Earlier this year we announced the first official locomotive kit from Brick Model Railroader, the Reading T-1 4-8-4 steam locomotive. Since then we have be a bit quiet about this project, only releasing a few minor updates, but this does not mean that progress hasn’t been made. Today we have big, and hopefully informative, update to share.

Catching Up On CAD Work

When we last left off, we showed you the first renders of the tender in CAD form. As part of the instruction making process, we need to build up every model we do in CAD before we can render the assembly images for our books. During this time we often find ways to tweak our model to make assembly easier, add more detail, or make a part of the model stronger. With a large and complex model like the T-1, we were able to make a lot of little improvements, which will add up to a much nicer experience for the builder.

Currently, the T1 cad model is finished and we’ve started moving to the assembly render stage and onto putting the instruction book together. This is where things start to accelerate as we’ve finalized the model design and can concentrate on the production side of things.

BMR will be present at Brickfair, Virginia this week in Chantilly, Virginia. Both Cale and Glenn will be present with the T-1, other BMR models, and a few from their own personal collections. Following the event, the T-1 will be our top and only priority until pre-orders open. We are confident that we are in the final stretch of this kit before we are able to finally open pre-orders.

Printed Parts

In our last update we also mentioned that we were working with Brick Print Studios on the printed graphics for our T-1. At Brickworld this year, we unveiled the first test prints for the T-1 parts, and we are very excited.

The T-1 locomotives featured prominent pin striping on the tenders and cabs, and for the Iron Horse Rambles schemes, additional pin stripes down the running boards. To produce these in decal form would have been challenging, both for us to make, and for our customers to apply. Printing the graphics directly on the brick will be a vast improvement. The graphics will be crisp and perfectly applied right out of the box.

We still have a few tweaks to make on the graphics. Our main issue to resolve is to adjust the yellow to stand out more, and better represent the yellow used on the T-1 locomotives. Considering this was the first full test print, the color is a minor issue and we’re working with BPS to get things dialed in properly. Overall, we’re very happy so far. The finalized T-1 graphics will look amazing.

Paint Schemes

While on the subject of graphics, let’s talk a bit about the paint schemes we will be offering. The two main schemes we will be offering will be the “Reading Freight” scheme that the all T-1’s wore during their service life hauling freight on the Reading Railroad, and the “Iron Horse Rambles” scheme. After retirement from revenue service on the Reading, T-1’s no 2100, 2101, 2102, and 2124 wore the “Rambles” scheme during the Reading’s famous “Iron Horse Rambles” excursions in the 1960s. Examples of the “Reading Freight” and the “Iron Horse Rambles” schemes can be seen below.

For the Reading Freight scheme you will have your choice of any of the 30 T-1 locomotive numbers, from 2100 to 2129. For the Rambles scheme, you’ll be able to choose any of the four T-1 numbers that carried that livery, 2100, 2101, 2102, and 2124. The Rambles scheme locomotives will also include yellow hand rails and grab irons, as well as white-rimmed drivers and pilot wheels.

A few have asked if we will be offering the American Freedom Train liveries, which has several variations, and the Chessie Steam Special livery. Both of which were wore by 2101 and can be seen below.

Currently we do not have any plans to produce either the Freedom Train or Chessie Steam Special paint schemes. Both feature a significant amount of dark blue and would likely require much revision to our current design to work with the currently available dark blue part selection, and would likely cost more to produce than the standard model. We are not totally writing these two schemes off however as we may revisit them some time in the future as special editions, provided we can find a way to make them feasible.

3D Printed Parts

The T-1 kit will include a number of 3D printed parts. This has proven to be one of the biggest production challenges for the kit. The drivers, pilot, and trailing wheels on the locomotive, as well as the rods and valve gear, will need to be printed as there is no suitable LEGO part available to meet our needs.

For the prototype model we purchased these parts from an outside on demand printing service. For the production kit, though, this would be very costly and inconvenient due to the volume of parts needed. We’ve looked at multiple options, including possibly injection molding some parts. However molding would be too costly for the low volume we need. 3D printing seems to be the best solution, so we have been looking to find a good option for getting our parts printed, and we are happy to say that we have found a good solution. Without getting into specifics just yet, we believe we will be able to get our parts printed such that quality will be excellent and cost will be low enough to maintain a competitive production cost. This will, in turn, allow us to keep the final cost of our kit lower.

Speaking of 3D printed parts, Glenn Holland has been hard at work revising our designs for the rods and valve gear. While the original parts designed by myself looked fair, and performed as intended, we felt we could improve things a bit more. Being a Mechanical Engineer, and also much more proficient in designing parts in CAD than I, Glenn has stepped up to redesign all our rods and valve gear parts. The result is a much more accurate representation of the real T-1 parts, and will perform even better.

The Reading Rambles Cars

One can’t talk about the famous Reading T-1 locomotives without covering their use on the iconic Iron Horse Rambles.

Starting in 1959, the Reading Company began operating a series of excursions called “Iron Horse Rambles”, throughout its system using four of the T-1s. The first Ramble train, pulled by T-1 2124, ran between Wayne Junction in Philadelphia to Shamokin, Pennsylvania. Five T-1s were held by the Reading for the Iron Horse Rambles: 2100, 2102, and 2124 would be used to pull the excursions, 2101 would be kept as a backup, and 2123 was used as a source of parts and eventually scrapped in 1966.

The Iron Horse Rambles lasted until 1964, after which, the three remaining T-1s were sold off. 2124 had already been purchased by F. Nelson Blount in 1962 for his Steamtown U.S.A. collection in Bellows Falls, Vermont.

The Reading used several of it’s arch roof coaches, a combine, and a cafe car for the trips. To compliment our T-1 kit, we will be offering the Reading arch roof coach, and combine models in Premium Instruction form. We plan to offer multiple decal sets for these cars. For Reading, we will have the two tone Rambles cars, and the original Reading solid green versions.

Several other railroads owned ex Reading cars Including the Central Railroad of New Jersey, Boston and Maine, Maine Central, Seaboard Air Line, Stewartstown Railroad, and New Hope & Ivyland. We plan to offer decal sets for these cars as well.

Both the coach and combine models will be available with the T-1 locomotive at launch.

We also plan to offer cafe car no. 1186, named “Iron Horse Ramble”. This car was modified for use during the Rambles. A class DCe Cafe Car, in 1960, the seats and tables were removed and replaced with a long counter, and it became the Iron Horse Rambles’s food car. Reading also sold souvenirs in the car during the Rambles trips.

After Reading discontinued the Rambles, it was sold to an individual who made it into a restaurant. Reading moved the car to its current location via the City Branch in Philadelphia. Now, no longer used as a restaurant, 1186 is awaiting possible re use as part of a Rail Park.

This car will be available in the future, sometime after the release of the T-1, coach, and combine.

Fire Up 2100

As mentioned previously, Brick Model Railroader will be donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of our T-1 model to the American Steam Railroad Association in support of their “Fire Up 2100” project. Fire Up 2100 is a project of the American Steam Railroad Preservation Association with the goal of restoring Reading Company steam locomotive no. 2100 to operation for the enjoyment and education of the general public.

We here at Brick Model Railroader believe strongly in preserving our railroad history for future generations to enjoy. We are excited to be working with American Steam Railroad on this project. ASR has been very helpful in providing us technical information on the T-1. We are proud to support them in bringing a T-1 back to life.

Nearing the End

This will be our last major update before the official release. It’s taken us some time, but that’s because we want to do this right. It’s our first locomotive kit and it’s a big deal for us. We are beginning the home stretch now, and committed to getting the T-1 project finished. To those of you out there waiting, we thank you for your patience. We’re doing everything we can to make this model worth the wait.