Released in 2006, set 10173 was the first official LEGO Holiday Train. Because of this, it’s appearance on the cover of the Holiday 2006 Shop-at-Home catalog was pretty much set in stone. Has it really been 11 years? Ho-Ho-Holy Cow!
Make way for Maintenance of Way!
Flickr user de-marco has created an amazing little railroad maintenance vehicle. In particular, the detail of the cab is stunning and uses an interesting offsetting technique.
Want to build this for yourself? de-marco was kind enough to share building instructions via this YouTube video! You can even find the parts list on Rebrickable.
It turns out that de-marco is skilled at making other LEGO vehicles. Visit his flickr account for a world of automotive excitement!
Wood is Good: wooden LEGO trains of the 1940s & 1950s
Niels Thomsen saw we shared his 1960s Christmas card the other day and, in response, posted pictures from his collection of LEGO wooden trains! LEGO made wooden toys from 1932 through 1960, the year in which a fire ravaged the wooden toy warehouse.
LEGO made a wide variety of wooden trains, and these represent a few of them. They appear to be from the period of the 1940s and 1950s. Enjoy these images of historic wooden LEGO trains, and be sure to thank Niels for sharing. While you’re at it, check out his wonderfully diverse collection of wooden toys! (click here)
Niels even photographed the engines alongside one another. This really gives you an idea of the variety of sizes these trains came in.
25 Days of Holiday “Trainvertising” #15: Walking in a Windsor LEGOLAND
Today’s images come from a booklet advertising Christmas at LEGOLAND Windsor in 1999. How did the UK LEGO park celebrate Christmas that year, you might ask? There was a Peter Pan live show, Santa & his toy factory, the 12 Days of Christmas rendered in brick and “the widest selection of LEGO toys anywhere in the UK!”
However, the real treat was Miniland decorated with Christmas lights. The centerfold features Miniland London lit up at night and, yes, there are trains!
Brick Model Railroader December 2017 Shipping Delays
Hello to our Brick Model Railroader fans. We want to update you on shipping delays we are currently experiencing with our Premium Instruction products. Specifically, we are experiencing a temporary shortage in the bearings we use to make our custom wheel sets included in each kit. On November 1st, we ordered bearings from our normal supplier for our upcoming release of the AAR 53ft 70 Ton Flat Car, as well as our restocks of the USRA Hopper and ACF Type 27 Tank Car. At the time, we thought our order would arrive in it’s entirety well before our release date, as they have in the past. This unfortunately was not the case. We are not sure what went wrong, but our supplier shipped us less than half of our order.
We contacted our supplier several times to resolve the issue, and we were assured that the rest of the order would be coming in time. So far, we have not received these bearings and have no idea if they are even coming. We have been shipping kits with the bearings our supplier did send, but we have now exhausted that supply and can wait no longer. Earlier this week, we began ordering the bearings we need from a new supplier, so that we can finish our remaining stock of Premium Instruction kits and provide an adequate stock of Assembled Wheel Sets for our store, to fill orders in the immediate future. We hope to have this new order of bearings sometime next week.
We are very sorry for this delay in shipping BMR Premium Instructions and Wheel Sets to those who have ordered. We have been let down by our previous supplier, but even worse is the delay in filling orders from you, our loyal supporters. We find this totally unacceptable and will be working to ensure a problem such as this does not happen again.
On the bright side, we have been able to ship a majority of the orders we’ve received since the release of the of the AAR Flat Car. The few remaining orders we have yet to ship will go out as soon as humanly possible once our new order of bearings come in next week. We have contacted the customers who are affected, so If you have an order with us and have not received an email, you can rest assured your order is on it’s way to you. For the affected customers, we can’t guarantee delivery by Christmas but will do our best. If you are giving one of our kits as a gift, please contact us and we will try to work something out.
Again, we apologize for this delay. We will be doing our best to correct this issue and make sure it does not happen in the future.
Thank you for supporting Brick Model Railroader.
Cale Leiphart
BMR Creator
25 Days of Holiday “Trainvertising” #14: The Snowy Sixties
Flickr user Niels Thomsen (aka bricklick) has a wonderful vintage LEGO collection, filled with many unique and unusual items. Thanks to him, we are able to enjoy this circa 1966 LEGO Christmas card.
The card features the train from set 114, which was first released in 1966. It has a very special non-LEGO passenger. Santa Clause appears to be typical of the figures that were produced in Japan back then. To see more cool vintage LEGO items, be sure to visit Niels’ flickr page.
A cute little engine you can build
Did you receive set 40235 (24-in-1 Holiday Countdown Set) this year? The set comes with instructions for building 24 different models (one for each day leading up to Christmas). Bill Ward has been doing each day’s build, while also making a MOC with leftover parts each day. Day 13 was this cute micro steam engine. His use of the white croissant for smoke is both well-played and deliciously adorable.
Bill has been kind enough to post instructions so you can build your own. You can access them here: page 1 and page 2. To see what other builds he comes up, be sure to follow his blog, Bill Ward’s Brickpile!
“You’re in the Army now. You’re not behind the plow.”
Flickr user Tablizm brings us a super-detailed U.S. Army train. You may have seen this when it was blogged by the Brothers Brick, but I did not stumble upon it until today. I enjoyed looking at it so much that I wanted to share it with you. In particular, I love how the builder made such a diverse lot of cars, some of which have interior details! Click here for additional images of his train.
25 Days of Holiday “Trainvertising” #13: The polar bear who ate Steven Spielberg
You may recall the post featuring Steven Spielberg (shared on December 4th). I later discovered that the UK Winter 2000 Shop-at-Home catalog had a similar holiday cover illustration…but with slightly different artwork.
The UK catalog replaces Steven Spielberg and his crewman for a football (soccer) player and polar bear. Given the popularity of football in the UK, the design change makes sense. As for the polar bear, I smell a conspiracy involving a Spielberg snack.
The UK catalog image (top) comes from BrickLink’s image library, as I do not personally own this variation myself.
25 Days of Holiday “Trainvertising” #12: Steamin’ Santa
This image comes to us courtesy of Emil from the UK. Back in the 1980s, the UK LEGO Club sent its members a Christmas card each year. This is one of them! It’s a pretty colorful and well-built scene, probably built by esteemed Master Builder, David Lyall.
I’m uncertain as to what year the card was produced, though it was most likely printed sometime in the 1980s.
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