Every now and then there are some articles online on one of the well-known fora that you just HAVE to share to a broader audience. A while ago my eye fell on an article by Hod Carrier over at the Train Tech forums of Eurobricks. Hod Carrier is no stranger here at BMR, having contested twice on OcTRAINber, and one time almost. Today we present his second part about Trackside Structures, one of my favorite parts of any realistic Lego Train Model Railroad:
Thanks so much for the fabulous feedback that I’ve received so far. It’s really amazing to have prompted such a response.
I’ve been busy adding a few more details which I hope you won’t mind me
sharing. Don’t worry, though. I’m not intending on reproducing every
single piece of UK rail infrastructure.
In order to reduce noise and wear to rails and wheelsets, flange
lubricators (sometimes referred to as grease pots) are provided because,
lets face it, no-one likes a dry flange. *Ahem*. These automatically
apply a small amount of grease to the train wheels as they pass to help
reduce friction. These are often found in areas where the route follows
tight curves or at junctions.
When clean these are generally yellow to make them visible, but over
time, and through careless refilling, these eventually become black.
Very simply, this is a drain. At some locations the ground or
environmental conditions means that the ballast and formation of the
track is insufficient to provide adequate drainage. In this instance
additional drains are provided, either at the sides or between the
tracks. I won’t insult anyone’s intelligence by showing the design in
isolation, as I’m sure it should be clear.
This is a Hot Axle Box Detector (HABD) together with it’s associated
small portable-type lineside equipment building. These detectors are
dotted around the network and are used to detect an overheating axle
box. These automatic installations sound an alarm at the signalbox and
tell the signaller which axle and on which side of the train the defect
is occurring so that the train can be stopped and examined.
The central detector between the rails is offset to be nearer one rail
or the other to help the system determine which side of the train the
defective axle is.
There are many different designs of point/switch motors in use across
the UK, and this is just one of them. It is an older design that has
since been superceded but which remains in operation in large numbers
across the network.
The design does not affect the operation of the switch and should not
interfere with passing trains either. I would have liked to have had a
go at one of the successor designs, but the studless nature of the
standard LEGO points/switch preclude this, although third party
offerings may be different.
All of my designs so far have been made to be compatible with the
PennLUG ballasting standard. While it’s great for LEGO modellers by
being compact and not too demanding in terms of parts, I don’t think
many operational railways would tolerate such a shallow bed of ballast.
Certainly in the UK the trackbed is much wider and ballast shoulders are
built up at each side.
I suppose you could call them shoulder pads in that they bulk out the
track ballasting to more realistic proportions. There are side sections
and centre sections.
Used together for a twin track arrangement (as in the previous picture) the total width comes out at 34 studs, two more than a standard 32×32 baseplate. Consequently I have shown the design split across two baseplates with the centreline as the join. To make this compatible with the MILS modules, the centre section is built in two halves to facilitate splitting of modules into individual 32×32 sections.
The following article is a summary of some tips and tricks for layout designing combined with some basic facts that involve the layout designing progress. This article won’t summarize every subject which involves the designing process since there just too many. However, there will be tips and tricks for both beginner and experienced builders.
Epoch
First thing when deciding to design your layout is to figure out what epoch you want to built in. Every epoch reflects a particular time within railroading history. The idea is that you can build whatever you want, as long as it makes sense within that epoch (or one below or above), because the chance of prototypical railroading would be highest, ie. the chance that two trains, or buildings, or cars, would have been able to ‘meet’, would be the highest if we follow these rules. For the AFOLs out there that may not be familiar with the epoch system I hope this explains:
Epoche
Time period
I
1835–1920
II
1920-1949
III
1949-1970
IV
1970-1990
V
1990-2006
VI
2006-current
The epoch system is an important thing for layout building since your chosen epoch effects your entire layout. For better understanding we take a station as an example. During the Epoch III period there were different safety regulations when it comes to station’s compared to the Epoch VI period. Take platform length or height for example. Also, station designs, a “modern” design won’t match a full Epoch III layout. Details like these give your layout a lot more realism but can also act as a starting point when considering designing.
Another good example is level crossings. During the Epoch I-IV level crossings where common to see. In the Epoch VI period, especially in Europe, level crossings are becoming a thing of the past especially on main high-speed lines.
Every now and then there are some articles online on one of the well-known fora that you just HAVE to share to a broader audience. A while ago my eye fell on an article by Hod Carrier over at the Train Tech forums of Eurobricks. Hod Carrier is no stranger here at BMR, having contested twice on OcTRAINber, and one time almost. Today, his piece is about Trackside Structures, one of my favorite parts of any realistic Lego Train Model Railroad:
As we’re all grounded at the moment, I thought I’d use some of the time to have a little look at ways to make subtle improvements to the track. It’s always great to debut a new loco or item of rolling stock, but apart from ballasting the track on which these trains run often gets overlooked. As a train driver here in the UK I thought I’d see how to add the sort of details seen along the lineside in order to add realism, often with only a few parts.
De Nederlandse Modelspoordagen (Dutch Model Railway Days) is one of the biggest model railway events in The Netherlands. It has more than 150 participants, ranging from small sellers to huge model displays. The event attracts thousands of visitors each year. I have been a regular at this show since 2018. Around August every year I tend to get get a few phone calls from the organizers of the event asking me if I’m able to participate again, which I of course do! The organizers of this event feel, like us, that LEGO is also a real model railway scale (and we all know that they’re right!) and a hot topic to attract youngsters into the hobby of scale railroading.
The Setup:
This year Raised and a few other builders tagged along for the ride, which was very convenient because we were given a quiet big space in the venue. The setup this year contained 2 layouts and a TrixBrix stand. The two layouts consisted of a 6-wide LEGO scale layout, and a 8 wide 1:45 scaled layout. The 6-wide layout consisted of Gerard Salden his LWR (Locomotive Workshop Rotterdam) and Station Zwolle by Victor and Fred Beijert. Both showed that you can build incredible and very large models in ‘official’ LEGO scale. The 8-wide layout consisted of Bahnbetriebswerk Neukirche (its final convention before being torn down) and Raised’s Dutch landscape layout.
Raised his layout from above.
The TrixBrix stand had a demonstration layout for there new automation project and a couple of TV screens showing videos of Bananenbuurman. He was also responsible for handing out flyers and giving more information to the visitors. Lastly, during the entire weekend Tamas de Groot was there to help out with our trains and to run around a couple of his 6-wide MOCs.
TrixBrix stand. One of Tamas de Groot his models, a BR 44.
The tables were inconveniently deep, but that was mostly because they are normally used as market tables for the sales people (none of us have any modular tables as of yet… we should really do something about that). So we had to had climb on the tables to get to a train, which of course always stopped somewhere which you just can’t reach from the front of the layout. If you’re just as flexible as me, it’s a really fun thing to do every two hours.
Backdrop:
Just like we discussed in our LegoWorld 2019 report we used a backdrop for our layout again. We normally use white foamboards. However at this event our layout was positioned in such a way that a few black curtains gave a nice clean black background. We of course took advantage of this by organizing a few photoshoots. Everything went well until Enrico pulled a little to hard on the curtains and almost killed Raised. But hey, that could happen to everyone, right?
One of the many photoshoots we organised during that event.Those large inconveniently deep tables did gave you the ability to have a birds-eye view of the layout.
Running trains?
Tradition stipulates there has to be one or two accidents at the show. My TEE showed a couple of design problems which have been fixed by now. One was that the streamlining of the motor unit would fall off and land right underneath the train, which resulted in several derailments. UrbanErwin’s mat 64 liked to lose at least 1 part for every lap that it ran. Oh, and we have to mention Raised his amazing magic trick with his NS 6400. 1 second it was on a siding, the next second it was just gone. At the exact same time, at the floor next to the layout a big pile of red and white bricks did appear. I’m still figuring out how it managed to do that.
UrbanErwin his Mat 64 resting after a long day at the event.
And, gone was Raised his NS 6400
And there was the pile of red-white bricks
Recognizability
We did learn a very important lesson this event. During this 2 day long event we handed out hundreds of business cards and flyers. We had to restock our BMR business cards once every hour. The reason behind this is quit simple: model railroad fans want to look up more information at home, they want to find more information about layouts, products etc. Besides the fact that we had LEGO and a few flyers and business cards, they didn’t really have a clue what we do in the hobby. The amount of questions we had to answer for visitors was just staggering, but a lot of fun to do.
We feel the solution for this problem is adding more information about ourselves to the overall layout, like most of the old-school model railroaders already do, we found out. We do always have some information boards at our LegoWorld layout but those are always provided by the organization. Adding those on a regular base to the layout and maybe even a BMR banner gives visitors a lot more information and, hopefully turn more people towards the dark side, which is also known as LEGO trains!
More trains!
But the wait is over, here are some pictures and a
video of our trains in action.
I would like to thank UrbanErwin for trusting us with his mat 64, which is still being held hostage at Raised’s house. It does seem to enjoy itself quite a lot there. Oh, and a thanks to the amazing organization for having us, we can’t wait until next year!
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!
Choochoos and modern Electrics, everything is possible in Legos!
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.
One of the casualties we had. Raised his NS 6400 derailed in the corner located in the old section of Tijn his city.
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.
The Heroes of Legoworld 2019: Erwin, Raised, BigDeady, Tijn, Enrico and Esran. Gijs isn’t in it because he took the picture, right Gijs?
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!
How many Minifigs do you need to fix a bit of plastic shaped like a Utilities Box?
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…
An overhead view provided by BlueBrick, the track planning software we use for LegoWorld.
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.
The East section was Bahnbetriebswerk Neukirche by Enrico, which turned out a bit bigger than expected: 1/3rd 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!
OK, it did break down, but only after Erwin threw it onto his own layout (and Raised his eanos…)!
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.
The West Side of the layout, Enrico was just fixing/breaking the yellow NS 1600
A typical day in the Yard
“No Kids, nothing is running”
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.
Raised and BigDaedy discussing the different designs they have.
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!
Thumbs up for the Traxx!
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.
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.
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.
That’s how you make pictures!
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…
White Foamboard backdrops. Fixing pictures since 2019!
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.
This picture made from above truly shows how busy LegoWorld can get, this day we sold out with 15000 visitors
Impression of the layout.
Here are
some more pictures/videos of the layout for you to enjoy!
An L-Gauge Modular Standard layout will be present at the Great Scale Model Train Show in Timonium, Maryland. The dates of the show are February 1st and 2, Saturday and Sunday from 9 AM to 5 PM.
Monty Smith will be layout chief for this event. He is responsible for the layout plan and operating schedule. Anyone interested in participating should contact him directly:
Monty Smith montyslegotrains@cox.net Facebook / Instagram: @montystrains
Participants must be finalized by the end of November in order to coordinate a layout plan and submit it to the show coordinator.
The LGMS layout must conform to LGMS v1.3, which has been uploaded to our LGMS page and to the LGMS Facebook group.
Elroy Davis interviews Martin Lanser about his experience with the LEGO train hobby and his desktop sized industrial switching layout.
Overview of the layout from the buldings.
[BMR] Tell us a little bit about yourself and your layout.
[ML] I grew up with LEGO in the 70s. One reason why my mother bought LEGO was that she got tired of me taking apart all my other toys and other things in the house. At some point I was sent to boarding school, which pretty much ended the first phase of my fascination with LEGO. While I didn’t have access to LEGO, I did have access to erector sets like Meccano, Matador, and Fisher Technic (which was awesome!). Then came the 80s and my first computers. Then the 90s, my first daughter and I bought some LEGO again – for her, of course! Then another daughter in early 2000s. A bit more LEGO. Even some early Mindstorms stuff. But it seems I wasn’t able to transfer the “bug” to them.
Then lots of LEGO Friends for my younger daughter and now some serious LEGO Technic kits for me. More Mindstorms. More LEGO buildings for her. Once we got this house, I got a small office upstairs. The goal is to eventually finish the basement and build a proper office and LEGO room. Now, I should also mention that I’ve always been fascinated with trains and have built layouts for myself and in clubs in N, HO, O scale. I’ve even had LGB trains! And, of course, I’m into all things mechanical – if it moves, then it fascinates me. Trucks. Construction equipment. Robotics. Drones. So yes, I’m an ultra-geek. And a programmer.
Overview of the layout from the lead track and sidings.
Now, I
work from home quite a bit and the whole LEGO thing started innocently enough
with building a few Technic sets while I was sitting on conference calls. Then
I purchased a few instructions for 1:17 scale trucks by Ingmar Spijkhoven (who
unfortunately passed away recently). And building proper scaled and highly
detailed models in LEGO really woke up the AFOL monster in me.
Every now and then our readers themselves get so excited with BMR that they send in their own articles. This is of course something we really appreciate, so please keep them coming! Today it’s Enrico Lussi’s turn, who has written an article about his MILS layout “NeuKirche”. You might have already seen his layout before in our coverage of Legoworld 2018, but today he will give some more insight to how this layout came to light. Enjoy, and thank you Enrico for this entry! Please feel free to keep them coming!
Introducing Enrico
Well I can’t believe I’m actually writing a post for BMR! What a honor. First I would like to introduce myself. My name is Enrico, 18 years old and currently studying to become a civil engineer at the University of Applied Sciences in Rotterdam. I have been building 1:45 scale trains for the last 3 years (could be 3,5 already). My passion is history and especially train related history. So I build a lot of steam locomotives and historic railway wagons.
My current collection is 7 steam locomotives, 4 diesels, 1 Intercity train (ICM 4001), 2 diner wagons, 1 postal wagon, 2 passenger wagons, 5 closed freight wagons and 4 flatbeds. My biggest project is my Bahnsbetriebswerk. In this article I would like to take you through the design and building project. I hope you enjoy this article as much as I did building my layout!
Driving south along Route 1 in Van Buren, Maine today, a visitor glancing to the right probably wouldn’t know that they were looking at the remains of the northern yard of the former Bangor and Aroostook Railroad. The tracks are gone, and buildings, at least those still standing, peek out from the trees.
Keeping the past alive, William Dumond
has been modeling that rail yard.
William Dumond’s Van Buren Yark – from his Flickr account
We’ve featured his work before, but in addition to building incredible locomotives and rolling stock, Bill is a proficient scenery modeler, as can be seen in his comparison shot of the real Van Buren yard, next to his brick-built version on the left.
Van Buren Yard in 2014 – image from Google Maps, notice the white warehouse to the left, and the yellow building through the trees.
Looking at a Google Maps image of the area, it’s easy to find the buildings featured on the layout, and to get a sense of the tracks that used to run between them. The layout has a nice organic look, matching the prototype, and staying away from the rigid blockiness of some LEGO layouts.
Custom Turnout Switch – from William Dumond’s Flickr gallery
One of the most interesting things about the model Van Buren yard is the use of a custom switch, documented on Bill’s Flickr account. This switch flows nicely, and really adds to the realism of the scene.
For more of William Dumond’s Van Buren yard, as well as more of his Bangor and Aroostoock work, check out his stream on Flickr. We’ll be looking forward to watching the progress on this one!
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