Five years of LLMTC celebrated big at LLMTCworld

December 15, 2023 Enrico Lussi Leave a comment

2023 marks the five-year anniversary of the LLMTC. We decided to celebrate this anniversary by organizing a huge event for all of our members and all the friends we made in those five years. This article will give you a in depth look at the event, and how the LLMTC came together.

What’s the LLMTC?

The Lowlands L-Gauge Model Train Club is a small group of LEGO train enthusiasts, dedicated to modelling railways in 1:45 scale, or as close to it as (in)humanly possible. While trains are our main focus and what binds us together, several members also build diorama’s, cars, and other landscape elements to the same scale as our trains. We usually aim for 1:45, although the restrictions of the bricks sometimes result in variations between 1:48 and 1:43. Effectively the trains tend to be 8 studs wide.

Figure 1 the well-known logo of the LLMTC

The founding members of the LLMTC first met at LEGO World 2017, and decided to form a building group the next year, with the goal to build both trains and layouts that would be able to connect to each other at events. LEGO World 2018 was their first show together as a group. Standards and rules where established early on, similar to what you see in “traditional” model railway clubs. But LLMTC was entirely dedicated to building in L-gauge and scale 1:45. We’ve always considered ourselves a model railway club, which happened to be building in L-gauge, rather than a LEGO user group who build trains. After LegoWorld 2018, many other events followed. like LegoWorld 2019, NLGM Wörrstadt and Schkeuditz. Along the way, other builders joined the group, and the group became closely in contact and involved with many other LUG’s, projects like open L-gauge and events like the BrickTrainAwards.

The idea of LLMTCworld

The idea of organizing our own club event resonated from back in the long and dark covid days, when a lot of events where cancelled and you couldn’t host a large audience of visitors. Initially, we held a small gathering back in 2020, which was members only. This grew into the 2021 and 2022 ArnhemWorld event, where we would invite a small group of befriended builders like the Noppenbahner.

Figure 2 Pieter Post his station during nighttime driving at ArnhemWorld 2022

For this year, we decided to go big and make it possible for everyone who builds trains in 1:45 scale to join in, and therefore get one of the large gatherings of L-gauge builders in the Netherlands. This show would result in a lot of friends, which made in those five years, to travel all the way to meet up with us again. And for some, it was the first time to meet up with us in real life after working together through the internet for many years.

Looking for a venue

One of the biggest challenges we had for organizing LLMTC-world was the venue. In previous years we would organize our ArnhemWorld event at a high school in Arnhem. Unfortunately, this wasn’t possible during the planned weekend for LLMTCworld. And thus, the rebranding from ArnhemWorld to LLMTCworld.

After a long search for possible event locations, we were able to find a hall in a bus depot that wouldn’t be in use for the weekend we where planning to host LLMTCworld. This did provide some challenges, biggest of them all, there weren’t any tables available to use at the venue. We had estimated we needed around 65 tables for all the layouts and the staging yards.

Figure 3 the still empty bus shed, a few hours later L-gauge builders would meet here to start setting up their layouts.

This estimation was followed by a few weeks long calling and emailing renting company’s, looking for the best and cheapest possibility. Tip for others who are considering organizing l-gauge related events, tables are expensive! A venue with tables makes organizing an event so much easier. We spent a lot more time and, quite frankly, a lot more money than we anticipated for getting all the tables we needed.

After this was taken care off, there were still a lot of smaller tasks on our to-do-list. Organizing stuff like diner, layout planning and general stuff takes a lot of time, and we would advise anybody who plans on hosting an event to keep this in mind.

Layout planning.

Tamás & Erwin where in charge of layout planning, and Tamás had spent a lot of time before the event puzzling all of the modules together in BlueBrick. But, as will be familiar to anyone who has planned an event of their own, there will always be things you didn’t consider beforehand. In our case, we found out there was collum for a car lift right where we were planning to build our branch line. But after some re-configuring of the track plan by Erwin & Tamás, we made it work. The layout we ended up with on the day was probably even better than the one we had planned initially.

Merch

What is an event without some cool merchandise? This year Erwin and Raised decided to design a unique T-shirt and logo for the event. This years’ design was a festival shirt with our main logo featuring the one and only Carlos! The front of the Shirts showed Carlos in the special LLMTCworld logo, the back named all the builders who took part in the event.

Setting-up

On Friday we gather early at the venue to start cleaning up the place and unload all the tables we rented. We used multiple camper vans from different LLMTC members to drive back and forth between two different rental companies, different hardware stores, and the venue. Ties, our chief Bob the Builder, spent a lot of time making filler sections between tables, so that layouts wouldn’t need to be place above gaps in between the tables. That’s one of the downsides of building all your layouts off grid and in strange angles.

And Ties got another special task on Friday. It turned out that Erwin’s banana yard was right below a small leak in the roof. So, Ties has to be creative on fixing that one. Luckily, we found a scissor lift in the parking lot, and the leak was fixed before any trains had to swim their way across Erwin’s yard.

At the end of the day most of the layouts were set-up and we were able to start unpacking our trains and fill up the yard.

Figure 5 setting up on the Friday evening of LLMTCworld.

Saturday

On Saturday we started early again, finishing the last small gaps in the layout. Builders who weren’t able to get there on Friday arrived early on Saturday morning, to set-up their layouts and to unpack their trains. By around 11:00 the entire yard was packed full, and the layout was completely set-up. Now it was finally time to start driving some trains!

Figure 6 express trains going back and forward on the main line. Picture by Thomas Reincke. Models by Raised, Erwin and Raimond.

We only have one rule when it comes to driving trains, and that you always drive on the right-hand side of the track. Some builders who weren’t used to that had some difficulty with that, resulting in weird situations where you would be driving towards each other on the same track. Beside that, your able to drive whenever you like, taking whatever wagons and route that you would like. Especially when it comes to freight wagons, a lot of the wagons get mixed up when driving. Most of the time you would be pulling or shunting freight wagons from 3 or 4 different builders at the same time. And that’s what makes driving at events like these so much fun.

I personally love shunting in one of the different stations or the big yard, reorganizing the freight wagons and making giant mixed freight trains that others would be able to pick up with their locomotives.

Figure 7 shunting action at Wörrstadt Hbf. Picture by Joop Atkleppie, station by Nick Kleinfelder, models by Tamás and myself.

Evening

Traditionally on Saturday evening, we host special activities. One of these is the traditional A(k)awards ceremony, where the host (Raised), would hand out professionally made award bricks. There was also a quiz with in depth questions, like who has the longest running unfinished project.

To celebrate the first release of the collaboration premium building kits from HA bricks, Raised and Erwin gave a presentation of how they designed the model, and how the experience was to work together with HA bricks to turn the model into a premium building kit.

Figure 8 the host of the A(k)wards Raised with his professionally made presentation.

Sunday

Sunday was the second day of driving trains on the layout. It was quiet in the morning since most the drivers where still hungover from the Saturday evening. But after lunch, most people where awake and present again, and everybody was able to fully enjoy driving their trains on the railway lines. To get a better understanding on what it’s like to operate your trains on this event, let’s step into my SSN 01 1075 with Rheingold coaches (don’t mind the door that keeps falling off, or that buffer, they weren’t important) and let’s drive across the railway line! If you’re wondering how this train looks like when it’s driving on the layout, take a look at this video which shows the combination in action at LLMTC-world:

We start off at the main staging yard. This location is always packed with trains who are ready to go, or are getting some small repairs. This time Erwin is getting another huge container train ready to go on the mainline, so in between his shunting actions we kindly ask if we are allowed to leave, and the switches are kindly set in the correct position. We depart the yard and pass Essendorf station from Thomas Reincke. Since we know Erwin will be leaving the yard soon, we better step up the pace and continue onwards. Passing Raised his polder landscape and Tijn his farm we come across halte Wattenweiler from Thomas Reincke. Since the railway line in this station is in a bend, we are really able to pick up speed.

Figure 10 GTW Herman Brood by Erwin passes the polder landscape by Raised and starts entering the farm module from Tijn.

After we pass some curved NOIS modules Nicolas made, we come by the railway crossing from Daniel and the farm module from Jelle. After these, we come to a slow and gentle stop at Krokant Centraal, the new station that I’m constructing. Since the magnets from Erwin his freight train decided not to work today and leave Erwin looking for lithium magnets, we’ve got some time to stop here and take pictures. After a departure we come through the Banana yard from Erwin, a landscape module by Ties and the layout Tamás built, which uses grand curves to give a nice smooth feel to it. This layout is also the junction for the first section of the branch line (more about that later). After Tamás his layout we enter the Darwin interchange by Erwin, this layout is full of switches and weird crossing and has a triple function. It functions as a return loop for the main line, as a second junction to the branch line, and as the perfect location for spectacular accidents as different train lines cross over each other.

Figure 11 the Darwing interchange is always the perfect location to see trains doing weird things. Like this locomotive from Sergió.

The first junction into the branch line leads into Donát’s station. This has sidetracks for multiple trains to wait before they enter the mainline. The second junction into the branch line has multiple small modules connected to each other. First is a small module I’ve built together with Tamás about a year ago, second is Daniel’s module with a railway maintenance shed and lastly comes Gruninger’s layout where steam locomotives can get fresh coal and water.

Figure 12 our excursion train in the station module Donát built.

After this, both branch line routes join together, and continue up to Wörrstadt Hbf built by Nick Kleinfelder. This station is, like mentioned before, the perfect place for some shunting activities, but is also a great place to take pictures off trains against the perfect backdrop of the classical and historical station building.

Last but not least, this branch line ends up in the tunnel module Erwin is working on. After this tunnel comes the smaller branch line yard which was mostly used to house freight wagons during the shunting activities at Wörrstadt Hbf.

Figure 13 Tamás his SJ B 1289 leaving Erwin his tunnel module.

Line-ups

On Sunday afternoon we decided to celebrate the five-year anniversary of the LLMTC with some line-ups that would show what a diverse range of trains we have been building in the last five years. First was the special LLMTC line up, with some of the most recognizable models built by LLMTC members in the last 5 years.

After that, we wanted to showcase some diversity, and highlight all of the unique colors and shapes we are able to incorporate into the models. So we gathered all the black and red tea kettles together in Wörrstadt Hbf. Can you spot the differences?

Lastly, we gathered all the nez-cassé locomotives that were present at this show, a whopping 15 in total, at the banana yard. Since the entire railway was blocked for these line-ups, others had the opportunity (or where forced to) to stop and take some pictures of their own models at different locations around the layout.

Figure 14 black and red steam locomotives owners club

Figure 16 all the nes-cassé locomotives together, a whopping 15 in total.

Video

Like always Ties recoded a lot of the trains running on the huge layout and combined this to a amazing video. Nothing shows events better than the talented video’s Ties makes. I highly recommend watching this video!

Looking back

Looking back at the weekend and the months before the event, there were a lot of stressful moments trying to get everything to come together, but it was worth it. Organizing this event took more time than we first anticipated. Both Raised and I spent a lot of evenings calling each other to discuss stuff we had arranged or still needed to arrange. Tamás had the difficult task to plan all the layouts together and spent a lot of time fighting with our beloved BlueBrick program.

However, seeing all these people come together during the weekend and seeing all those trains run on the layout that we spent so much time on, was more than worth it! This even was easily in the top 3 events I’ve ever been too, and was a perfect way to celebrate five years of LLMTC. Let’s hope we can celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the LLMTC in an even bigger way!

Figure 17 the entire crew that made LLMTC-world possible!

I hope that every builder who came by or attended the event had as much fun as I did. To see so many friends come together is truly breathtaking. This all started 5 years ago when a small group of similarly-minded train builders came together just do one show. Now, five years later, we’ve done more shows than I can remember, we’ve traveled to other countries just to attend LEGO train events and we’ve been involved in some amazing projects.

Thank you to all that have joined us, worked with us, and befriended us! The fact that we’ve been doing this for five years now is something I could never have imagined. And the fact that we’ve been able to meet and work with so many different builders and friends, is truly a privilege.

I would also like to thank HA bricks for sponsoring this event! It was great to be able to talk to Hein from HA bricks about the latest projects he has been working on. And we are really looking forward to his next products releases!

And I would like to leave with a small story when we attended a “normal” railway show earlier this year. We were talking with some members of a “normal” model railway organization and they asked us where our club house is, we responded that we don’t have one and that we all just built individual modules and models that we bring to events. This already baffled them and we spent a long time explaining what our modular standards where. I proceeded to tell them about our collaboration with other organizations like the Noppenbahner, BrickModelRailroader, BrickTrainAwards, the LNUR, Len Eisenbahner and our work with companies like TrixBrix, HA bricks, PfxBricks, Buwizz and many others. And they just couldn’t fathom it. International collaboration on this scale just doesn’t happen, not in their world at least. What we have in the L-Gauge community is very special, and we are supper grateful to have been a part of that for the last 5 year.

Thank you all for reading, take care and see you next time!

Special thanks to Ties for spell checking the entire article!

-ciao Enrico

Contests

BrickTrainAwards 2023 winners announced!

October 27, 2023 Enrico Lussi Leave a comment

Last month the annual BrickTrainAwards where held for the third time. A competition that is organized by the LNUR and LLMTC with participants from all over the globe. With around 700 entries this year it’s time to look back to the competition!

Categories:

This years competition had a whopping 15 categories where participants were able to enter in. Each category had it’s fair share of entries but there are always some more popular ones like the steam locomotives entries and the best freight wagon! The level of builts this year was a all time high which made judging all the entries a difficult and long task. To ensure fairdom on the judging, multiple judges from around the world where ask to join in. Resulting in a true global event!

Sponsors and prices:

This year was again sponsored by many well know L-gauge related companies. These included TrixBrix, Habricks and trainedbricks.com which provided all the winners with unique prices that would hopefully inspire them to build new and unique models! Where are very grateful for these sponsors and there willingness to help us out with organizing this event!

Winner: Best TFOL Display 2023
Royal Lake Interurban Ry. Pierside
by Single Truck Shay Studios
Americas

Best community project:

New for this year’s BrickTrainAwards was the Best Community Project, this award recognizes a project in the LEGO train fandom which benefits the community. And was awarded this year to the Open L-gauge project. Open L-Gauge is a community library for LEGO® train models, available for free, to anyone. The goal of Open L-Gauge is to encourage the sharing of ideas, and make the LEGO® train hobby more accessible to newcomers. A idea and project we heavily support and we hope brings along a new generation of L-gauge builders.

We have a long list of winners on our website. And we also recoded a video where we announced all the winners for this year’s BrickTrainAwards.

Thank you for all who entered this years competition! Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

-ciao Enrico.

Events, Model Design, People

The Brick Train Awards are back for LEGO train fans worldwide!

August 20, 2023 Enrico Lussi Leave a comment

The Brick Train Awards are back in 2023 this September. Now in its fourth year, this annual virtual event is for LEGO train fans worldwide!

The awards began in 2020 to promote what the LEGO train fan community has been building, from locos and wagons to scenery. With the collaboration between multiple LEGO train fan communities, including BMR, we have established the Brick Train Awards into a well known activity in this community.

There are 15 categories for the Brick Train Awards this year, from the prestigious best steam locomotive award to 3 categories for wagons, an award for group or individual display, and 3 categories aimed at TFOLs aged 13 – 18 years. As with 2022’s awards, there are three categories specifically for digital model builders too.

You can enter for free via the event website from 1st – 30th September 2023. Each model is judged within a region – Americas (including both North and South America), Europe and the Middle East, or Asia & Australasia – and winners of these regional categories are then in with a chance to win the category at a global level.

Each of the 45 winners will receive a Brick Train Awards 2023 winners brick, and 15 global winners will receive a $100 voucher from global sponsor Trixbrix.eu. The event is also supported by HA Bricks and Brick.is, and all of the sponsors help make the event possible.

You can enter for free at bricktrainawards.com and follow all entries as they’re approved on the website on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

We are really looking foward to all the entries this year!

~BrickTrainAwards organizers.

Events

Brickworld Chicago 2023 Charity Auction Train

June 2, 2023 Cale Leiphart 1 Comment

Brickworld is soon upon us and I’v been working on a little project for the charity auction this year to settle a promise I made in 2019. And to explain, we’ll need to back up a little bit to 2015.

The Esther Walner Memorial Charity Fundraiser

Each year Brickworld attendees rally together to participate in what has become an exciting and unforgettable event. The Esther Walner Memorial Charity Fundraiser features unique items donated by individuals, groups and companies to help raise money for charity. Proceeds benefit several deserving charitable organizations, including Creations for Charity, Riley Children’s Hospital, FIRST LEGO League, and the Make a Wish Foundation. Approximately 90% of the raised monies will go to these charities. Brickworld supports other opportunities to help kids with the remaining monies. 100% of the money is donated each year.

A Challenge Between Train Builders Begins

In 2015, Anthony Sava set off a chain of events with the donation of a custom built, updated version of his American “Standard” 4-4-0 locomotive, along with decorative display base. Custom models usually generate a lot of interest at the auction, and Tony’s 4-4-0 was no exception. All of us in the train community there at Brickworld that year were speculating on how much the little “American” would bring. There was a huge excitement in the air.

As the 4-4-0 came up to the auction block, several of us train builders, including Tony and I, were sitting together in the crowd. Just before the bidding started, Tony turned to me and issued a challenge. If his model went for over $400, then I would donate a model to next year’s auction. I couldn’t back down from that challenge and agreed.

When the bidding had ended, the 4-4-0 had landed a sale price of $550.00, a full $150 above the mark set in Tony’s challenge. My fate was sealed, at the auction the following year, one of my models would be going up for sale.

The Mikado

So as Brickworld 2016 came, I decided to send off one my locomotives from my existing fleet for auction: my Baltimore & Ohio USRA Light Mikado. I chose this model because it was reliable, sturdy, and had classic locomotive styling. It was a good runner too. All things I felt would make it a good candidate to find a new home.

Tony, not being one to miss a good opportunity for some fun, decided to up the ante a little more for the auction. His proclamation was as follows.

“If this model goes for $1,000.00 or more at auction, I, Tony Sava, will build a custom 8-wide Caboose based on a Texas prototype and gift it to Cale Leiphart.

Furthermore, if the model goes for $1,000.00 or more I will, publicly, in front of all gathered at the PennLUG/TBRR layout at Brickworld, bow to Cale Leiphart and declare him the better train builder.

Further, furthermore, should this model go for $1,000.00 or more, I will build a railcar with a billboard stating Cale Leiphart is a better train builder, and will run it at every Texas Brick Railroad display until Brickworld 2017, including the upcoming Brick Fiesta 2016.”

Not only did my Mikado bring $1,000 at the auction, it hammered home at an amazing $2050. And true to his word, Tony made good on his wager, I even got that caboose after a long delay. It was totally worth the wait though.

Anthony Takes Back the Title

Now we jump ahead to 2019. Tony is once again generously donated a model of his own design to Brickworld’s Esther Walner Memorial Charity Fundraiser. The model this time was an AB set of his fantastic Santa Fe F7’s.

I could not let a good opportunity to challenge Tony pass by, so I threw down the gauntlet. My challenge was as follows.

If Tony Sava’s Santa Fe F7 set could reach the $1,000 mark that he set for me in 2016, I would build a custom caboose based on a Pennsylvania prototype, and gift it to him.

Furthermore, If the F7’s sold for $1,000 or more, I Cale Leiphart would donate a new custom locomotive of my own design to the Brickworld 2020 Charity Auction.

Further, furthermore, If Tony’s models can beat the $2050 price raised by my Mikado in 2016, I would, publicly, in front of all gathered at the LGMS layout at Brickworld, bow to Tony Sava and declare him the better train builder.

Furthermost, if Tony’s Santa Fe F7 set sold for more than my Mikado did in 2016 at auction, in addition to the aforementioned custom locomotive, I Cale Leiphart would build a full train for said locomotive to pull, to be donated to the Brickworld charity auction.

The challenge was on, and Tony’s models smashed it. Anthony’s Santa Fe F7 set brought an amazing $2700 at the auction, the highest item of the night. What had I done?

My challenge was clear, I was donating a whole train to the auction the following year. Tony is still waiting on that caboose, but that’s ok, I haven’t forgoten, and he did make me wait a bit for mine so it’s all fair.

A New Challenger Appears

So a global pandemic called Brickworld 2020 and 2021, and some other circumstances prevented me from building a train for 2022. But despite my failure, there was another epic train model entered in the 2022 Brickworld Charity Auction. Rob Hendrix of Lifelites designed a single truck Shay locomotive and 3D printed the model at 400% scale.

The auction for Robs Big Tiny Shay

Robs not so tiny Tiny Shay brought a crazy $3,4500 at the auction. Complete blowing away both Tony’s and my previous high marks. I was impressed, and also determined. I was determined to beat my good friend Rob and take the title back.

It’s Time to Sell a Train

I’m now less than two weeks away from doing the craziest thing I’ve ever done for charity. I’m going to sell a complete, working, highly detail LEGO model train of my own design at the 2023 Brickworld Esther Walner Memorial Charity Fundraiser.

So here is my plan.

To start things out we have have a steam locomotive and three cars for the regular train. Built to 1:48th scale (8 wide) this Illinois Central freight train is ready to run on your home or club train layout.

The locomotive is an authentic recreation of Illinois Central locomotive no. 790, a 2-8-0 steam freight locomotive now preserved at Steamtown National Historic Park. The locomotive model uses a Power Functions L motor to drive the drivers and features many custom parts. And there may be a surprise or two thrown in, you’ll just have to wait and see.

The caboose is a model of an Illinois Central wood side Baggage Caboose in its late steam era paint scheme.

The boxcar is a Pullman PS-1 40ft car lettered for the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railway (also known as the Monon). This is an new and improved version of my old design for this car. The flat car is a Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific AAR 53ft car with Caterpillar tractor load. Also new and improved from my previous design.

But wait, there’s more!

I don’t want to just beat Tony’s F7s, I don’t want to just match Rob’s overgrown Tiny Shay, I want a grand slam. I want to set records and have a heck of a story to tell.

To do this, I’m bringing in some help from my friends. To help set a record, I have three mystery bonus cars to add to the auction. Glenn Holland, Scott Roys, and Conrad Schlenker have each designed and generously donated a car for the auction train. What cars you ask? Well they are going to be kept secret until the auction, but trust me, they are awesome and you will want them. Here is how this is going to work.

Once the auction price hits $2700 (Tony’s F7s price from 2019), we will add on one of the special cars to the train. If the auction price hits $3400 (Rob’s Loco from last year) we will add a second bonus car. If it hopefully reaches $3600 (the record from what I’m told for any item at the Brickworld Charity Auction) we add the final car. If any of the bonus goals are not met, those cars will get auctioned off individually.

And that’s how you do crazy auction things.

Thank You to these Sponsors

Scott Hoffmeyer of Bricktracks will be donating a full circle of R104 Curve track to go with the train set.

Andy Mollmann of OKBrickworks is donating all the decal printing for these models.

Rob Hendrix of Lifelites has donated the 3D printed drivers for the locomotive, and other miscellaneous 3D printed parts for the build.

Final Thoughts Before the Big Event

It is just crazy for me to comprehend that I’m actually doing this. But it is the thrill of the challenge, and the camaraderie of friends engaging in fun rivalry that brings me here. And it’s for an awesome cause. I never been able to bid at the auctions like some out there, my budget is smaller than my dreams. But one thing I can do is build, and I’ve been accused of being an ok train builder. I may not have the paycheck to buy at the auction, so this is how I can give back.

I really hope this train brings a crazy price at auction. Not for my ego, but because it is going to help children’s charities. Helping kids is the greatest reward here. So if you can be there at the auction, bid generously, it’s for the children.

Thank you, and see you at Brickworld.

Events, Inspiration, Layouts, People

NLGM Wörrstadt – what happens when a small town decides to have a big Lego train show

May 26, 2023 Enrico Lussi Leave a comment

NLGM means Noppenbahner L-Gauge Meeting and is organized by you guessed it, the Noppenbahner. It’s hosted in the town of Wörrstadt, Germany, where the Lego event is now almost a yearly tradition. And that brings something unique into the event, something I haven’t experienced before.

The Noppenbahner are a group of German Lego train builders that build their models, just like most European builders, in scale 1:45. They have been around for a few years now and have built some of the most recognizable German trains in Lego. Including some TRAXX locomotives, a lot of German steam locomotives and diesel locomotives like the Baureihe 218. The individual members build their own layouts as well, which are mostly based on the MILS standard. These layouts can connect to both layouts from other Noppenbahner, and layouts built my members from other groups. Their members are based all across Germany, so they don’t meet up on a regular basis. But they decided to turn one of their meetings into an event for similar minded builders and turn this into the NLGM event. 2022 was their first time hosting this event, 2023 was their second turn at it.

They decided to host their event at Wörrstadt, which used to be a small sleepy suburb of Mainz and other big cities in the area but is now internationally known for its Lego event.

Figure 1 Nick form the Noppenbahner has built the Wörrstadt railway station in Lego, visitors who lived in Wörrstadt spent hours looking and recognizing all the details.

Why Wörrstadt?

Ahh Wörrstadt, the name alone brings back memories of a lot of visitors, having friends around, German BBQ at Saturday night and crashing your trains on a huge group layout. The reason why the Noppenbahner decided to host their event in Wörrstadt is quite simple.

Nick lives in Wörrstadt since his forever basically, coming even to the point that he built the Wörrstadt train station out of Lego. As he knows the small town in and out, he was able to secure the towns venue, a beautifully restored town hall, for the event. Luckily for the Noppenbahner, the town of Wörrstadt really liked the idea of having a Lego train event there and supported them by giving them the keys to the location for affordable conditions. The major also gave a short speech to open the event both years. The even included the town symbol of Wörrstadt in their 1×6 sand red event brick at the 2023 event.

Figure 2 the mayor giving his speech during the 2022 event. As you might noticed the author of this article isn’t in this picture ;).

Like mentioned before, the 2023 version was the second time the Noppenbahner organized this event and it was again organized on the last weekend of April. Before we get to much into the event itself and all the cool Lego stuff, there is something else I would like to point out.

Visitors.

I have been to quite a lot of events/conventions in the last six years. As far as I can remember there aren’t any events that I have done where I wasn’t satisfied with at the end of the weekend. But one thing always stands outs to me at events, and that is the reaction and behavior of visitors. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a creep who likes to stalk all the visitors and observe them (maybe.).

Visitors always bring a certain atmosphere to an event. Your goal is always to impress them and give them their “money worths”. There is nothing cooler than having a group of visitors around that are interested in what you do as a hobby, ask in depth or interesting questions and most importantly enjoy your exhibit. There have been so many events around where I was able to meet other builders who like to learn from us or want to check out our stuff in real life. Their where times where I missed a large portion of an event because I was just talking with visitors for most of the time.

A good example of this was a model railway event I attended with the LLMTC early this year, so many of the “normal” model railway builders were asking in depth and interesting question and where really keen on learning what we do. And they just loved recognizing all the details we have built into our models.

However, an uninterested group of visitors can really turn an event down. I have been at events where the visitors where just not interested. I have been at a event where the number of stands where you were able to buy Lego outweigh the amount of MOCs that were on display. This made most of the audience/visitor’s keener on a bargain than seeing interesting MOCs. A “children” event like LegoWorld attracts more visitors which aren’t interested in MOCs but just want to play and built with Lego at the event itself, the consequences of this is that you have a audience of visitors which ask more questions like “” why isn’t that train running?” instead of being interested on how that train is made.

Luckily, I can say that the visitors at the NLGM in Wörrstadt belong to some of the most kind, interested and well-behaved visitors I have ever experienced. The amount of question and interest in us was overwhelming, it’s also turning in something well known in both the area of Wörrstadt and Germany itself. Some visitors travelled very far just to visit this event. The car park was so full that people decided to use the nearby basketball field to park their car. And visitors are now calling it a yearly tradition, where even the elders in the village asked if the event is really going to happen again next year.

Figure 3 one of the visitors’ favorite layouts was Holger Matthes his bridge.

Beside visitors travelling far, befriended builders from across Germany travel to see this event and hang out and talk to us. Something that I can say is very unique to see in a field of MOC building that isn’t that very big or well-known compared to others.

One of the things that stood out at the event was how well behaved and polite the visitors where (might have to do with the fact that they are German). There were some area’s that visitors weren’t allowed to walk through or enter. I have experienced at other events that we had to uses gates (sometimes even riot gates) to prevent people to enter these areas, with visitors still ignoring the gates. But in Wörrstadt, a simple sign on a piece of paper that said (in German of course) that visitors weren’t allowed to enter was more than enough.

Figure 4 normally I would be really scared having my models this close to the edge of the table

2022 event.

Back to some Lego stuff. The 2022 event was held on the 30^th of April until the 1^st of May. Back when covid was still a thing and it was mandatory to wear a coffee filter on your face in Germany, me and six other members from the LLMTC decided to travel to Wörrstadt. The principle of Wörrstadt is very similar to what other events like the event at Schkeuditz maintain, they create the possibility for builders to create a layout at home to a modular standard of their choice and bring it to the event. Where the organizers try to get as much different layouts possible connected to each other to form one huge group layout.

Figure 5 an overhead look of the 2022 set-up in the main room, a large section isn’t visible since it was underneath the platform where I took this picture from.

The running/layout style of this event is point to point. Which means your train is able to start at point A on the layout (most likely a storage yard), travel through the entire layout to point B, where it can use the return loop, or you can choose to park it inside of this yard. This makes running trains way more interesting compared to a tradition loop layout. The play factor in setting up layouts like these is way higher compared to having your trains running on the same circle at the entire event.

Figure 6 back in 2022 the second room had Thomas/TS_ his yard in it, here I was dropping of some coaches and picking up some others to take back into the main room.

So, the 2022 event, what was so special? Well, the number of layouts was so immense that they used a second smaller room to display some extra layouts. Your trains literally had to go through a walkway from the main room to the second room, a concept that adds a lot to the point-to-point driving experience. What was also very unique is that the main yard was on stage in the main room. This meant that trains which were not in use, where parked on a higher level, perfect height for visitors to look at the models.

Figure 7 Inside the yard from Thomas/TS_ was also a turntable which was perfect for turning locos to send them back into the main room.

There was a large number of interesting layouts, too much to list up in this article, therefore I highly recommend checking out Ties’ video of the event which has 20+ minutes of amazing video shots of our models running around.

2023 event.

The 2023 version was similar to the 2022 version however the number of layouts was less compared to the 2022, most of this had to do with the fact that there was another semi-big Lego show in Germany at the same weekend. Nevertheless, the event was still a heck of a lot of fun. Here is a quick list of what changed compared to the 2022 version.

Figure 8 overhead shot of the 2023 layout set-up in the main room.

Well first of all we didn’t have to wear any coffee filters on our faces anymore, which was a big plus. Second, the point-to-point driving experience was expanded compared to last year. This year the second room had a small narrow-gauge layout that was able to work together with the normal gauge layout, in short, this means that trains on normal gauge where able to deliver wagons to the narrow gauge, and narrow gauge where able to transport those wagons on their layout. This was perfect for playing around with freight wagons.

NLGM Wörrstadt 2023 — Figure 9 one of the narrow-gauge loco’s shunting beside the mainline connecting. Photo credits: Thomas/TS_.

The storage yard on the stage was heavily expanded with a lot more extra space. The yard was in fact so large that a team of dedicated shunters where always ready to help out with storing trains and rearranging them. This yard solved some of the storage problems that happened previous year. Shunting in this yard was a heck of a lot of fun. Where you were able to team up with one builder on the left side operating all the switches on that side, and a builder on the right side doing the same thing. This was one heck of a team effort to shunt and store all the trains, but it was immense fun to experience.

Figure 10 the 2023 storage yard on the stage where Tamás is shunting in the back. Photo credit: Ervvin

To add even more storage space, Nicolas Tbx made a storage yard which was placed in the middle of the layout. This meant that it was the perfect space to pick up some extra freight wagons while you’re driving from point A to B. Having this extra yard plus some stations where there where storage tracks available, made it really fun to shunt trains from one yard to another. I personally spent a lot of time picking up freight wagons at the different stations and yards and driving those to the main yard.

Figure 11 my NS2454 pulling a small mixed freight train which I picked up in the main yard, and which I’m going to drop off at the yard Nicolas Tbx has built. Location of this picture is Ties’ layout.

Branch line.

One of the more unique things from both the 2022 and 2023 version that both group layouts had their own dedicated branch line. A branch line with no overhead wires, wooden sleepers and instead of double track it had a signal track. This branch line was a warm welcome to the busy and crowded mainline and was the perfect piece of the layout to take your time while driving through and take pictures at every spot. It’s very unique to see events where the number of layouts is so vast, that there is even the possibility to set up a branch line where your able to drive for a significant distance.

If you want to see more of the 2023 layout, check out Ties his 1-hour documentary:

So, what makes this event so great?

Well, it’s a combination of the factors mentioned above. First of all, the set-up of the layout, where you’re driving from point A to point B makes driving trains 10x more interesting than a conventional layout where trains just run around the same loop over and over again. With a point-to-point layout you’re really playing with your trains, combine that with the ability to shunt wagons in different yards and station, and the ability to travel with freight wagons from point A to point B and you have a weekend where you just can’t get enough of playing around. Plus add to this equation the fact that you have a dedicated branch line and multiple interesting and unique layouts and then you find yourself with one of the best group layouts to play with your trains on.

Add to this the fact that the visitors are interested, kind and really want too more about us. And genuinely enjoy watching us play with our trains for hours.

And to add this all up, you have a group of warm, friendly Lego trains builders, who want to provide you with an amazing weekend and the opportunity to enjoy it to the fullest. Attending Wörrstadt feels like you’re hanging out with your mates while you’re playing with your Lego trains. And in the evenings, you can sit back, relax and share stories and ideas for new Lego projects. NLGM is what all Lego events should be about, and the Noppenbahner did a bloody damn good job of it!!

Figure 13 the 2023 crew together in one picture.

I want to really thank the Noppenbahner for organizing and having us, I’m grateful for the friendship and the collaboration the Noppenbahner and the LLMTC have. It’s very unique to see that builders from different countries can be so close and so collaborative, I told the story about the LLMTC and Noppenbahner friendship at a model railway event earlier this year, and the other builders just couldn’t believe that we are daily working together and have such a close friendship that has been around for so many years. Thank you so much for everything!

If you’re interested in seeing more of the event, I highly recommend watching the following video’s:

I hope you enjoyed this look into this unique event, thank you so much for reading! And thank you Nick for giving this article a quick read trough to spot any spelling mistakes.

Ciao!!

Enrico

LEGO® News

OcTRAINber 2022: The Results

November 19, 2022 Chris Stone Leave a comment

After two months of dedicated building, OcTRAINber 2022 saw a somewhat smaller but very high quality set of entries. This year’s challenge was quite a big one, and it’s safe to say that everyone who participated rose to the occasion quite well. Today, I’m quite proud to announce the winners of this year’s OcTRAINber: Rebuilds & Retrofits challenge.

Last weekend, Cale Leiphart, Matt Csenge, and myself were joined in judging by a staple competitor and many-time OcTRAINber winner: Alexander, also known online as “narrow_gauge”. Together, the four of us reviewed these great entries and picked out the winners. Alexander’s got a keen eye for the LEGO train modeling hobby and his contributions, both to the judging and the hobby, are stellar. Many thanks, Alexander, for participating in the judging this year!

Before I get to the winners, let’s take a quick review of what they’ve won this year, shall we?

The Prizes

BrickTracks has contributed several sets of switches for the winners. Each winner of the four main categories will receive one R104 Switch Track Set, while the Grand Prize winner will be getting three!

BMR Gift Card

Each of the four category winners will receive a $30 Gift Card for the BMR shop, and the Grand Prize winner will receive a BMR Gift Card worth $40!

Without further ado, let’s get to the announcements!

This Year’s Winners:

Winner: Buildings and Structures

Gilles Lessard’s “Heavy Hauling Hearts” Flatcar Bridge

Gilles Lessard has brought us the story of a flatcar that was eventually repurposed into a pedestrian bridge at a Golf Course, and has built both an excellent model of the flatcar in its rolling stock days as well as its later life ‘photo stock’ days after being converted into a bridge; including two seasons in his diorama to represent both the wintry weather in which he skied under it as well as a wedding photoshoot he found in his searches for more reference material.

This is both an excellent pair of models, and a great fit into this year’s theme. Congratulations, Gilles!

Winner: Steam Locomotive

Ts__ certainly seems to have been hit heavy with inspiration and drive this year, having built two physical models and digitally designing a third. This odd duck of a locomotive was initially built as a streamlined cab-forward steam locomotive that burned, of all things, coal dust, before later being rebuilt as a more traditional engine to make something useful out of it after its performance proved unsatisfactory.

Ts__ has captured all three time periods of this locomotive in great detail, but furthermore has managed the impressive task of making them actually run; a feat I was quite honestly not expecting from the streamlined engine. It’s crazy to see just how big of a change this steam engine went through!

Winner: Rolling Stock

Denis Garnier’s curious little snowplow started life as both a tender and an unrelated electric locomotive, before the railroad essentially kit-bashed them together into this 3-axle rotary snowplow. Denis has modeled both the tender that provided the frame as well as the snowplow created from it, both with an excellent level of detail and a system to motorize the snowplow’s blower. The shapes and textures of both models are exemplary, and do a great job of representing two pieces of rolling stock that look entirely different at a glance – but have their common components clearly represented to those who give it a closer look.

Winner: Other Locomotive

Scruffulous’s Victorian Railways Rail Tractor

Scruffulous’s Rail Tractor is an incredibly well-realized set of models depicting a very interesting transformation of its constituent parts. Apparently a fan of repurposing the frames of their I Wagons, the Victorian Railways solved a motive power need by installing a tractor onto one of these frames to power it via chain drive, and then built a cab around it.

Scruffulous’ models are all amazingly detailed, the Rail Tractor is motorized, and the 3D printed parts he’s created for the handrails really feel like they add to the model. The detailing of the springs and the bearing boxes is inspired, and the shape of the tractor on the front of the locomotive is unmistakable. Fantastic work!

Winner: Grand Prize

Through both his builds and the WIP story, Hod Carrier has shown an incredibly fine example of what serious LEGO model railroading is all about. Two trains, three units each, and an amazing amount of work to faithfully recreate a multitude of complex and subtle curves and shapes. Not content with that, the models are motorized and the passenger version includes an interior; in addition to the fantastic new method of close-coupled articulation he’s developed to keep the space between the cars to a minimum.

The amount of design work and research put into this somewhat obscure bit of rail history is impressive, and the final product seems well-worth the time put into it. Great builds, Hod!

Final Words

As always, thanks to everybody who participated in OcTRAINber this year; be it competitors or those who took the time to encourage the participants. This year’s theme was perhaps a bit daunting, but you all met the challenge well and produced some great models with fascinating histories.

I’d also like to once again thank Narrow_Gauge for joining us in judging these models. I’ve always loved seeing his amazing entries, and it was really cool to have his perspective involved in our review this year.

And, finally, once more, congratulations to all the winners of OcTRAINber 2022!

LEGO® News

OcTRAINber: Polishing the Presentations

October 21, 2022 Chris Stone Leave a comment

With only a week and a half left in OcTRAINber it’s time to make that final push to finish the entries before the deadline. Already the sweet sights of many WIP entries have been coming out to be seen. It’s always so amazing to see the creative and amazing things that people choose to build each year for the competition!

Build competitions are always filled to the brim with very high-quality models, and each year the quality gets better and better and it’s always difficult to choose a winner. Today I’d like to take some time to make my life harder in that regard, and talk about how to make a stronger entry. Some of these things are nearly universal, but I’m also going to have some extra focus on Digital entries.

In this article, I’d like to briefly discuss a few things to help add a little extra polish to your entries, and after that I’ve found a few links to resources that may be of great assistance to digital builders.

Adding Life into a scene

When building structures or scenery, oftentimes just getting the shapes and the details right is hard enough work on its own. Sometimes the subject of your build is something that would be quite pristine in the real world, but oftentimes in both nature and constructed environments life leaves a mark on the world around it.

Be it cups, boxes, old wheels, tramped-down foliage, or just general clutter, making sure to include these sorts of ‘lived in’ details can help make a model feel less like a model and more like a little picture of something real. As you study your real-world inspiration, keep a look out for these sorts of details and see if you can incorporate them into your build.

Breaking up Repetition

Breaking repetition goes quite hand-in-hand with adding life into a scene, but I find it especially important for digital modeling. One of the nice things about building a digital model is that, if you need to build a five-section bridge you can do almost all the work on just a single section and then copy that as many times as needed to create quite a large model quickly.

With a physical build, the sheer size or magnitude of something made this way could well make up for the repetitious nature of it – you know that though the design of the segments is the same, the builder had to procure and assemble every brick of it. Digital builds can lose a lot of ‘oomph’ that a very impressive physical structure can muster; but they don’t have to suffer this lightly.

Whether it be a large bridge, a multiplatform station, or something as small as a fence, adding details and finding ways to break up the visual repetition of the build can bring a very satisfying depth to any model. Sections of damaged fence, station platforms that are under maintenance, or other ways of bringing a used or unique perspective to otherwise identical or repetitive parts of the structure can go a long way towards making something feel more substantial; digital or not!

Showcase your highlights, show off your clever solutions

Whether you’re building digitally or physically, you may find a situation where you end up spending a significant amount of time solving a build problem that ends up being wildly complicated, incredibly tricky, or just needs a really clever solution… but the end results end up being subtle and something that may be missed.

With so many entries of such high complexity and quality, it is of course possible that these sorts of details or features may end up overlooked (Or it could just be hard for someone seeing only the finished product to understand the hidden depths and complexity!). This is where the WIP aspect of OcTRAINber really can help you show off your entries – take good pictures of your tricky or clever solutions and share them! We’ve had quite a few entries over the years that used some pretty mind blowing build techniques that were well-documented by the builder.

Documenting these also helps serve as a ‘proof of concept’ for certain aspects, especially with digital builds. Even if you have a digital entry, if there’s something complicated involved it may be worth it to include a picture of a test build of the clever solution to show it really works!

Digital Resources:

It’s no secret that digital builders do often feel like it’s hard to get the same attention for their builds that physical builders do. It’s something that we judges work hard to keep in mind, but the fact of the matter is that we can only judge based on the things we see. We have seen many absolutely incredible digital entries over the years, but a lot of otherwise amazing builds end up missing the same level of finesse.

A high-quality LEGO train build, or indeed build in general, can very often be found to have all sorts of extras. Just like a traditional model railroader, LEGO train models tend to go very cross-disciplinary: Well-made decals, custom wheels, custom rods, and other ways of adding those perfect finishing touches. Learning how to add these sorts of finishing touches into a digital model takes both skills and resources that may not be readily available to most people, so one of the things I’d like to do is help provide links to places where people have made these sorts of things available to the community.

LDraw/Stud.io Compatible Parts

There are many digital building programs available, and quite a few which make use of the LDraw Parts Library. If you are using one of these programs, such as Stud.io or LDCad, you can add custom parts to the program using appropriately created files.

BMR Knuckle Couplers

For those of you who want to model your trains with the Kadee Knuckle Couplers offered by BMR, we have the digital parts files available for free in the shop:

https://brickmodelrailroader.shop/products/knuuckle-coupler-ldraw-studio-cad-files

Big Ben Bricks Drivers

Big Ben Bricks has offered a great selection of wheels for a long time, and they offer downloads for the LDraw Parts files for the majority of these wheels. These files can be added to Stud.io as well, though if you want connectivity functionality you will need to add it yourself in the Parts Designer. They are still quite usable without, however.

http://www.bigbenbricks.com/ldraw/ldraw.html

HA Bricks Drivers

In advance of plans to sell injection molded drivers of their own, HA Bricks has made Stud.io files available for a very wide variety of train wheels. These can be found at the link below, and each download has a text file with instructions for how to import the parts into Stud.io using the Parts Designer tool.

https://www.habricks.com/product-categorie/wheels/

Custom Locomotive Rods

While there’s nothing wrong with sticking to standard LEGO liftarms for the rods on your engines, I very often see an array of these liftarms used on a model with a note or comment that they are stand-ins for custom rods that the designer hopes to add in later. Trained Bricks is probably the most popular supplier of well-functioning custom rods for LEGO trains, and conveniently also offers a download pack for the digital files for these rods.

https://trainedbricks.square.site/digital-resources

I hope the digital resources come in handy for you! It’s been very amazing to see the WIP builds posted so far, and I’m quite excited to see what else shows up as we approach the final deadline.

Please remember to have everything submitted in the proper entry threads on our Flickr page no later than October 31, 11:59 PDT!! At that point entries will be closed.

Happy building!

LEGO® News

OcTRAINber 2022 — Rebuilds & Retrofits

August 26, 2022 Chris Stone 1 Comment

Hello again, everybody! October isn’t quite here yet, but it’s just about time to get rolling for this year’s OcTRAINber. We’re going to be making a couple tweaks to the format this year that I’ll explain later in the post, but for now let’s get into the rundown on this year’s theme: “Rebuilds & Retrofits“.

Railroads have had a long history of taking old cars or engines and trying to use them for as long as possible. Railroad equipment is expensive, after all. Old equipment is kept repaired and patched up as best as it can be, but sometimes these old pieces of stock end up being changed for something very different. Locomotives may be altered significantly to help them better fit in a different role, such as a tank engine having its tanks removed and replaced with a tender. Sometimes old passenger cars end up heavily rebuilt for a non-revenue role and go on to serve as Maintenance-of-Way equipment. Some freight cars end up rebuilt as passenger service cars, or stripped down and turned into a bridge.

That, ultimately, is what this year’s OcTRAINber is all about. We’re looking for models of Railroad equipment that has been rebuilt or retrofitted to serve a different or altered function from its original intent. In addition, we’d like to see two LEGO models, one of both the before AND after – show us how the subject has changed!

Hammond Lumber Co.’s 2-6-6-2t #6 was later converted to a tender engine and sold to Southwest Lumber, where it was re-numbered to #12

The Challenge

Ultimately, we’re looking for major changes in the modeled subjects. While a boxcar with friction-bearing trucks getting an upgrade to roller-bearing trucks does indeed count as a retrofit, it’s not a very large change and won’t score many points. What we’re really looking for is something that has been changed to operate in a significantly different way, or something that has been altered to look drastically different.

We realize that this year’s theme requires building two models – but we’re very open to options. There are several acceptable ways to reach this criteria:

1. Build both versions of the model in LEGO Bricks.
2. Build both versions of the model digitally
3. Build one version in LEGO, and one version digitally
4. Build and photograph one version in LEGO bricks, then actually alter it to the second version and photograph that. Both versions need not exist simultaneously; they just need to be photographed and submitted together in a single entry

Southern Pacific removed the engine components from 9010 and rebuilt the nose, turning it into a camera car and re-numbering it to 8799

Rules

Entries must be original models. No stealing. This also means no Mods (thus also no sets), only original MOCs.
One entry per person, per category. You can enter as many categories as you like, but you can only enter one model in each category. We want quality over quantity. So pick your best model and make it shine.
Third party parts are allowed, clone bricks aren’t. We know this can be a thin line, just walk it wisely, and we’ll do our best to judge fairly on this.
We are making no rules for the scale you choose to model in. We are welcoming models of 6, 7, and 8 studs, and anything in between or beyond! However, we appreciate detail and accuracy. Reasonably sized models are usually better for that, but we don’t knock anything or anyone with serious skill.
NEW BUILDS ONLY. We are willing to accept anything unpublished or anything that was not published before August 1st 2022 as new. We want to inspire and promote a challenging build, entering an old model doesn’t quite work in that regard.
Entries MUST be made on our Flickr group in the appropriate thread. This is the ONLY place we will be looking for entries, nowhere else. Sending photos to us on social media or showing us in person does not count as entries! These threads will open on September 1st.
We will be accepting entries from Midnight on September 1st to Midnight on November 1st (meaning October 31st, at 23:59 PDT). Due to the scale of the competition as well as helping efforts to expedite the judging, we’ve opted to start OcTRAINber early instead of having it run long into the holiday season. This also means there will be no extensions this year, so make sure you’re all ready by the end of October!
Digital entries are allowed, and will be competing in the same categories as the physical models. As mentioned before, we are accepting “mixed-media” entries due to requiring two models, so you are welcome to submit one Physical and one Digital model to complete an entry.

A second deck has been added to this New Haven flatcar to facilitate maintenance on the electrified lines

Categories

There will be four categories to enter this year, with a winner for each. There will also be an extra Grand Prize winner, as we’ve done in some previous years, for a total of five prizes.

The Categories are as follows:

1. Steam Locomotives

2. Other Locomotives (E.G. Diesels, Electrics, Rail buses, anything that provides its own motive power)

3. Rolling Stock (E.G. Freight, Passenger, MOW, etc)

4. Buildings and Structures (E.G. repurposed stations, rail cars that have been repurposed as bridges.)

If you are building something that could go in multiple categories, for example a flatcar (rolling stock) that has been repurposed into a bridge (structure), then we’d recommend entering it in the category that best fits what it has been adapted into. In this example the flatcar has been turned into a bridge, and should be entered as a structure.

This ATSF Boxcar was converted into a bridge over a canal

Judging and Scoring

Entries will be judged primarily on these three criteria:

1. Accuracy to Prototype — How well do your models represent their real-life counterparts? Proportions, detailing, and functionality all help out here.

2. WIP Story — Include pictures and information on the real-life counterparts to your build, show the build process, and highlight the differences between the ‘Before’ and ‘After’ versions of your model.

3. Transformation Factor — This is focused on how significant of a change took place. Something like changing the trucks out to reflect a bearing type upgrade will score much lower than something that has been changed to operate or be used in a significantly different or unique way; or has been altered to look drastically different.

As always, keep in mind that OcTRAINber is a ‘quality over quantity’ building event. This means that we encourage (and give higher scores for) higher-quality entries as opposed to several sub-par ones. Build your best, and don’t rush yourself to try to hit something in every category.

While we’ve tried to give several examples for things that will fit into the theme, the examples listed are not exhaustive. We encourage you to explore and find some really amazing things to enter, so if you find something that you feel really grabs the spirit of the theme then go ahead. If it’s something really out there that won’t fit into one of the listed categories, feel free to ask for clarification.

Final Words

The last couple years, the judging for OcTRAINber hasn’t exactly been the quickest, and that’s something we would really like to change this year. November and December are filled with Holidays and train shows, and mixed with the growing number of entries it’s been getting quite difficult to find a good time to get through everything once Thanksgiving starts to hit.

To help alleviate that, for all of you as well as for the judges, instead of extending OcTRAINber into November, we are going to start it earlier this year and will work to have the judging taken care of before the big holiday season starts up. Starting September 1st is certainly change, but we still end it in October, so it totally counts, right?

We will have more articles posted in the coming months with more information as needed.

OcTRAINber has always been fun for us, and we’re excited to see what you all come up with to enter this year. Thank you for reading, and we hope you have as much fun with the event as we do.

Happy building!

NYC’s #5344 Hudson has run both with and without the streamlined panels

Events, Inspiration, Layouts, Models

BAUSPIELBAHN-TREFFEN (BSBT) the place to be for L-gauge railway fans in Europe.

August 19, 2022 Enrico Lussi Leave a comment

This year, for the fourth time in a row, the LEN-Eisenbahner from Leipzig (Germany) organized one of the biggest l-gauge meetings in Europe. Where builders from all around the world come together to form one of the biggest community layouts that the community has ever seen. But what makes this event so special? And what goes on behind the organization of this event? This and many more will be shown and explained in this article. It is going to be a big one. So, get something to drink and enjoy a story that starts a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away.

Origin story, something that started out small.

Back in 2019 the LEN-Eisenbahner group had the idea to organize an event which was similar to an event, what other model railroad organizations in Europe organize. Where, depends on the gauge, similar building model railroad clubs would join up in a location and try to connect the group diorama’s together to make a big enough layout to be able to drive from point-to-point. For accomplishing this, they had to find a location that would be big enough to house a lot of layouts at once, and which was suitable to welcome all the builders and visitors.

They found one in an amazing little old tram shed, which is not in use anymore by the public transport company. This tram shed is located in Schkeuditz, a small residential village right beside Leipzig. The tram hall is owned by the local model railroad organization that uses the location as both their base of operation, and to organize a similar event as the LEN-Eisenbahner were planning. This would turn out to be the perfect fit as a location for some many amazing stories and adventures. The tram shed is around 700m2. And one of the plus sides of this location, is that it is located, almost in the middle of Europe. And therefore, relatively accessible for builders all around the EU.

Figure 1 setting-up day at the tram shed in Schkeuditz.

For the construction of the layouts, they relied on 2 things. First, builders would enter their layout by BlueBrick or planning sheet. Where they would specify what their dimensions are, what type of power system they use, and if they built using MILS, LEN, NOIS etc.

Second, they use a lot of wood, and I mean tons of it. Most of the tables under need the layouts are constructed on side in advance. And after 4 years of doing this, they exactly know what they are doing and how to be creative. A lot of my respect go out to these guys and how they are always able to build tables and connection units for all the amazing complicated and unique shaped layouts. Be doing the constructions of tables on side, they are able to house more unique looking layouts and display them in curves and different shapes and therefore they are able to be more creative compared to using standard square tables.

What makes this event unique and I think is one of the reasons why it’s gotten so big, that it doesn’t matter how or what you built. Not only does that mean you can pick any type of layout you want, it also implies on what power system or modular standard you use. You can pick whatever you want, PF, 9v, r40 curves or R104+. The organization will make sure that your layout get’s places somewhere and that trains will run over them. The mainline itself is always pf and R104+ where a big part is also 9v powered so that you can excess those areas. A few of the branch lines are 9v r40 so only specific trains are able to excess those. By doing this, the event becomes a dynamic and lively thing, where different builders and different building style meet and come together.

After the 2019 version they decided to go bigger for the 2020 version, and even bigger after that. And now we are at a point that the tram shed is becoming too small.

Back in early 2021, myself and a few other LLMTC members decided to join BSBT with our layouts, and before we knew it, we were in for a big adventure and the event of a lifetime. So, what follows is the report of that 2021 event (what maybe was supposed to have been uploaded back in 2021).

BSBT2021, what an event.

So, after a long time of uncertainty because of the epidemic, we were finally able to go to the event on Thursday 12^th of august 2021. We decided to rent a van to transport our modules and trains to the event. So, after meeting early morning at Erwin his apartment we drove together to the event in a really well packed van, which later turned out to be well not so appropriately named. We rented the van from busjehuren.nl, and once the fellow Germans noticed, we came to the conclusion that “huren”, which means “renting” in Dutch, has a really different meaning in German. After getting a tour of the location by the organization we were able to unpack and see what survived the journey. The days that unsuited where filled with seeing amazing trains run, a really cool trip to Leipzig, and one of the best night photoshoots I have ever seen.

Figure 2 not everything survived the transport unfortantly

To fully show the size of the event, I will now give a fictional tour of this event. So, take place in my Trans Europ Express while we cross the layout from one amazing layout to the other. Oh and don’t pay attention to the pieces that we are losing on the way, those were “non-essential”.

Figure 3, the layout design for BSBT2021. The full high resolution image can be seen here.

First location has to be number 12, Maciej Drwięga his Maciejowo station. And come on, who has not been following him for ages. His station has gotten immensely big over the years, what once started with a small station building is now a complete functioning train station. The current station is the size of 88 48×48 baseplates! And all the infrastructure like signal box, a huge station building, and a really neat train shed combine it into the perfect scenery. Combined with the fact that all these have lighting made this the perfect spot for late night photo stops. Oh, and it’s the perfect place to store/dump a train who runs terrible but looks good.

Figure 4 Maciej his station packed full with trains in the early morning sun light. Credits: Maciej Drwięga

Our second stop has to be the station Linderei with bridge (number 7 and 56), a group layout from Urban Erwin and Pieter Post. The station itself is set in the 1920-1930’s where all the scenery, including minifigures, match this time period. Behind this station building is the bridge Urban Erwin made, and this bridge is the starting point of the branch line, which extends all the way to the other side of the tram hall. A perfect location for photos and a lot of traffic jams.

Figure 5 both during night and day the station and bridge is an impressive group collaboration layout and the perfect location to spot amazing models.

Not only is the bridge a starting point of a branch line, the station itself also features a branch line, where once you drive through a piece of scenery you arrive at station Wörrstadt Hbf (number 6). Nick Kleinfelder, from the Noppenbahner group, is the builder of this station. And it is the perfect typical small German railway station. The entire station has controlled signals and working switches and combined with the lighting it was a true sight to behold. I highly recommend checking out his Flickr page to see the progress of the station over the years.

Figure 6 the TEE in Wörrstadt Hbf, waiting for continuing its journey.

After you drive future down the line, and through a time machine, you arrive at the Western layout from Chrisian(number 5). This Western layout was full of little details and moving elements, that made it a layout you just kept looking at. Oh, and it was a really fun place to see a modern day train drive trough.

Figure 7 everything but prototypical, but fun to see never the less.

Future down the other branch line that uses Urban Erwin his bridge, you come across station Stammbach from Ben Gollwitzer (number 2). Ben is also a member of the Noppenbahner group, and since they wanted to stay in contact during the event, they made a direct phone connection between Nick and Ben there stations. The station also uses working signals and was perfectly located for trains to wait to go up or down the branch line.

Figure 8 Stammbach station full with trains waiting for going up or down the branchline

After getting the clear signal we can leave the station and see the beautiful Bw Kleinfeld (number 32) which is also built by Nick Kleinfelder(I wonder if that’s where the name of the layout came from). This turntable and roundhouse were the perfect spot for loco’s to turn and refuel before heading back onto the branch line.

Figure 9 a trully impressive sight to see, all the locomotives in the fully packed roundhouse.

After driving down the branch line a bit more we come across the amazing Glenfinnan Viaduct (number 57) by Thomas/TS, where we are slowing down a bit, since we really don’t want to crash and destroy the bridge. This bridge is of course modeled after the iconic real-life viaduct which was featured in some kind of wizard movie. The bridge itself is located, like the real life one, in a curve and therefore a true piece of L-gauge Engineering.

Figure 10 Maciej his PKP SP32 at the Glenfinnian Viaduct. Photo credits: Maciej Drwięga

There is still so much more to see here, but one layout I do got to mention is the Rangierbahnhof Zwickau-Bakken(number 41) by again Thomas. This shunting yard uses a hill to shunt freight wagons into random order, and can be operated fully automatic or manually, I highly recommend checking out this video he made of the shunting yard.

Figure 11 shunting yard Zwickau Bakken Ablaufberg was the perfect spot for getting your trains shorted in a unique and diffrent order. Photo credits: Thomas/TS.

The combination of these amazing layouts with all the amazing models, and people made it a weekend that we will never forget. And after 3 days of running trains, we all came home with enough pictures and new ideas to last us for another year.

Beside showing off amazing models and running on a huge layout the entire weekend, the organization also organizes multiple games and challenges. One of these challenges was a speed building competition, where 2 builders had to build a Lego train set, where only one builder is able to see the instructions, and the other is able to see all the parts. Or the legendary pot racer building competition where you had to build a pot racer by using an existing speed champions set.

Figure 12 you gotta love potracer. Photo credtis: Urban Erwin

BSBT2022, were legends meet again.

Before we realized it, it was time for BSBT2022, were luckily this time there were no covid restrictions. With the lessons we learned from BSBT2021 it was time to head out for another weekend of running trains and meeting amazing builders. (And this time without renting a van with a name that some Germans still talk about to this day).

Figure 13 my roundhouse packed with loco’s all over the world. It saw a lot of use during the event!

The significant difference from last year was, that this year the organization purchased a lot of black clothes, and I mean a lot of them. The difference was immediately noticeable, and we highly recommend it for events. It hides all the mess and ugly wood with a blank continuously black cloth which helps with not only the presentation but also the pictures. Talking about pictures, the tram hall got some really cool ambiance lights, which are adjustable and therefore perfect when taking nighttime pictures. The difference between the settings was highly noticeable, and it was nice to not run into things in the dark that you are not able to see. There was a perfect quote from Tamás when we drove our trains in the dark without these ambiance lights:

“I was running my br65. It hit something and I heard a lot of bang. The nose was damaged and a 9v controller fell on the ground, no idea what happened.”

Figure 14 late night photostop at Donát his station. Featured in this picture is Tamás his br65 which really hates 9v controllers.

The layout set-up was similar to last year however, there were even more builders that we able to travel all the way to the event. By the uses of the NOIS modular system by Tbx Nicolas a lot of the layouts felt like one continues connected module which was an improvement upon last year. Some of these modules were built on the spot, and Nicolas really loved it when I asked if he was able to build one with 2 R104 switches for a crossover. By having more builders than the previous year a lot of the blank spots in the layouts from last year were corrected.

Figure 15 smaller layouts like this one from Jelle filled up a lot of the blank spots in the layout, and added a lot of live and detail! Photo credit Maciej Drwięga

I would like to take you through a tour of all these layouts again and stopping at a few that are really worth mentioning. This time take a seat in my ICM 4241(also known as the orange banana).

Figure 16: another packed layout design. Full high resolution image can be found here.

Let us start at Wörrstadt Hbf (number 3) by Nick Kleinfelder. We already visited this amazing layout during our 2021 tour, but a lot has been added, like this amazing looking bridge that we are just quickly going to crash into.

Figure 17 yup that isn’t the first, and won’t be the last time this will happen.

After getting back on the tracks, and gathering all the pieces that we already lose, we are stopping on the number 62 Brücke(bridge) from Michael. And this bridge is the perfect spot for so many photo opportunities. The landscape around the bridge is perfectly covered with a lot of small and interesting details. And it might be one of the most photographed layouts from this event.

Figure 18 Tamás his br65 with a small freight train. And Nick in the background being goofy. Photo credits Tamás de Groot.

After passing by some of the other amazing layouts on the branch line we arrive at Tamás his layout (order ehh I mean number 66) that gives us perfect excess to the main line. We are driving for a quick stop towards number 68, Erwin his banana fiddle yard. This yard is built using a lot of grand curves and therefore has a realistic and natural feel to it. Combined with the added lights makes it the perfect spot to stop and drop off some wagons (or dump your hopper wagons here during the entire event since they were a nightmare to use).

Figure 19 the Banana yard with the famous LLMTC hopper wagons. Photo credits: Maciej Drwięga

After passing by my Roundhouse (number 32) we are off back to Tamás his layout and onto Maté’s station (number 6) from Maté. This station is filled with models from both Maté and Donát and has a really cool modern-day train shed with some really cool and interesting details.

Figure 20 there is always time for a photostop at Maté his station!

After a quick stop we are continuing our journey towards the PFx project layout (number 82). Here Michael Gale was able to evaluate and show his new PFx products. And man was it a treat to see these things in action. I do not want to give away too much, since a lot of the products were still test versions. But the craftsman ship was impressive. And talking to Michael while you are waiting for a green signal to pass was a real treat and amazing experience.

Talking about green signals, this was the first of many working signals provided by Donát Raáb. With the center point being Ashilfalva station (number 7). This was the center of operations for the working signals project, whereby uses of original Lego sensors and S-bricks, he was able to detected if a train was in a certain part of the layout, and therefore preventing a crash. This system did take some work to set-up but was amazing to see in action, and I highly recommend checking out more about it this video. The station itself was huge and the meet-up point for a lot of the express trains that were going across the layout. And at night, the lights that were added to the layout gave it the perfect look of a busy mainline station.

Figure 22 Donát his station was the center of the working signals program. You can see all the red signals in the background keeping the lLMTC nightexpress safe.

After getting the green signal we are able to leave the station and continue towards a favorite from last year Maciejowo station (number 8) from Maciej. And of course, a lot of pictures have to be taking once passing through this legendary station. After that we arrive at the last big fiddle yard (number 75).

Figure 23 perfect scenery for a late night photo stop

A destination we aren’t able to reach with this train (and not because of the tight radius curves this time) is the narrow gauge layout they had on display. These layouts (number 22, 31 and 42) used the narrow-gauge Lego system and had some really intricated and interesting models running on them. A surprise to see so much narrow gauge in action!

Figure 24 it always impressive to see all the little working narrow gauge trains in action.

As a special event, the organization team organized a “loc-Olympics” event. Where you were able to enter your locomotive in a series of challenges. Like a speed run, or a pulling power test. And the results behind these where surprising. As a building competition, there was the special “95 years of Lego” competition. Where all the participants got the same creator set and had to build something in the theme of 90-years of Lego. And the result builts from this challenge was surprising and creative. These challenges make a cool extra entertainment factor to the event itself, and we are already looking forward to what the challenges are next year!

Nighttime photo’s.

Uncommon compared to other events is that BSBT is open until late on the Saturday evenings. And therefore, has a special “late night photoshoot”. The goal behind is to turn on all the buildings and trains that have light and thereby creating light in the darkness. The result off this is utterly unique for any event and is one of the highlights of the weekend. Unfortunately, still builders are still too lazy to add lights which can make driving in the dark a bit dangerously. Anyway, the layouts get a different life to it. Driving around the layouts gets impossible since everybody is stopping every 2 seconds to take a picture. I remember back in 2021 that there was an entire group of photographers taking pictures off our trains in Maciej station at the same time, while a traffic jam formed behind the station for other builders who were waiting on their turn to take photos.

Figure 25 Maciej his station full with lights and in the background full with a group of photographers trying to capture the magic. Photo credits Maciej Drwięga

So, what’s next.

The BSBT even has been growing increasingly throughout the years and that comes with a real problem. The current location (the tram hall) is getting to small to host every layout and builders that wants to take part in this event. So that’s one of the reasons they are now judging all the entries more strictly than before. Therefore, we highly recommend that if you want to join the even next year, that you would let the organization team know as soon as possible. The dates have already been set(11-13th of August 2023). So see you next year?

Figure 26 always fun having so many diffrent locomotives as guest, but why don’t they clean up after themself? Photo credits Maciej Drwięga.

I really want to thank the organization team behind the BSBT event. What they pull off every year is so impressive, and they surprise me each year on what they are able to each eve. The event itself is growing and growing and I am really looking forward to the bright future what this event is able to hopefully fulfill. The team behind this event is full of the most enthusiastic and friendly people I have ever met in the community and their only goal is that everybody can enjoy the weekend and have a fun time. Being able to be together with some many likeminded builders who you can share ideas and stories with is something I am truly grateful that I’m able to be a part of.

I also want to thank Nick and Tamás for helping out with this article.

Ciao! ~Enrico

If you’re looking for more photo’s and video’s of the events I highly recommend checking out these links:

BSBT2021:

BSBT2022:

Flickr groups:

BSBT21: just a view... who wants to play a bit?

Zremb SB-8 gantry crane and heavy stuff: PKP SM42 and ST43

About BMR, Products

St Louis Refrigerator Car Co. 36ft Beer Car NMRA 2022 Premium Instructions Update: New Special Limited Scheme for July 4th.

July 1, 2022 Cale Leiphart Leave a comment

BMR’s model of the St Louis Refrigerator Car Co. 36ft Beer Car is commemorating the L-Gauge Modular Standard LEGO® train layout that will be on display at the NMRA 2022 National Train Show Premium Instructions. If you have not reserved one, then read on and see what the car is about and be sure to reserve yours before the 11:59pm EST July 4th 2022 order deadline. And if you have already reserved a car, then skip ahead and take a look at a special bonus scheme for the car that we are only offering for the July 4th weekend.

Test model with printed parts seen at Brickworld 2022. Note red pin stipe has not been applied yet.

The St. Louis Refrigerator Car Company (SLRX) was a private refrigerator car line established on February 3, 1878, by Anheuser-Busch brewing company. SLRX was formed to facilitate large-scale distribution of Anheuser-Busch’s products via the U.S. rail network. The SLRX not only built its own bunkerless reefers, but maintained and operated them as well.

In 1919 the firm was acquired by Manufacturers Railway Company (MRS), another Anheuser-Busch transportation subsidiary that provided switching service to the brewery and interchange connection with the common carrier railroads serving St. Louis.

BMR’s Limited Edition model faithfully recreates one of the Iconic cars of the St Louis Car Company. This 36ft bunkerless refrigerator car was used from 1913 through to the 1950s. Our model represents this car in its post World War II scheme with white cars sides, an enlarged emblem, and a maroon stripe along the bottom of the car side.

For this model we are offering the choice of decals printed by OKBrickworks, or a printed parts upgrade on new, genuine parts printed by BrickForge. One decal set, or printed part set will be included in each instruction kit. Each decal or printed part set will come with an individual car number so that no two cars will have the same car number. We are also offering extra decal sets and printed part sets for those who want to build more than one car.

Special Liberty Bonds Paint Scheme Only Available for July 4th Weekend

Liberty Bonds scheme used during World War One

Of course the “Late SLRX” paint scheme we modeled on the standard car is not the only scheme these cars used over the years. And while digging through archives we found one that we thought was pretty neat. During World War One, many railroads had equipment painted in special schemes promoting causes in support of the American war effort. The Saint Louis Refrigerator Car Company did so by painting an undetermined number of cars in a special paint scheme to promote Liberty Bonds.

A Liberty Bond was a debt obligation issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in conjunction with the Federal Reserve. Also known as a Liberty Loan, it was a war bond, issued in four installments in 1917-18 as a means to finance the U.S.’ participation in World War I and the Allied war effort in Europe.

As a special bonus, BMR is releasing this paint scheme as an add on to the celebrate the United States Independence this July 4th weekend.

We are offering this special scheme in the choice of decals printed by OKBrickworks, or a printed parts on new, genuine parts printed by BrickForge. You will of course still need the standard Premium Instruction Kit to build the model as the Liberty Bonds Scheme is just being offered as a decal or printed parts add on. Each decal or printed part set will come with an individual car number so that no two cars will have the same car number.

Orders Close 11:59pm July 4th

This is Limited Edition Model and will only be available for a one time run of Instruction kits. Pre orders for this model will end on 11:59pm EST July 4th 2022. Once pre orders close, Instruction Kits will be produced to fill those orders. Expected shipping date will be late July to mid August.

Be sure to order your copy of this special model and the bonus Liberty Bonds paint scheme at the link bellow before it’s gone for good.

St Louis Refrigerator Car Company NMRA 2022 National Train Show Products