design details to encourage and inspire you.
• Part of a series of inspiring LEGO® building model sets for adults, designed for LEGO building fans, and hobbyists who love elegant design, beautiful architecture and models packed with detail.
• LEGO® building bricks meet the highest industry standards, which ensures they are consistent, compatible and connect and pull apart easily every time – it’s been that way since 1958.
• LEGO® bricks and pieces are rigorously tested to ensure that every building set meets the highest safety and quality standards, so you can be sure that this set is designed to last.

If you want to read more about the design process of the Crocodile, we recommend you to have a look over at The Brothers Brick, where they have an interesting interview with Jamie Berard about the design!

Now, let’s just dive into the pictures, shall we?

The box art, with the new classy “Adults Only” design:

Lego also made some great photorealistic renders of the Croc:

This being a product meant for adults, TLC was so kind to also send some pictures of an actual adult playing with Lego trains.I can almost see myself pictured in it, hooray for that!

The model can be motorized with the Powered Up! Hub and a motor

And yes, it’s Lego, so you can break it apart!

I’m for one pretty sure I will get one of these, but what do you think? Is this a set that all of you want in your collections? And is the “adults only” label a good thing for the L-gauge community, or not? We look forward hearing from you!

BMR and Community Updates: May 2020

Hello again, LEGO train fans and Brick Model Railroader supporters! We’ve got some great new articles in the works for you, but today we wanted to update you on a few things going on here at Brick Model Railroader. Let’s dive in.

Train Community Roundtable

There will be a Train Community Roundtable for the Brickworld Virtual Event coming up this Saturday, May 16th. Brickworld Virtual features LEGO artists, engineers, and vendors showing their creations via Zoom meeting rooms.  A new twist to the Brickworld public shows will be a presentation room where you can learn from the experts. General details about the Brickworld Virtual Convention can be found on the Brickworld website below.

Brickworld Virtual May 16 Web Page

BMR has been invited to participate along with several other LEGO train community members. The Train Community Roundtable is scheduled for 1:00pm – 2:50pm Central Time. The tentative topic list is as follows.

1. Introduction – LEGO Train Roundtable.

  • –  Bringing the LEGO Train fan community together
  • –  Open conversation and sharing ideas

2. LEGO New Developments

  • –  Powered Up?
  • –  40th Anniversary Train Set
  • –  Ghost Train Express ( # 70424)
  1. Brick Model Railroader Updates
  2. Brick Track Updates
  3. Other Updates
  4. Show off your MOC’s!
  5. Open Forum – Train Talk!

Come join us for two hours of talking trains.

Brick Model Railroader Podcast

We recently posted an article announcing the Brick Model Railroader podcast, a short live-streamed discussion on various Lego and train topics. Our Pilot was hosted by Enrico, and all regular episodes will be hosted live on the Brick Model Railroader Youtube channel. Podcast episode announcements will be posted through our social media outlets a few days in advance.

While primarily hosted on Youtube so we can answer questions from viewers, our podcast episodes will also be shared to and available on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast (pending approval) and iTunes. Just type “Brick Model Railroader” in any of those apps and you should be fine!

New Premium Instructions

The Gunderson 60′ Boxcar, ACF 1958 Cu. Ft. Covered Hopper, and Pacific Fruit Express Reefer.

The BMR model team has been hard at work designing new Premium Instruction Models. Three of which we will be releasing very soon.

Gunderson box cover

The Gunderson 60′ High Cube Plate F Boxcar is our first BMR model designed by Aaron Burnett and  is our most modern freight car to date.

The modern 100 ton, high-cube, 60’ boxcar has become ubiquitous in the modern rail scene. These cars are designed to carry a myriad of loads, from auto parts to forest products and are a fixture to any modern freight train.

ACF Covered Hopper box cover

The American Car & Foundry 70-Ton 1958 Cu. Ft. Covered Hopper is our first BMR model designed by Matt Csenge.

American Car & Foundry recognized the need for a mass-produced covered hopper car to transport goods and bulk flowable commodities that needed protection from the weather. In 1936 ACF began building this 70-Ton 1958 cu. ft. capacity covered hopper for task. The cars quickly gained wide-spread appeal, with 59 railroads and 16 private and leasing companies purchasing them throughout their lifetime. Many of these car lasted well into the 1970’s, some even into the 1980’s in revenue service. Some of these cars are even still used today in maintenance-of-way service.

Pacific Fruit Express Reefer box cover.

Designed by Cale Leiphart, The Pacific Fruit Express R-30-9 and R-40-9 Reefer is a classic wood reefer from the golden age of ice cooled railroad refrigerator cars.

In 1936, Pacific Fruit Express began a program to recondition a large part of its aging wood refrigerator car fleet. These cars had their entire wood superstructure rebuilt above the frame sill, giving them another 10 to 15 years of service life. These cars became the R-30-9 and R-40-9 class cars on the PFE. Around 7,000 cars would go through this reconditioning program and many lasted into the 1950’s with the last being retired in 1966.

As usual, we have a wide range of decal sets lined up for our new models. Final release date for these cars is still pending. We are currently waiting for the new train wheels from Bricktracks before setting the release date.

The three cars talked about above are not all we’ve been working on. Here is a sneak peak at two more models coming later this year.

EMD SD40-2 diesel locomotive designed by Chris Stone.
Budd Rail Diesel Car by Matt Csenge. (yes, SIX variants!)

Coming Soon, The New BMR Online Store

New store front page.

Speaking of things on the Brick Model Railroader storefront, we will be debuting a new online store for Brick Model Railroader soon. While it’s served us well, we’ve outgrown the old store design. The new store will be much nicer to look at and easier to navigate. We’re still putting the finishing touches on things, but we plan to have the new store ready to go by the time the new Premium Instructions are released. In the meantime the current store is still up and running with all our current products.

Preview of the PCF decal section for the new store.

New Bricktracks Products

Lastly, we have two brief updates from our friends at BrickTracks, everyone’s favorite injection-molded track supplier.

The final mold for the R104 turnouts is in the process of being made. The last details have been tuned and we are closer than ever to having these turnouts on our layouts.

The second update regards the new replacement wheels for bearing wheel sets. The first batch of wheels has been produced and is en route to BrickTracks’ home base. However, the shipment is on the proverbial (or perhaps literal) “slow boat from China”, to quote BrickTracks.

There is certainly plenty to look forward to for fans of LEGO trains.

Thank you for reading.

Tips and Tricks for Layout Design

The following article is a summary of some tips and tricks for layout designing combined with some basic facts that involve the layout designing progress. This article won’t summarize every subject which involves the designing process since there just too many. However, there will be tips and tricks for both beginner and experienced builders.

Epoch

First thing when deciding to design your layout is to figure out what epoch you want to built in. Every epoch reflects a particular time within railroading history. The idea is that you can build whatever you want, as long as it makes sense within that epoch (or one below or above), because the chance of prototypical railroading would be highest, ie. the chance that two trains, or buildings, or cars, would have been able to ‘meet’, would be the highest if we follow these rules.  For the AFOLs out there that may not be familiar with the epoch system I hope this explains:

Epoche Time period
I 1835–1920
II 1920-1949
III 1949-1970
IV 1970-1990
V 1990-2006
VI 2006-current

The epoch system is an important thing for layout building since your chosen epoch effects your entire layout. For better understanding we take a station as an example. During the Epoch III period there were different safety regulations when it comes to station’s compared to the Epoch VI period. Take platform length or height for example. Also, station designs, a “modern” design won’t match a full Epoch III layout. Details like these give your layout a lot more realism but can also act as a starting point when considering designing.

Another good example is level crossings. During the Epoch I-IV level crossings where common to see. In the Epoch VI period, especially in Europe, level crossings are becoming a thing of the past especially on main high-speed lines.

Continue reading Tips and Tricks for Layout Design

Gruppo R.202 by Sven Jansen

In the world of LEGO Trains, there are many fantastic models in a wide range of scales. Everything between 1/45-1/55 are common, and the amount of detail to be found in the best of these really can make you wonder if there would be any point, from a detailing perspective, of going to a larger scale than those.

Building scale models with LEGO certainly is a challenge, but as you move up to larger and larger scales it can bring along extra problems, and potentially exacerbate existing issues. I personally tend to look at larger models with a more critical eye than I do smaller ones, as all too often you find that once you get past the spectacle-inspired reaction of “Wow, that model is so big!” you find that there’s not enough detail to really make that model really satiating, or that the shape of the thing feels underdeveloped and doesn’t make good use of the large scale. 

The biggest question in my mind when I see a LEGO train (Or anything else, really) built to a larger scale is “Does this model actually need to be this big?”. That is to say, does it make good use of the size? Imagine if you took the design of a stock 6-wide LEGO train and simply built it 50% bigger. The scale has gone up, sure, but if nothing about the quality or depth of detail goes up, it would not be satisfying.

This is where I’d like to bring your attention to a new model by Sven Jansen, also known as Tenderlok, a very talented LEGO train builder who just so happens to build for LGB track instead of the usual LEGO track. This new model is of an old Italian shunting engine, the R.202, in 1/22.5 scale. As with his previous builds, this model truly does make excellent use of the scale it’s built in. 

Underneath the fantastic detail work, even just the basic shapes and silhouette of the build feel just right, and especially impressive is the half-plate drop in radius for the smokebox. Another feature that stands out, once you notice it, is the cowling around the front cab windows. 

Sven’s model also brings with it many other very interesting features, including independent light control and a working smoke unit. Smoke units in model trains aren’t everybody’s thing, of course, but they are always fun to watch and I really enjoy seeing it here.

This model, like Sven’s other locomotives, really does make excellent use of the scale it’s built in. Yes, this engine could conceivably be modeled in a smaller scale, and perhaps in the right hands even have a comparable number of details included. However, Sven has used the larger size to increase the depth of detail. The mechanisms are, where appropriate, more intricate, better proportioned, and overall more accurate than could be achieved if built smaller.

To me, the most satisfying aspects of this build are in the valve gear and the cab detailing. Both of these are things that are hard to get right in a 1/48 LEGO train – the intricacy of the mechanisms and the fine granularity of the parts involved on the ‘real’ locomotives mean that in 1/48 LEGO, even the best attempts to model these are close approximations and often out of scale. It would be easy to take the level of detail found in a 1/48, 8-wide LEGO train and just make it larger, but Sven’s model has gone a step above that and used the larger scale to achieve a more nicely detailed engine. 

The parts of the valve gear near the piston are very similar to what can be done in 1/48 models, but what caught my eye was the detail surrounding the rocker bar and the reversing gear. These parts are very difficult to do as anything more than a loose approximation in a smaller scale, especially once you start dealing with things like Technic axles, pins, and the 3mm rigid hose eating up much more real estate than would be ideal. What a good sight it is to see these features modeled more accurately on Sven’s R.202!

I would highly recommend checking out more of Sven’s work. Each model has been very well detailed and engineered, and I always look forward to seeing them. For me the only problem I have with them is that they always make me think that perhaps I, too, should try to start building locomotives for G-scale track; and I hope that others end up having this same problem as well.

Sven’s Flickr Page
Sven’s YouTube Channel

40370 Steam Engine Promotional Set Review

For March of 2020, LEGO® has released gift with purchase set, the  40370 Steam Engine. The set is available until the end of the month at LEGO.com and through LEGO brand retail stores for via qualifying purchase. The set is a replica of 7810 a push-along steam locomotive that was released in 1980, and commemorates the 40th anniversary of the 12v train line being launched worldwide.

I recently picked up a copy through an order to LEGO.com. Let’s take a look at this set now.

Box front.
Back of the box.
Continue reading 40370 Steam Engine Promotional Set Review

ANNOUNCING the L-Guage Modular Standard COLLABORATIVE Layout for BrickFair Virginia 2020

Announcing an L-Gauge Modular Standard layout for BrickFair Virginia in Chantilly, Virginia 2020. BrickFair Viginia is one of the premier LEGO® fan events in North America, bringing together hundred of LEGO builders and their creations. The dates of the show for 2020 are July 29th to August 2nd.

Call for Participants

Cale Leiphart will be layout chief for this event. He is responsible for the layout plan, securing space at the event, set up coordination, and operating schedule. Anyone interested in participating should contact him directly:

Cale Leiphart – cale@brickmodelrailroader.com

Participants must be finalized by the end of May 15th in order to coordinate a layout plan and submit it to Brickfair for space approval.

The LGMS layout must conform to LGMS v1.3, which has been uploaded to our LGMS page and to the LGMS Facebook group.

LGMS V1.3 Standard

IMG_6980

2020 Winter Train Show Report

Recently I had the pleasure of participating in LEGO train displays at two train shows here in the Northeast United States. The first was the annual Amherst Railway Society’s Railroad Hobby Show with the New England LEGO User Group. The second was the Great Scale Model Train Show with the second ever L-Gauge Modular Standard display. These were both great shows, and were a lot of fun. Here is a report on both these events.

Continue reading 2020 Winter Train Show Report

Legoworld 2019: Event Report

In the LegoWorld 2018 Report Raised promised that somewhere in March 2020 the 2019 article would be published. Since Enrico considered that to be a bit late, he volunteered to write the 2019 article, but in 2019. However, since Raised was supposed to edit, it only goes online now. So you guys know who to blame now!

LEGOWORLD Utrecht 2019
Choochoos and modern Electrics, everything is possible in Legos!

The Event

LegoWorld is an 8-day event (9 if you include the pre-show set-up day) and is held annually during the Dutch autumn break. The event is the biggest Lego event here in The Netherlands and attracts around 100.000 visitors every year. The event is held in Utrecht and is thereby located in the center of the Netherlands.

Those 8 days ask a lot of our trains, and since the layout is a rather big one and the trains run for multiple hours straight, it asks a lot of our models. They tend to break down every now and then, but also batteries need to be charged. Due to the huge amount of young visitors, we want to have at least 2 trains running at any point, so this event not only ask a lot our trains but also a lot of us.

Oops
One of the casualties we had. Raised his NS 6400 derailed in the corner located in the old section of Tijn his city.

The Team and the Layout they built

The team this year was made up by 6 people: Raised, UrbanErwin, Tijn, Gijs, Esran and Enrico. We each contributed a different part of the layout.

The Hero's of LegoWorld.
The Heroes of Legoworld 2019: Erwin, Raised, BigDeady, Tijn, Enrico and Esran. Gijs isn’t in it because he took the picture, right Gijs?

Unfortunately, we don’t have our own tables (yet), so we are always depending on the tables provided by the venue. Most of the time these aren’t properly aligned at all, but luckily we got more than enough beer coasters to get this fixed. Hooray for beer coasters!

LEGOWORLD Utrecht 2019
How many Minifigs do you need to fix a bit of plastic shaped like a Utilities Box?

The plan for the layout was different compared to last year, as we decided to not re-use the diorama style. Instead, we went for the oldschool circle layout, just like most other LTC’s do.  This solved two problems: Less track necessary for the staging yard, and all track would be on MILS level instead of having to build a ramp to go down to table level. That system didn’t work out properly last year, because even the smallest incline meant a lot of stalling of our engines, partly due to the way they are build, partly due to flawed powertrains *cough Raised cough* . We christened this our “Christmas tree set up” from a joke Tijn made when we came up with the layout design, because it looks an awefull lot like something that runs around a Christmas tree. Or, in our case, a concrete pillar…

An overhead view provided by BlueBrick, the track planning software we use for LegoWorld.

Let’s divide the layout for this article into 4 sections: North, East, South and West.

North

The North section was a typical Dutch piece of landscape, flat, green and some cows, a typical Dutch Polder in fact. This piece was mostly built by Raised, who built a beautiful curve into the track, so it gave a smooth and “prototypical” presentation of our landscape. The last piece of the North side, all the way into the North West part was built by Gijs and the r104 curves in the North East side were built by Enrico, with Tijn providing the small siding with the baseplates surrounding that. The North West side had a small factory with a siding, which led into the Shadow Station, from where we could easy do the many repairs that were necessary for this event.

BigDaedy’s Traxx and Dosto in the Polder Landscape
LEGOWORLD Utrecht 2019
The Netherlands is flat. Like a Pancake. Sorry for that.
Even Enrico’s ICM-0 ran for several minutes!

East

The East section was Bahnbetriebswerk Neukirche by Enrico, which turned out a bit bigger than expected: 1/3rd bigger than it was, in fact. The Bahnbetriebswerk was connected in the North east by a triple switch made by TrixBrix and the amazing R104 curves by Brick Tracks. The mainline continued on the back side of the Bahnbetriebswerk to the South East part of the layout. In the middle was a turntable with engine shed and a couple of platforms where “passengers” could get on and off. The Bhw had everything to keep a steam engine running, except for batteries… Continuing into the South East part the Bahnbetriebswerk transformed into a museum line which split up into 2 parts.

Bahnbetriebswerk NeuKirche from above

Both going into a forest bit where one stopped, the other going into the Esran’s amazing Steam Pump and small Railway station.

LEGOWORLD Utrecht 2019

South:

Esran’s Steam Pump connected into Tijn his beautiful city and Railway Station in French Style, all in beautiful MDF masonry bricks. His city starts at the old Railway station Esran made in the South East part. From there some amazing winding streets and old buildings went down onto the main street where his station is located. Due to the difference in height between his city and the rest of the layout it has got a cool and realistic feel to it.

Tijn’s Station and City on the hills

Passing the station is the grand warehouse where the parking is located for the station. Because the parking and a road disappear into the background it looked like the layout had a lot of dept to it. From there the mainlined continued pass the last couple of buildings onto the bridge made by UrbanErwin. The bridge might be simple in its design but it’s 100% made from Lego and didn’t break down for the entire week!

It's over
OK, it did break down, but only after Erwin threw it onto his own layout (and Raised his eanos…)!

West

The West part of the layout is where our Shunting Yard was located. Here visitors could see most of our rolling stock which wasn’t running (or which fell apart) and children where able to ask: “why isn’t that train running?”. Almost all of the switches were motorized in this part. Your were able to control the switches by using an IR remote (only bad thing was that some off our trains where set to the same IR channel). Next year we are just going to use Polarity Switches instead, but it did give a cool vibe to it, and felt very realistic. The South West side had some big trees which created a great photo location. The North West side had a small harbor scene made by Gijs and my ICM “koploper” was set there with the scaled drawings in front, showing the public that our trains are built in scale.

LEGOWORLD Utrecht 2019
The West Side of the layout, Enrico was just fixing/breaking the yellow NS 1600
LEGOWORLD Utrecht 2019
A typical day in the Yard
LEGOWORLD Utrecht 2019
“No Kids, nothing is running”

Special Guest:

This year we invited a special guest, BigDaedy and his MOC’s. He joined us from Friday afternoon onto the end of the Sunday. It was great having him around and comparing his MOC’s with ours. He also had some great advice for Enrico’s Bahnbetriebswerk, apparently all of the signals weren’t placed correctly. That can happen to everyone, right?

Here is small piece about LegoWorld from his point of view:

Greetings fellow train heads and readers of BMR. My name is Raimund, but I’m usually known as “BigDaedy” on the internet. Thanks to a special invitation by the Dutch Lego train community I was able to participate at this year’s LegoWorld in Utrecht. They asked me to write a brief summary of my experiences during my trip or let’s just say about my adventure going to Utrecht.

Now what was so special about LegoWorld Utrecht 2019 for me?

First, this would be the first time for me to meet the masters of Dutch train building and their mocs in real life. Then it would’ve been the second time ever for me to be part of an event like this, the first time being at an event in a different country (since it’s still within the EU it’s not really a big deal) and the very first time to actually see how my MOCs would perform on a larger scale layout, other than a circle of R120 lying on my bedroom floor. So, there is room for lots of things to go wrong, but fortunately in the end everything turned out perfectly. As a matter of fact, this weekend has been one of my most pleasant experiences so far in my life. I’m still baffled and overwhelmed by all the hospitality, generosity and overall cheerfulness I’ve received by all the people and amazing builders I’ve met during my stay. Please let me take this opportunity to express my deepest thanks to the whole Dutch community – You guys rock and make this such a wonderful hobby!

That being said, let’s get back on the road again. LegoWorld in Utrecht is actually really easy to reach. You stumble out of the central station and all you’ve got to do is to literally walk across the street and you’re already inside. Raised picked me up at the entrance of the show and guided me directly towards the layout, giving me lots of info and advice on what to expect during the next 48 hours. I guess it’s safe to say, that I must’ve experienced some sort of sensory overload during my first few minutes at LegoWorld. Strolling through countless amazing builds felt like walking in a wonderland and left me stunned. I think that’s what an unsupervised child must feel like in an “all you can eat” candy store. Anyhow the rest of the herd gave me a wonderful welcome and showed me around the layout, pointing out all the little details scattered around. Now it was time for me to unwrap all of the nice things I’ve brought with me. Luckily my rolling stock didn’t take any major damage, so I was quickly set up and ready to go. The first trial run of my consist was indeed very successful. As a matter of fact, my Traxx was so reliable and fast that it blew over some of the foam boards at the side of the track due to its airstream. Partly cause of this incident a speed limit was imposed for it, as the other guys were quite “scared” of the speed of my train and worried that it might derail in the curves. Luckily for me, my design proved to be quite sturdy, I’ve lost less than ten parts during the two days and my trains seemed to handle the inevitable accidents quite well. Most derailments actually happened cause someone’s *cough Raised cough* mocs lost vital parts during their laps on the layout. I really enjoyed discussing all the different designs and techniques used on both the rolling stock and the layout, so I’ve spent most of the time taking mental notes on what designs to steal and incorporate in possible future builds or collabs.

LEGOWORLD Utrecht 2019
Raised and BigDaedy discussing the different designs they have.

At the end of the day there was an official part by TLC. Two Lego Star Wars designers, Jan Neergaard Olesen & Kurt Kristiansen, held a presentation about the creative process and how a set is designed what changes it has to go through in order to be released to the public. Very interesting behind the scenes information and we’ve even got a sneak peek on what’s coming up next. Once the presentation was over, the attention shifted to the more community related part of the evening. There were speed building challenges and of course every participant received a large Lego gift. Sadly, I didn’t get one, as I was only a guest, but this will surely change next year!

I was also able to get an autograph of the two Lego designers on my engine. How awesome is that? Looks a little bit like graffiti but a lot cooler!

Thumbs up for the Traxx!

Saturday turned out even better than the day before. A seemingly never-ending crowd of people, especially children gathered around the layout fascinated by the moving trains, the huge engine shed, Tijns city, Esrans factory and all the tasty little details on the countryside. Since I don’t speak any Dutch, it was kind of difficult to answer the questions of the visitors, but there was always one of the guys around who patiently translated everything into English for me. Being a little know-it-all, I also used the chance to point out a few mistakes on Enrico’s Bahnbetriebswerk, mostly regarding the signaling. Sorry mate couldn’t help myself!

The overall performance of the rolling stock was quite good. Only a few crashes happened and none of them were really disastrous (for me). We also had lots of room for trying different compositions of the trains and comparing the individual performances of the locos. Of course, this led to debates on what traction system is superior, like geared L-motors or ordinary train motors and the consent that ball bearings should become mandatory. UrbanErwins automated train operation was also very fascinating for me. Looks like there is indeed some potential within the new PU system.

Once the show was over for the day Tijn invited us over to his place, where he and his wife cooked us a delicious dinner (compliments to the cooks once again!). More stories were told, we drank some apple cider, which I’ve brought from home, together and we laughed and laughed and laughed. A perfect ending to an awesome day, if I might say so.

As the sun rose on this beautiful Sunday morning, I was hesitant to wake up. Being in Utrecht amongst all these wonderful people was so enjoyable that I’ve really wanted to stay until the end of the show. Sadly, I had to be back at work on Monday, so I spent the morning filling up with my mind with more pleasurable memories, until I had to catch my train back home on the afternoon.

And that’s how my adventure at Utrecht went by. Thanks for sticking through until the end and I wish happy building to everyone out there.

Cheers,  

Raimund

Line-up’s:

On Saturday night we decided to stay a bit longer and before we noticed, we started from lining-up all the TRAXX locomotives at the show, into sorting all of our trains by their colors. This resulted up to 2 line-ups: the red and the yellow one.

The Red-Line-Up

Only Red Allowed!

On the inside corner there was from front to back: A Snngs made by Urban Erwin, 2 double-decker coaches made by BigDaedy, a Eanos made by Raised and the red 1600 made by Raised.

On the outside corner there was a 0-6-0 Tank Engine made by Esran, a Vectron and TRAXX in 6 wide made by Gerard Salden, BigDaedy his 2 TRAXX locomotives and as last again Raised his “FYRA” TRAXX.

On the Siding going into the Shadow Station were Raised’s NS 6400 and Enrico’s V100.

The Yellow Line Up

Yellow and Blue Line-up

Lets start at the front and work our way into the back. On the front siding: Enrico’s ICM “koploper” (because it needed a lot of repairs, he wasn’t confident enough to place the entire train at this line-up).

On the second siding: Tijn his Sik, Raised his yellow 1600 and a ICR coach in 6 wide made by Gerard Salden.

On the Third siding: The IC Direct TRAXX made by Gerard Salden, the NS 1100 provided by a member of our crew from the layout last year (Christiaan), the NS 1200 by UrbanErwin, and the Plan W coach by Christiaan again.

On the Forth siding: Mat 64 (“Apenkop”) by UrbanErwin.

On the outer corner: Enrico’s NS 2454 locomotive and Raised his ICR 8 wide coaches.

Traxx line up

The third of the special line-ups held at the event was the Traxx line up. 2 from BigDaedy and 1 from Raised.

LEGOWORLD Utrecht 2019
That’s how you make pictures!

The Backdrop:

Last year we learned a very important lesson. To get the best view of the layout itself, it a good thing to not be able to see the chaos behind the layout, aka the repairing of broken trains and us eating lunch. Last year we fixed this problem by using a blue linen backdrop with wooden rods to keep it all as straight as possible. It looked fine, but just didn’t work as planned: It was too instable due to its own weight, not so easy to set up, and mostly a bit too high. So, if you were standing in the front of the layout you couldn’t see what happened at the back of the layout, which isn’t that handy if you know 50% of our track was behind the layout last year…

LEGOWORLD Utrecht 2019
White Foamboard backdrops. Fixing pictures since 2019!

Luckily, we fixed that problem this year by using foam plates as a backdrop. These were held together by using Lego pieces on the top and the bottom. The provided a great backdrop so that visitors were able to see the train running on the layout but not our lunch. However the organization managed to placed us in a way that we had 2 concrete polls right in the middle of our layout, obstructing our view, so trains were still able to stop running for 5 minutes before we found them.

This picture made from above truly shows how busy LegoWorld can get, this day we sold out with 15000 visitors

Impression of the layout.

Here are some more pictures/videos of the layout for you to enjoy!

Our Legoworld 2019 Photo Pool at Flickr