As promised, this is a follow-up to the post by BigDaedy and me about how the both of us designed our Bombardier Traxx’es.

The people who know me, know that most of my Lego projects can take weeks, months, even years to finish. It’s something I’m not especially proud of, but on the other hand, I know it’s just my way of building. For some reason I never mastered the art of Digital building, so everything I build, is build IRL. For me that makes the process even more lengthy, because I also tend to delay my BL orders. However, every now and then you meet somebody who seems to be having the exact same project and lengthy building process, and can actually stimulate you to finish a build. This post is the result of one of those projects.

For me, this story started the moment when the Dutch Railways (NS Hispeed more precisely) started operation on the High Speed Line between Amsterdam Schiphol, Rotterdam and Brussels. Because the ordered 250 km/h High Speed EMU’s weren’t ready when the HSL was finished, NS Hispeed decided as a stopgap measure to use the Bombardier Traxx F140 MS and IC carriages instead for what they called their “Fyra” service. Fun fact: The name comes from the same people that came up with the nonsense word “Thalys“.

A short note: Officially this consists isn’t high speed at all, but after a bit of re-gearing they could run 160 km/h. The main reason then wasn’t the speed, but the reliability and operationability: The Traxx was at that point in time the only locomotive that was able to run on the HSL to begin with, due to troubles with the special version of the European Train Control System that was used at the HSL at that time.

However, this being the first new Electrics by NS since the NS 1700-series build between 1990-1994, which I build several years ago, they immediately caught my attention. Due to the double curved front shape, I didn’t really know where to start, at one point even contemplating to just saw the Jack Stone car canopy in two. However, being the purist that I was (In my defence, I was a lot younger back then) I decided against it an shelve the whole idea.

In the end of 2014 I finally had my first a-ha erlebnis and realized how to build the double curved front. After trying it out and getting the ‘right’ feeling, I decided I should move forward and try to actually build the whole thing, instead of only the front. However, me being me, it just didn’t work out, and I got stuck with half an engine that I didn’t manage to finish.

Now, this is the moment that normally I would shelve an idea indefinately and just give up. Luckily for this build, this was the exact moment I got in touch with BigDaedy. He was very enthousiast of the build and told me I should just continue. The reason was simple; he had just started his training to become train driver on the German Traxx. In his own words:

“If I remember correctly you started building your first iteration of the Traxx sometime back in late 2014, right when I started my trade training to become a driver.”

Even though he tried to get me enthousiast about a total rebuild, I just didn’t see any added value in that, I had just given up on the loco. BigDaedy however had a different view and got inspired in 2016 to just give it a try himself as well:

“I’ve built my first version in early 2016 after seeing this post in a German forum, 1000steine.”

We kept in touch while I was living abroad for a year, and thus was away from most of my Legos. I did keep the original mock-up of the front, but wasn’t really interested in doing anything with it. Every time when BigDaedy send pictures of his current WIP it kind of gave me the feeling to keep on trying, but in the mean time I had started several other projects, plus it’s really nice weather in Curacao so why bother.

Around the time I moved back to Europe I got another message from BigDaedy: His second version was ready. Ditching the curved slopes he came up with a totally new front design, which didn’t bear any resemblance with mine at all. It’s always impressive to see how different builders can come up with totally different designs for the same prototype, and this was no exception.

This second version however left me with a problem: I got really inspired this time around to start building again, but for the next two months, all my Legos were locked away in a container, waiting to be shippped back from Curacao to Europe. So again, I wasn’t able to actually build anything (and still wasn’t comfortable with LDD either).

So finally, in the beginning of 2018, I was reunited with my Legos and ready to go. I didn’t change all to much from the previous iterations external, but internally I did a lot. As usual however, life catched up on me, and more than that, Legoworld 2018 did.

An then came the build by Dennis aka Techno, and I knew I had a major problem. Cause Dennis actually managed to get almost everything right that I never managed to. I had been struggling with certain details in the front for example that I never got around to fix, and he just nailed them in his first pictures.

To make matters even worse (or maybe better?) for me was that BigDaedy contacted me again, showing his almost finished Traxx P160 DE ME, the Diesel version of the Traxx, in use with DB Regio. That one set the bar even higher, incorporating some of his earlier design elements from his Electric Traxx, but also some elements that Dennis aka Techno had introduced.

In the meantime I had however finally been able to find my ‘ideal’ front. I combined several types of slopes and techniques, including a nice incline, to get to an as natural possible version of the shape that these beasts have.

So then came the most difficult part (at least for me): Choosing the drivetrain, desiging the frame and building the trucks. All other parts of building a loco are pretty easy with me, but these three always turn out to be a huge pain. Finally I just ended up with a plates + bricks frame that is party hold together by the L-motors themselves. It does very well actually, the loco is really stable, so I can’t complain.

I however did have to exchange gears in the end (and thus come up with a different way of connecting them) because this way it actually slowed down the motor, whereas I wanted an increase in speed. I’m definately not that good with gears…

And that actually leaves at the end of this story. Because when I had these parts finished, the rest just fell in place, and I was finally able to keep up with BigDaedy’s speed. He actually decided to ditch his last version of the front of his loco and change it to the one I had just engineered, so that took him a couple of extra days to figure out how I had attached all those parts. In fact, his V4 and my V2 have been finished within a month of each other. Not bad when you think of it!

To quote BigDaedy for the last time:

“In a few days we’ll see the fourth and hopefully final version. What a long way to go, but perfection takes time. “

And right he is!