Hello out there to all you LEGO® train fans. I know it’s been pretty quiet on the BMR website lately but it’s only because things have been very busy behind the scenes, so here is an update of what’s been happening.

Train Shows!

The winter season is train show season here in the North Eastern US. Myself, along with BMR partner Glenn Holland have been busy with several train shows that our club, PennLUG, has displayed at, some of which you may have seen articles about here on BMR. Here is where we’ve been over the winter.

2017 Greenberg Train and Toy Show in Lebanon, Pennsylvania

Worlds Greatest Hobby on Tour in Monroeville Pennsylvania

Amherst Railway Society, Railroad Hobby Show in Springfield Massachusetts

2018 Greenberg Train and Toy Show in York, Pennsylvania.

Now we’re busy preparing for our first LEGO fan event of the year, Philly Brick Fest. I will be there representing BMR (Glenn still has college responsibilities), and operating the PennLUG Lines train layout. If you’re there, come over and say hello.

BMR has an Office!

In the year since Brick Model Railroader started, things have grown beyond just a news and resource site dedicated to LEGO trains. We’ve branched out into kits, and they’ve been successful far beyond our (well at least mine) expectations. BMR started out on my dining room table, and until recently, everything I’ve done on the site and with the BMR store has been run from my dining room and living room. While my cats love the play equipment that shipping boxes provide, it was time to give BMR a more permanent space.

Over the past week I’ve been busy clearing out my spare room and turning it into a home office (that still sounds weird to me) where I can work on the site, write articles. I’ve also been setting up a space in my basement where we can work on putting kits together and shipping them out. It’s a small step, but BMR now has a more dedicated and permanent space for me to work. As we get even busier this year, this will be a huge help in keeping things running smoothly.

Preorders for our First Four Freight Car Kits are Shipping

For all of you patiently waiting, we have started fulfilling the recent preorders for our first four Premium Instruction Kits. This week has been slow as I’ve worked on getting BMR a more permanent space to help with streamlining shipping, but things are moving. Shipping will be ramping up full force this coming week, and I hope to have a lot of kits on the way to you all. Be on the lookout for shipping confirmation, but please be patient, we had a large amount of orders (about 180 kits) and I’m flying solo right now while Glenn is in a grueling semester of college. Thank you for your patience. All orders will be shipped in the next two weeks.

The Northeastern Caboose Premium Instruction Kit

Lastly, and many of you have been waiting for this, our Northeastern Style Caboose Premium Instructions go on sale this coming Monday, April 2nd, at 12 Noon EST. We’ve been putting an extra shine on these to make this the best model we’ve released yet.

We’re going to be doing this release a little differently. For the previous four kits we made up a run of 50 kits, put them on sale, and when sold out, you had to wait until the next run. Since the popularity of our kits has been so great, we’ve usually sold out in days for the first runs, and even re-runs have sold quickly. Clearly you all like what we’re doing. We really have no legitimate idea of our demand, so instead of making a limited run of kits ready to sell, we’re going to try out the pre-order formula used recently for the four freight car re-runs. However, we are working on streamlining our production process and hope to have a number of kits ready to ship as soon as pre-orders close. We’re still learning and trying to find the best way to sell our models, and make sure that every one who wants one will get the opportunity. We’re always open to feedback, so if you have questions or concerns, let us know. For now, here is our official review video for the Caboose.

And in case you missed it, we added something a little brighter to this model.

We’ve worked with Rob Hendrix of LifeLites to design a light kit for our Northeastern caboose. There are two red LEDs that are made into the rear marker lights and one warm white LED that illuminates the interior, so three lights total. The battery and control board sit in the cupola, and there are more connector ports if you decide you would like to add more lights.

We will be officially releasing the caboose for sale this coming Monday, April 2nd at 12 Noon Eastern Standard Time and closing orders on Monday, April 30 at 12 Noon EST. That gives everyone four weeks to order. Light kits will be available during this time too. Look for an official post here on BMR, on our Facebook page, and on Instagram announcing the official release.

Thank you from all of us here at BMR,  and we hope to get back to a more normal posting schedule soon.