Recently, to allow for testing and
review, The LEGO Group supplied Brick Model Railroader with a number
of components from the newly released LEGO Powered Up line of
electronics. Powered Up is TLG’s update to the popular Power
Functions line of motor, battery, and remote systems.
Powered Up! Elements
As “mostlytechnic” mentions in his review on EuroBricks, the components have been released in the newer Boost and Train sets, which started in 2018.
The post on EuroBricks is excellent (and recommended), so rather than write another straight up review of something you can read elsewhere, I concentrated on playability as it concerns us train fans.
Last fall I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Lionel Strang and the crew of the A Modelers Life podcast. Today that podcast was officially published and is available to download.
If you’re not familiar with the Modelers Life podcast, it’s a show about the people who make up the model train hobby. From the shows website, “All modelers have a life, but what do we know of it. This podcast is as much about the people in model railroading has it is about the hobby itself.”
Lionel Strang hosts the show with a rotating crew of regular contributors from the model railroad community. Lionel is best known as the builder of the Allegheny and Lackawanna Southern, a 20’ X 30’ HO Scale layout. He also built two project railroads for Model Railroader Magazine: the Northwest Timber Company and the Appalachian Central. Lionel wrote the monthly column Workin’ on the Railroad for Model Railroader magazine from July 1998 until May 2005, then continued to serve as a contributing editor for another six years after that.
It was a really fun interview to do and I’m honored to help represent both the LEGO® train hobby and BMR to the greater model railroad hobby. I hope you enjoy the interview and let me know what you think of the show. You can download the episode on the AML website, on iTunes, of listen to it on the AML Youtube Channel via the links below.
As you may have read, I’ll be attending the Amherst Railway Society’s 51st annual Railroad Hobby Show in Springfield Massachusetts January 26th and 27th. While there I will have the prototype model for our upcoming Reading T-1 Steam Locomotive Kit on display at the American Steam Railroad Preservation Association booth in the Young building. The ASR group is currently restoring Reading T-1 no.2100 to operation, and with whom BMR has been working with on our model of the T-1.
I’ll be splitting my time between the New England LEGO User Gorup’s LEGO train layout in the Mallary building, the ASR Society booth, and just enjoying the show. But if you can track me down, look for the guy wearing the Brick Model Railroader T-shirt, I would love to talk about the T-1, other BMR kits or just trains and LEGO in general. Hope to see you there.
We’ve got a very busy month ahead of us! We’ll be at several train shows joining the Pennsylvania LEGO Users Group (PennLUG) at their train layout as well as visiting friends. Let’s take a look at what January has to offer.
World’s Greatest Hobby on Tour Show, Oaks, Pennsylvania
A Norfolk & Western duo, A class and a Y6b, are being serviced in the yard before going out a coal drag.
This coming weekend, we’ll be at the World’s Greatest Hobby show in Oaks, Pennsylvania. Public hours are Saturday the 12th and Sunday the 13th, from 9-6 and 9-5 respectively. For those in the area, it is the same convention center where Philly Brickfest is held every year: the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center. We attended this show last year when it was on Monroeville, Pennsylvania (closer to Pittsburgh) and it was one of our favorite shows. There will also be several model train manufacturers in attendance with their own displays, and much more. More information is available on the show website.
After a year and a half of trial, failure, and redesigning, and exactly one year after we originally planned to, Cale and I are pleased to announce the first ever Brick Model Railroader steam locomotive kit.
BMR Prototype Model, Engineer Side 3/4 VeiwBMR Prototype Model, Side VeiwsBMR Prototype Model,Fireman’s Side Rear 3/4 VeiwBMR Prototype Model,Nose Profile
This is a locomotive we are very excited about. The Reading Railroad was located in the eastern part of the state of Pennsylvania, and the BMR Model Team (Cale and Glenn) are Pennsylvania residents, making the Reading a home road for us. The Reading T-1 felt like a natural choice for a prototype for both Cale and myself. It has been on both of our “to do” lists for a while, but other projects have taken priority since. The T-1 will fit well with all of our current transition-era Premium Instructions models, as all of them were used on the Reading and could very well have been seen behind a T-1 at any point during their service life.
I’m sure many of our readers are wondering why it’s taken so long to get to this point. Allow me to answer a few questions you may be having.
Hello again followers, fans and supporters, and happy new year!
Here’s our first post of 2019! We hope that everyone had a joyous Holiday season and an awesome New Year’s. We’d like to reflect on our 2018 and offer some commentary on our second year.
In last year’s review we started off with some stats, so let’s see how we we’ve with our second year behind us.
201 article posts (this one not included)
358 comments on our website posts
543,733 views on our website
616 orders on our website store
3 premium instruction kits produced
1 kit designed for Brickmania
2414 people who “like” our Facebook page
2516 people who follow our Facebook page
80 followers on Twitter
276 posts on Instagram
1335 followers on Instagram
21 videos uploaded to YouTube
972 subscribers on our YouTube channel
Not bad for a little website about a niche hobby run by some builders who have never done this kind of thing before. Now lets look at some highlights from 2018.
Articles
Okay, we know this hasn’t been our strong point this year. Writing for BMR is a completely volunteer effort, and many of us have either been busy with other parts of Brick Model Railroader, or with life outside the hobby. That doesn’t mean we’ve lost our zeal for the hobby, and we’ve still managed to put out some good stuff. If we have one resolution for 2019, it’s to write more.
We love LEGO trains, and we have a lot to say about them. And we know a lot of others do too. There is an enormous wealth of knowledge out there just waiting to be shared, and we want to be the ones to facilitate that. So, for 2019, expect more great LEGO train articles from us.
Events
The participating AFOLs from the 2018 National Train Show
In 2018, BMR attended several great events, including.
We had a lot of fun getting out and meeting our fellow LEGO train builders. And we already have several event we’re planing to attend in 2019.
On January 12th and 13th Glenn Holland and Cale Leiphart will be attending the Worlds Greatest Hobby on Tour in Oaks, PA along with their club layout from PennLUG. Also in January, Cale will again be attending the Amherst Train Show in Springfield, Massachussetts January 26th and 27th, and will be hanging out with the New England LEGO Users Group and their LEGO train display.
In March, Cale and Glenn will be trekking out to Nebraska Brick Days on the 30th and 31st. This will be our first time attending this show. Cale and Glenn will be their along with their club, PennLUG. LOLUG and NILTC will also be there with their LEGO train layouts. We’re really excited to see this growing event.
In April, look for us to again be in attendance at Philly Brick Fest in Oaks, PA from the 25th to the 28th.
In June BMR will be returning to attend Brickworld in Chicago Illinois. This is one of the premier LEGO fan events in North America, and a hot bed for LEGO train enthusiasts. BMR will of course be a part of it.
In July on the 12th to 14th, BMR will be traveling to the NMRA National Train Show in Salt Lake City, Utah. We have a special project we’re hoping to unveil at the show, and will again be making a special edition BMR kit for participating fans.
On July 31 to August 4th BMR will again be attending Brickfair Virginia. This is a huge LEGO Fan event and we’ll be there as part with other train fans to experience it.
That’s a full plate, but where else will we be in 2019? We’re not sure yet, but if we can make it to any more LEGO train events, we’ll let you know.
BMR Models
In 2018 we launched three more models in our Premium Instructions Kit line. Those were the North Eastern Caboose, The NMRA Special Edition Missouri Pacific Caboose, and the 52′-6″ 70 Ton Drop-End Gondola.
Box cover for the Northeastern Caboose
Along with those we continued to sell our previous kits, The Pullman PS-1 40′ Boxcar, USRA 55-Ton Hopper, American Car & Foundry Type 27 Tank Car, and AAR 53′ Flatcar. You can find them all, except the sold out, limited run 2018 NMRA MoPac Caboose, in our online store. And don’t forget to pick up some decals, and extra wheel sets too.
What kits do we have planed for 2019? We plan to start off the year with a double release in January. We will be launching the Thrall 61′-1″ Bulkhead Flatcar and the Pacific Car & Foundry 50′ Insulated Boxcar. Both of these cars should appeal to fans modeling from the 1970’s through 1990’s and later. We’ll have more info on these cars coming soon.
Box art for the Thrall bulkhead car.Preliminary LDraw model for the PC&F boxcar.
These are just the first of hopefully many Premium Instruction kits coming this year, but that’s not all. The BMR model team has been hard at work over the last year with our first full kit. Yes, full kit, all parts included right in the box to build the model. This is a big step for us, so we wanted to make this model something special. We’ll be revealing it soon (at the end of this week!), with plans to go on sale in Spring 2019. We can tell you though that it is our long awaited steam locomotive project, and it will be awesome. Stay tuned.
BMR Models will be picking up steam in 2019.
BMR Teams Up With Brickmania
In 2018 Brick Model Railroader had the opportunity to team up with Brickmania to produce a model of the USATC S160 Steam Locomotive. Brickmania is a company who specializes in high-end custom model kits made with re-purposed LEGO bricks and is without a doubt the best at what they do. For them to approach BMR and ask us to design a steam locomotive kit for them was an amazing opportunity, and we think we did pretty well. Not only did we create an excellent model of this World War II work horse, but the initial run of 25 kits sold out in less than an hour. Both us and Brickmania were blown away by the response. Of course 25 kits is not a huge number, Brickmania did their best to produce as many kits as they could with in the production timeline, but this was a complex kit to put together. If you missed out on the first run, Brickmania has confirmed that they will be making a second batch of kits as soon as they can fit it into the schedule. When we get word of when the second run is coming, we’ll let you know.
S160 Box CoverOur own AAR 53ft flat car was the basis for Brickmania’s 40ft USATC Flat Car kit sold alongside the S160 LocomotiveA 1/48th scale Sherman Tank kit was also made available with the S160 and USATC Flatcar kits.
This will not be the end of BMR collaborations with Brickmania. We’re not sure what will be next, but both us and Brickmania are committed to working together again in the future to bring you more awesome stuff.
Two Years and BMR is gaining strong!
2018 has been a crazy awesome year for the entire BMR team. To everyone involved, be you staff, contributors, website masters, contest organizers, instruction and model producers, and more, thank you for your amazing support, time, and effort. The success we’ve had in through our second year has been great.
We would like to our extend our sincerest thanks again to the amazing LEGO train community. You are what drives us to keep moving forward. Without you, we wouldn’t be in a position to produce instructions and to help promote the hobby. BMR wouldn’t truly exist without our amazing followers.
From all of us at Brick Model Railroader, we thank you for a good 2018, and we wish you and your families a safe, happy, and prosperous new year!
Some final thoughts on 2018 from Cale
Cale, in his office, celebrating the Second Anniversary of Brick Model Railroader surrounded by awesome BMR Models.
On December 30th, 2018, Brick Model Railroader celebrated it’s second anniversary. There was no party, or cake. But there was something special going on. Together with Glenn Holland, my colleague here at BMR and one of my best friends, we we’re wrapping up a weekend of work on several BMR projects. We finalized decals, finished box art, and and filmed our review video for the Thrall 61′-1″ Bulkhead Flat Car. We continued work on our PC&F 50′ Insulated Boxcar, and also worked on a few smaller projects. But for me the most special was working on the final details of our upcoming steam locomotive kit before the reveal in a few days.
Producing my own locomotive kit has been a dream of mine for many years. My original USRA Mikado model built in 2011, was actually intended to be the prototype for a kit. It never made it that far, and for several years, the dream lay dormant. But with the launch of BMR in 2017, and soon after the success of our BMR Premium Instructions, the dream came roaring back. Glenn an I started laying plans for BMR’s first full kit, and of course it was going to be steam.
It’s taken us over a year to get there. And in the process we got side tracked into designing a locomotive kit for Brickmania. So we kind of already made my dream a reality. But the BMR locomotive is all ours. The BMR name will be on the box, and it will be awesome! We’ve taken our time to get every part just right. There has been a lot of hours spent between Glenn and myself obsessing over the smallest details, and a few arguments too. But it will be worth it. This will be the top their in LEGO Steam Locomotive kits. And I will have had the pleasure of working with my friend Glenn, to make the dream come true.
And if we can do this, there’s no end to the other awesome stuff we can do at BMR.
Thank you to all our supporters.
Cale
Glenn Adds Stuff Here
What a year, man. Being in my early 20’s and finishing college in the first two-thirds of this year meant I couldn’t do a lot with BMR, or even LEGO trains in general. Certainly not as much as I would’ve liked. The year hasn’t been without stress, but that also doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a blast. Look at what we were able to accomplish, and we’re still only two guys at this point.
I’m looking forward to what we have in store for the coming year, and I hope you are as well. Until then, keep a eye out for the long-awaited Brick Model Railroader Locomotive Kit reveal. I’m excited to finally be able to say that; it’s been a long time coming.
I keep trying to think of something meaningful to put here, but I can’t. Instead, let me just say thank you. Thank you to everyone that I’ve had the pleasure of working with and speaking to, and hang out with at events, talk to online, and more. I never would have imagined being on the staff of a LEGO train community website, or being able to design models for which fans can purchase instructions for, yet here I am, doing all of that, and more. There’s been some incredible opportunities coming my/our way, and I’ve had a lot of support from my friends along the way. Let me say again, sincerely, thank you.
Play well.
Glenn Holland
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