In the LegoWorld 2018 Report Raised promised that somewhere in March 2020 the 2019 article would be published. Since Enrico considered that to be a bit late, he volunteered to write the 2019 article, but in 2019. However, since Raised was supposed to edit, it only goes online now. So you guys know who to blame now!

The Event

LegoWorld is an 8-day event (9 if you include the pre-show set-up day) and is held annually during the Dutch autumn break. The event is the biggest Lego event here in The Netherlands and attracts around 100.000 visitors every year. The event is held in Utrecht and is thereby located in the center of the Netherlands.

Those 8 days ask a lot of our trains, and since the layout is a rather big one and the trains run for multiple hours straight, it asks a lot of our models. They tend to break down every now and then, but also batteries need to be charged. Due to the huge amount of young visitors, we want to have at least 2 trains running at any point, so this event not only ask a lot our trains but also a lot of us.

The Team and the Layout they built

The team this year was made up by 6 people: Raised, UrbanErwin, Tijn, Gijs, Esran and Enrico. We each contributed a different part of the layout.

Unfortunately, we don’t have our own tables (yet), so we are always depending on the tables provided by the venue. Most of the time these aren’t properly aligned at all, but luckily we got more than enough beer coasters to get this fixed. Hooray for beer coasters!

The plan for the layout was different compared to last year, as we decided to not re-use the diorama style. Instead, we went for the oldschool circle layout, just like most other LTC’s do.  This solved two problems: Less track necessary for the staging yard, and all track would be on MILS level instead of having to build a ramp to go down to table level. That system didn’t work out properly last year, because even the smallest incline meant a lot of stalling of our engines, partly due to the way they are build, partly due to flawed powertrains *cough Raised cough* . We christened this our “Christmas tree set up” from a joke Tijn made when we came up with the layout design, because it looks an awefull lot like something that runs around a Christmas tree. Or, in our case, a concrete pillar…

Let’s divide the layout for this article into 4 sections: North, East, South and West.

North

The North section was a typical Dutch piece of landscape, flat, green and some cows, a typical Dutch Polder in fact. This piece was mostly built by Raised, who built a beautiful curve into the track, so it gave a smooth and “prototypical” presentation of our landscape. The last piece of the North side, all the way into the North West part was built by Gijs and the r104 curves in the North East side were built by Enrico, with Tijn providing the small siding with the baseplates surrounding that. The North West side had a small factory with a siding, which led into the Shadow Station, from where we could easy do the many repairs that were necessary for this event.

East

The East section was Bahnbetriebswerk Neukirche by Enrico, which turned out a bit bigger than expected: 1/3^rd bigger than it was, in fact. The Bahnbetriebswerk was connected in the North east by a triple switch made by TrixBrix and the amazing R104 curves by Brick Tracks. The mainline continued on the back side of the Bahnbetriebswerk to the South East part of the layout. In the middle was a turntable with engine shed and a couple of platforms where “passengers” could get on and off. The Bhw had everything to keep a steam engine running, except for batteries… Continuing into the South East part the Bahnbetriebswerk transformed into a museum line which split up into 2 parts.

Both going into a forest bit where one stopped, the other going into the Esran’s amazing Steam Pump and small Railway station.

South:

Esran’s Steam Pump connected into Tijn his beautiful city and Railway Station in French Style, all in beautiful MDF masonry bricks. His city starts at the old Railway station Esran made in the South East part. From there some amazing winding streets and old buildings went down onto the main street where his station is located. Due to the difference in height between his city and the rest of the layout it has got a cool and realistic feel to it.

Passing the station is the grand warehouse where the parking is located for the station. Because the parking and a road disappear into the background it looked like the layout had a lot of dept to it. From there the mainlined continued pass the last couple of buildings onto the bridge made by UrbanErwin. The bridge might be simple in its design but it’s 100% made from Lego and didn’t break down for the entire week!

West

The West part of the layout is where our Shunting Yard was located. Here visitors could see most of our rolling stock which wasn’t running (or which fell apart) and children where able to ask: “why isn’t that train running?”. Almost all of the switches were motorized in this part. Your were able to control the switches by using an IR remote (only bad thing was that some off our trains where set to the same IR channel). Next year we are just going to use Polarity Switches instead, but it did give a cool vibe to it, and felt very realistic. The South West side had some big trees which created a great photo location. The North West side had a small harbor scene made by Gijs and my ICM “koploper” was set there with the scaled drawings in front, showing the public that our trains are built in scale.

Special Guest:

This year we invited a special guest, BigDaedy and his MOC’s. He joined us from Friday afternoon onto the end of the Sunday. It was great having him around and comparing his MOC’s with ours. He also had some great advice for Enrico’s Bahnbetriebswerk, apparently all of the signals weren’t placed correctly. That can happen to everyone, right?

Here is small piece about LegoWorld from his point of view:

Greetings fellow train heads and readers of BMR. My name is Raimund, but I’m usually known as “BigDaedy” on the internet. Thanks to a special invitation by the Dutch Lego train community I was able to participate at this year’s LegoWorld in Utrecht. They asked me to write a brief summary of my experiences during my trip or let’s just say about my adventure going to Utrecht.

Now what was so special about LegoWorld Utrecht 2019 for me?

First, this would be the first time for me to meet the masters of Dutch train building and their mocs in real life. Then it would’ve been the second time ever for me to be part of an event like this, the first time being at an event in a different country (since it’s still within the EU it’s not really a big deal) and the very first time to actually see how my MOCs would perform on a larger scale layout, other than a circle of R120 lying on my bedroom floor. So, there is room for lots of things to go wrong, but fortunately in the end everything turned out perfectly. As a matter of fact, this weekend has been one of my most pleasant experiences so far in my life. I’m still baffled and overwhelmed by all the hospitality, generosity and overall cheerfulness I’ve received by all the people and amazing builders I’ve met during my stay. Please let me take this opportunity to express my deepest thanks to the whole Dutch community – You guys rock and make this such a wonderful hobby!

That being said, let’s get back on the road again. LegoWorld in Utrecht is actually really easy to reach. You stumble out of the central station and all you’ve got to do is to literally walk across the street and you’re already inside. Raised picked me up at the entrance of the show and guided me directly towards the layout, giving me lots of info and advice on what to expect during the next 48 hours. I guess it’s safe to say, that I must’ve experienced some sort of sensory overload during my first few minutes at LegoWorld. Strolling through countless amazing builds felt like walking in a wonderland and left me stunned. I think that’s what an unsupervised child must feel like in an “all you can eat” candy store. Anyhow the rest of the herd gave me a wonderful welcome and showed me around the layout, pointing out all the little details scattered around. Now it was time for me to unwrap all of the nice things I’ve brought with me. Luckily my rolling stock didn’t take any major damage, so I was quickly set up and ready to go. The first trial run of my consist was indeed very successful. As a matter of fact, my Traxx was so reliable and fast that it blew over some of the foam boards at the side of the track due to its airstream. Partly cause of this incident a speed limit was imposed for it, as the other guys were quite “scared” of the speed of my train and worried that it might derail in the curves. Luckily for me, my design proved to be quite sturdy, I’ve lost less than ten parts during the two days and my trains seemed to handle the inevitable accidents quite well. Most derailments actually happened cause someone’s *cough Raised cough* mocs lost vital parts during their laps on the layout. I really enjoyed discussing all the different designs and techniques used on both the rolling stock and the layout, so I’ve spent most of the time taking mental notes on what designs to steal and incorporate in possible future builds or collabs.

At the end of the day there was an official part by TLC. Two Lego Star Wars designers, Jan Neergaard Olesen & Kurt Kristiansen, held a presentation about the creative process and how a set is designed what changes it has to go through in order to be released to the public. Very interesting behind the scenes information and we’ve even got a sneak peek on what’s coming up next. Once the presentation was over, the attention shifted to the more community related part of the evening. There were speed building challenges and of course every participant received a large Lego gift. Sadly, I didn’t get one, as I was only a guest, but this will surely change next year!

I was also able to get an autograph of the two Lego designers on my engine. How awesome is that? Looks a little bit like graffiti but a lot cooler!

Saturday turned out even better than the day before. A seemingly never-ending crowd of people, especially children gathered around the layout fascinated by the moving trains, the huge engine shed, Tijns city, Esrans factory and all the tasty little details on the countryside. Since I don’t speak any Dutch, it was kind of difficult to answer the questions of the visitors, but there was always one of the guys around who patiently translated everything into English for me. Being a little know-it-all, I also used the chance to point out a few mistakes on Enrico’s Bahnbetriebswerk, mostly regarding the signaling. Sorry mate couldn’t help myself!

The overall performance of the rolling stock was quite good. Only a few crashes happened and none of them were really disastrous (for me). We also had lots of room for trying different compositions of the trains and comparing the individual performances of the locos. Of course, this led to debates on what traction system is superior, like geared L-motors or ordinary train motors and the consent that ball bearings should become mandatory. UrbanErwins automated train operation was also very fascinating for me. Looks like there is indeed some potential within the new PU system.

Once the show was over for the day Tijn invited us over to his place, where he and his wife cooked us a delicious dinner (compliments to the cooks once again!). More stories were told, we drank some apple cider, which I’ve brought from home, together and we laughed and laughed and laughed. A perfect ending to an awesome day, if I might say so.

As the sun rose on this beautiful Sunday morning, I was hesitant to wake up. Being in Utrecht amongst all these wonderful people was so enjoyable that I’ve really wanted to stay until the end of the show. Sadly, I had to be back at work on Monday, so I spent the morning filling up with my mind with more pleasurable memories, until I had to catch my train back home on the afternoon.

And that’s how my adventure at Utrecht went by. Thanks for sticking through until the end and I wish happy building to everyone out there.

Cheers,  

Raimund

Line-up’s:

On Saturday night we decided to stay a bit longer and before we noticed, we started from lining-up all the TRAXX locomotives at the show, into sorting all of our trains by their colors. This resulted up to 2 line-ups: the red and the yellow one.

The Red-Line-Up

On the inside corner there was from front to back: A Snngs made by Urban Erwin, 2 double-decker coaches made by BigDaedy, a Eanos made by Raised and the red 1600 made by Raised.

On the outside corner there was a 0-6-0 Tank Engine made by Esran, a Vectron and TRAXX in 6 wide made by Gerard Salden, BigDaedy his 2 TRAXX locomotives and as last again Raised his “FYRA” TRAXX.

On the Siding going into the Shadow Station were Raised’s NS 6400 and Enrico’s V100.

The Yellow Line Up

Lets start at the front and work our way into the back. On the front siding: Enrico’s ICM “koploper” (because it needed a lot of repairs, he wasn’t confident enough to place the entire train at this line-up).

On the second siding: Tijn his Sik, Raised his yellow 1600 and a ICR coach in 6 wide made by Gerard Salden.

On the Third siding: The IC Direct TRAXX made by Gerard Salden, the NS 1100 provided by a member of our crew from the layout last year (Christiaan), the NS 1200 by UrbanErwin, and the Plan W coach by Christiaan again.

On the Forth siding: Mat 64 (“Apenkop”) by UrbanErwin.

On the outer corner: Enrico’s NS 2454 locomotive and Raised his ICR 8 wide coaches.

Traxx line up

The third of the special line-ups held at the event was the Traxx line up. 2 from BigDaedy and 1 from Raised.

The Backdrop:

Last year we learned a very important lesson. To get the best view of the layout itself, it a good thing to not be able to see the chaos behind the layout, aka the repairing of broken trains and us eating lunch. Last year we fixed this problem by using a blue linen backdrop with wooden rods to keep it all as straight as possible. It looked fine, but just didn’t work as planned: It was too instable due to its own weight, not so easy to set up, and mostly a bit too high. So, if you were standing in the front of the layout you couldn’t see what happened at the back of the layout, which isn’t that handy if you know 50% of our track was behind the layout last year…

Luckily, we fixed that problem this year by using foam plates as a backdrop. These were held together by using Lego pieces on the top and the bottom. The provided a great backdrop so that visitors were able to see the train running on the layout but not our lunch. However the organization managed to placed us in a way that we had 2 concrete polls right in the middle of our layout, obstructing our view, so trains were still able to stop running for 5 minutes before we found them.

Impression of the layout.

Here are some more pictures/videos of the layout for you to enjoy!

Our Legoworld 2019 Photo Pool at Flickr