Greetings fans and supporters,

We’ve been pretty quiet on the website but we’ve had a lot going on behind the scenes. We hope you have been enjoying the builder interviews and community spotlights, we certainly appreciate Elroy and Andy for putting some of those together for us. Today we’ll provide an update on BMR premium instructions, upcoming shows (of which there are several before the year is out), and more.

We’ll begin with upcoming shows.

Brickfair Virginia 2018

Cale will be in attendance at Brickfair Virginia, which runs from August 2-5 at the Dulles Expo center in Chantilly, Virginia. Usually we are a part of the PennLUG Lines train layout on display, but this year PennLUG will not have a train layout at the convention. Cale will be there with some copies of our premium instruction kits available during the yard sale part of the convention.

NMRA National Train Show 2018

The National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) holds a convention every year in a different city. The entire convention consists of workshops and other fun events for NMRA members, and the show is open to the public on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This year, the convention is in Kansas City, Missouri from August 9-12. Through coordination and planning, Brick Model Railroader is happy to announce that we will be represented by both Cale and Glenn at the show, joining forces with twelve LUGs and LTCs and three other companies to put together a 3,000 square foot LEGO train display. We are very excited to work with so many other members of the hobby. We will be bringing some of our premium instructions along for sale.

Speaking of premium instructions, we have decided to produce a special commemorative premium instruction kit available only to participants of the LEGO train display at the NMRA show this year. The prototype selected is a Missouri Pacific extended vision caboose, of which a few are preserved. With obvious ties to the history of railroading in the state of Missouri, the caboose was a no-brainer. Glenn has stepped up to model this caboose and has nailed every detail, including a full interior and even a fully represented lavatory! An optional lighting kit has been also made available.

What makes this kit commemorative? Well, we are including Missouri Pacific “Screaming Eagle” decals with the instructions, as well as printed (yes, printed) tiles featuring the NMRA logo for the 2018 show and our own BMR logo. We will have a couple extra cabooses available on a strict first come, first served basis (there will be five or less at the show).

For those who are not participating in the display and would really like to get this caboose, don’t worry! We will make this caboose available in our store at a later date. We will not be selling the “Screaming Eagle” decals or printed tiles as a courtesy to the participants.

We will also, for the first time, be presenting “BMR Staff Pick” awards to builders at the show. These five separate “Golden Driver” awards will go to the builders who bring the best steam locomotive, diesel locomotive, rolling stock, structure, and display. Presenting awards is something we have been considering for a while as a special event for train builders. We want to highlight what we feel are some of the best models being built, and the diverse categories will help show off model across all genres of railroad modeling. We plan to have awards at more shows in the future.

Greenberg Train & Toy Show

We will be joining the PennLUG Lines train layout at the Greenberg Show in Lebanon, Pennsylvania on December 8 and 9. Greenberg shows are always fun and relaxed shows with plenty of train running.

World’s Greatest Hobby On Tour

Finally, we will again be joining the PennLUG Lines layout at the World’s Greatest Hobby On Tour (we call it WGH) show in Oaks, Pennsylvania on January 11-13, 2019. We attended a WGH show in Monroeville, PA in January 2018 and it was a very fun experience, For those also interested in traditional scale model trains, several manufacturers have displays at this show along with plenty of club layouts. We’re definitely looking forward to WGH next year.

We hope to see you at these events.

Premium Instructions Update

We have decided to keep small stocks of our premium instructions in our store. We constantly get emails about when we will have our instructions back in stock, so instead of producing in large batches, we will be spreading out production and keeping a stock of around five kits at a time.

I have already mentioned the special caboose for the NMRA show. Outside of this, we have had to put our gondola model on hold to focus on this as well as other things. Once NMRA is over with, we will once again be able to work on producing these instructions.

Beyond the gondola, we have plans for more modern freight cars, including a 50′ boxcar and bulkhead flat car. We have gotten many questions about more modern cars and locomotives, and we’re excited to begin working on that.

What about the locomotive kit we keep hearing about? We’ve also been working on this during our “quiet period.” We’ve completely rebuilt the prototype from the rails up and we’re doing very well so far. We have picked out a few cars which we will have instructions available during the Kickstarter campaign for the locomotive.

Lastly, we have our second locomotive picked and a few cars to compliment that too. This won’t be until well into next year, though 🙂

BMR Goes Cashless!

In this increasingly paperless world, we have realized that we must cater to those who may not carry cash on them at shows where we have our products for sale in person. Thus, we have decided to invest in a Square card reader. We aim to make good use of this at our several upcoming shows.

Again, we apologize for the lack of articles recently. We have been trying to get better at this, but with our expanding premium instructions, sometimes we must focus on production related matters. We appreciate the continued support of our fans and supporters.