History

25 Days of Holiday “Trainvertising” #2: Miracle on 56th Street

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Our second post comes straight to you from 2001. The winter was cold, and LEGO’s financial situation wasn’t so hot either. In a partnership that will probably never happen again, LEGO teamed up with Department 56 to release ceramic holiday miniatures. These depicted portions of Santa’s workshop involved in the manufacture of….LEGO toys!

I know, I know….You’re probably asking yourself, “where are all the trains?” While there aren’t any trains per se, the Department 56 buildings and figures often wind up in holiday train layouts. Therein lies the train connection….Hey, I have to fill 25 days, people!

On an unrelated note, I think we can all agree that is some nice brick-built scenery.

P.S.: I promise Monday’s image will contain actual LEGO trains. 🙂

History

25 Days of Holiday “Trainvertising” #1: Deck the Load and Hauls!

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“Deck the Load and Hauls with Technic.  Fa–la–la–la–la, la–la–la–la.” Trains receive a lot of love around this time of year, especially on the cover of many a LEGO Shop-at-Home catalog over the years. Of all the images produced, this is perhaps one of the best. For 1993, the “Load and Haul Railroad” (set #4563) earned itself a special spot under the Christmas tree. It’s also cool to see that the minifigures are just as animated as the expression of sheer joy on that boy’s face.

If you enjoyed this blast from the past, be sure to check in with BMR every day from now through December 25th. I will be digging through my files and reaching out to friends for holiday advertising, articles, etc. featuring trains. There will be a new image for each and every day, the last of which will be on Christmas day!

Layout Design, LEGO Train News, Model Design, Models

4DBrix Announces a Game Changer

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Tom Lowa at 4DBrix has worked continuously to bring new innovations to the Lego train hobby for some time now. Using their own on-site 3D printer, they’ve been making things like remote switch mechanisms and modular switch tracks, as well as a lot of monorail components, if you’re into that kind of thing. More recently, however, there has been two new additions to the 4DBrix online store that really gives them some good reputation.

If you missed it or haven’t seen it yet, I don’t blame you. It hasn’t been “officially” announced by 4DBrix yet, but rest assured it IS listed on their site. Enter the “Ultimate Railroader” series. Aside from a clever name, this is 4DBrix’s play at getting into a more serious scale Lego railroading market. Currently, the only two products in this line are nearly the same, but different enough to make someone want one of each (or more). Tom has listed R148 crossovers, in both right-hand single crossover and double crossover configurations, on his website. He was also kind enough to send us a set of the double crossover to review, which will be the main point of this article.

Continue reading 4DBrix Announces a Game Changer →

Contests, LEGO® News

Expert Rebuilder Contest!

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Ready for another contest?

The LEGO company is sponsoring a new contest, BE AN EXPERT REBUILDER.  Each contest participant must create a short 15 to 30 second stop-motion film, featuring an original model built using parts from the Creator Expert Modular, Holiday, or Fairgrounds sets.

How does this appeal to us train fans?  Two of the three Holiday sets have train themes!  Check out the LEGO Creator Expert sets online at the U.S. Shop at Home site: https://shop.lego.com/en-US/Creator-Expert-Sets

For complete rules, see the LEGO Rebrick “Be an Expert Rebuilder” contest website: https://www.lego.com/en-us/rebrick/contest-page/contests/expert-rebuilder

Let’s show the world what train builders can do!

Building Techniques, Decals

StickyLife – A Review

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In the brick-built train hobby, one of the often asked questions revolves around how or where to create custom decals for decorating our models with our favorite railroad liveries. Many options exist, including using traditional O scale decals, printing your own on decal paper using a home ink-jet printer, or, like we do for the BMR Premium Instruction sets, use a 3rd party printer like OKBrickWorks.

One difficulty that I’ve had over the years is finding proper decals with white lettering for the cars that I build. I’m a fan of the fallen-flag Rutland Railroad, which operated in Vermont and New York until the early 1960s. Many of their cars, and almost all of their steam locomotives, were lettered in silver or white paint on black backgrounds. While modeling decals for the locomotives are commercially available in compatible sizes for my LEGO trains, I’ve always had trouble finding decent freight car decals.

A few weeks ago, I came across the website StickyLife.com. StickyLife allows you to create a variety of customized items, including bumper stickers, magnets, and vinyl decals. Originally I had thought to use the site to create lettering for my 1:8 scale Live Steam flatcar, but then I wondered if it would be possible to create decals for my LEGO cars as well.

The following is a walk through of the process, and a review of the final product.

Continue reading StickyLife – A Review →

Contests, Models

OcTRAINber: The Results

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After a great and exciting month that we dubbed OcTRAINber, the difficult part for us judges had only just begon. However, we have managed to finally decide on the winners, which will be announced in this post!

First of all, let us say that we are pleasantly surprised by all the high quality entries and the great Swoosh-videos. We were very glad to see so many great ideas and prototypes being build, both digital and in real life. In fact, the reason that it took us so long to judge is because of the high quality of all of the entries. Therefore, we would like to thank all our contestants, because without you, OcTRAINber wouldn’t have been the succes it has been!

Now, let’s move on to the award ceremony!

Continue reading OcTRAINber: The Results →

Contests, LEGO® News

OcTRAINber: A Short Service Announcement

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This is a short service announcement for everybody that is eagerly waiting for the final results of the first season of OcTRAINber. We would like to tell of you you that we apologize for the silence from our side, but we are working on the judging as we speak. It has been some busy times for all of us after OcTRAINber ended, which kind of derailed our schedule when it comes to the judging.

We however would like to stress that this has been a great OcTRAINber and we are happy to see so many high quality entries! This obviously makes it even more difficult for us to judge, but it is a price we are more than willing to pay!

So, to keep this service announcement as short as possible: Thanks again for participating and for making OcTRAINber a succes. Our four judges (including myself) are busy judging the entries and hope to finish this as soon as possible. When we have the final results in, we will ofcourse communicate it immediately!

Inspiration, Models, People

Drifting with Sunder

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I agree, this topic title normally makes more sense over at our friends of The Lego Car Blog but thanks to well-know Sci-Fi trains and space builder Sunder, we can now also use this title over at BMR, and not without a reason. Just have a look at this great YouTube video and you know what I mean!

I’m to be honest not sure what is more addictive; that song or seeing 3 minutes of drifting by a Lego Train…

As you can see, Sunder is a great builder who also knows his ways in 3D rendering, which actually gives us the excuse to also feature another of his models which he posted about a week ago. Just have a look and decide for yourself if this is actually a render, or real life bricks…

Want to see more? Just drop by at Sunder’s Flickr for more pictures of these and several other great Sci-Fi trains!

Building Techniques, Model Design

When is a LEGO® Train Not A LEGO® Train Anymore?

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Crossing The Purity Line.

If you you’ve been following the LEGO Train Fan Club Facebook group recently you probably have seen the ongoing discussion on Mike Moon’s 3D printed car bodies for LEGO trains. If you haven’t, take a read through here.

Mike’s original post presented his 3D printed trolley car body designed to fit on a LEGO brick built train base. It has since ignited a discussion about what is and is not a LEGO train, and what techniques are acceptable to the community and what ones are a step too far.

Brick Model Railroader’s own ball bearing equipped wheel sets, are certainly not pure LEGO. But are they acceptable in the LEGO train hobby?

Continue reading When is a LEGO® Train Not A LEGO® Train Anymore? →

History

Celebrate Halloween with a Scary Train Mod

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In the LEGO hobby, people are sometimes divided over the issue of modifying parts. Whether you do or don’t, as long as you are having fun that is what it is all about.

However, for Halloween I decided to pick a scary LEGO train mod from LEGO’s past advertising. This ad dates from 1988. On the surface, it would appear to have nothing to do with trains. Can you spot the train mod?