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.
Most of the time, pictures say more than a thousand words. Today’s model proves this point, even though they are renders. Anyways, John O’Shea, known for his amazing US and EU style trucks, build a small Komatsu Road/Rail Digger for an upcoming bigger build. Don’t try to build this beast at home without at least painting several parts, but hey, that’s one of the premiums of Digital Builds.
Picking up a piece of Concrete
According to John, these renders are done with Blender, a piece of open source render software and the Mecabricks plugin. I know both and I have definitely never used them before, but if you guys want to give it a try, you now know what kind of amazing photo-realistic pictures you can make with it!
In the world of LEGO Trains, there are many fantastic models in a wide range of scales. Everything between 1/45-1/55 are common, and the amount of detail to be found in the best of these really can make you wonder if there would be any point, from a detailing perspective, of going to a larger scale than those.
Building scale models with LEGO certainly is a challenge, but as you move up to larger and larger scales it can bring along extra problems, and potentially exacerbate existing issues. I personally tend to look at larger models with a more critical eye than I do smaller ones, as all too often you find that once you get past the spectacle-inspired reaction of “Wow, that model is so big!” you find that there’s not enough detail to really make that model really satiating, or that the shape of the thing feels underdeveloped and doesn’t make good use of the large scale.
The biggest question in my mind when I see a LEGO train (Or anything else, really) built to a larger scale is “Does this model actually need to be this big?”. That is to say, does it make good use of the size? Imagine if you took the design of a stock 6-wide LEGO train and simply built it 50% bigger. The scale has gone up, sure, but if nothing about the quality or depth of detail goes up, it would not be satisfying.
This is where I’d like to bring your attention to a new model by Sven Jansen, also known as Tenderlok, a very talented LEGO train builder who just so happens to build for LGB track instead of the usual LEGO track. This new model is of an old Italian shunting engine, the R.202, in 1/22.5 scale. As with his previous builds, this model truly does make excellent use of the scale it’s built in.
Underneath the fantastic detail work, even just the basic shapes and silhouette of the build feel just right, and especially impressive is the half-plate drop in radius for the smokebox. Another feature that stands out, once you notice it, is the cowling around the front cab windows.
Sven’s model also brings with it many other very interesting features, including independent light control and a working smoke unit. Smoke units in model trains aren’t everybody’s thing, of course, but they are always fun to watch and I really enjoy seeing it here.
This model, like Sven’s other locomotives, really does make excellent use of the scale it’s built in. Yes, this engine could conceivably be modeled in a smaller scale, and perhaps in the right hands even have a comparable number of details included. However, Sven has used the larger size to increase the depth of detail. The mechanisms are, where appropriate, more intricate, better proportioned, and overall more accurate than could be achieved if built smaller.
To me, the most satisfying aspects of this build are in the valve gear and the cab detailing. Both of these are things that are hard to get right in a 1/48 LEGO train – the intricacy of the mechanisms and the fine granularity of the parts involved on the ‘real’ locomotives mean that in 1/48 LEGO, even the best attempts to model these are close approximations and often out of scale. It would be easy to take the level of detail found in a 1/48, 8-wide LEGO train and just make it larger, but Sven’s model has gone a step above that and used the larger scale to achieve a more nicely detailed engine.
The parts of the valve gear near the piston are very similar to what can be done in 1/48 models, but what caught my eye was the detail surrounding the rocker bar and the reversing gear. These parts are very difficult to do as anything more than a loose approximation in a smaller scale, especially once you start dealing with things like Technic axles, pins, and the 3mm rigid hose eating up much more real estate than would be ideal. What a good sight it is to see these features modeled more accurately on Sven’s R.202!
I would highly recommend checking out more of Sven’s work. Each model has been very well detailed and engineered, and I always look forward to seeing them. For me the only problem I have with them is that they always make me think that perhaps I, too, should try to start building locomotives for G-scale track; and I hope that others end up having this same problem as well.
Finally, after having this idea stuck in a drawer for far too long, we would like to introduce the BMR podcast: a fun and entertaining hour with, surprise, surprise, LEGO trains!
Not only was the pilot episode longer, but the amount of podcast guests was a lot more than we were planning for the standard episodes. The builders featured in the pilot episode were:
UrbanErwin
Glenn Holland
Raised
Tijn
Big Daedy
Aloisvanesterhazy
Enrico
Thanks to them the pilot episode was a great success and a fun 1.5 hours, and hopefully the start of a fun new project.
Schedule
The podcast itself will be a hour long. The schedule for the podcast will be the following: 5 minutes of short introduction, 30-40 minutes of discussing certain topics, 10-15 minutes of answering question of our viewers. During the entire podcast there will be a live chat were viewers are able to ask multiple questions they would like to be answered by us. .
We will try to post new podcast episodes on a regular basis, aiming for once monthly. We may need to modify or deviate from this schedule, but for now this is our plan.
New episodes will be announced at least three days in advance along with the date and times for different time zones. This information will also be shared across our social media pages.
The Crew and Guests
The crew will always consist of at least one or two BMR team members. Enrico will always be present as our host, since the podcast is his brain child. However, we will have more BMR members involved to keep a fresh and different cast of for each episode.
We will also be inviting other builders from across the world to join our podcasts and join in the conversation.
Topics
We will try like change the topics around just like the crew members, and will be top priority. Topics of discussion will include BMR specific subjects, but also Lego community and train related items. We don’t want to give away to much, since were currently working on multiple fun and interesting topics.
We are excited to move forward with our podcast an we hope you are excited to watch. Please stay tuned for the notification for the next episode.
I subscribe to some model railroading channels on YouTube. A personal favorite of mine uploads more than just layout progress, locomotive modeling, and such; he sometimes posts videos where he discusses some thoughts he’s had or other areas of the greater modeling hobby. He models in OO, P4, and N scales, so the parts of this article regarding his video will come from a background in traditional scale modeling (i.e., not LEGO). Today I’ll expand on a point I find to be particularly interesting.
Perpetual Woes of an Improving Modeler
To summarize the four minute video, the creator, Gavin, presents the viewer with a theoretical timeline that goes like this:
A beginner modeler builds their first kit, like a goods wagon, or model plane, etc. and is satisfied with the finished product, and earns a sense of gratification from it.
The modeler begins work on another kit, and finishes it to the same or slightly better quality than the first.
Over time, the modeler’s skill improves greatly, and he no longer can accept the standards at which he began at.
After this, Gavin states that it can be difficult to move on from old models. It takes forever to “push it off your desk”, move on to a different model, or quickly finish the model, forget about it, and move on to a new one. At some point, you return to a simple kit, which quickly becomes complicated because your new modeling standard has far surpassed the old standard.
How does this apply to LEGO train modeling?
I find that Gavin’s ideas apply to our hobby in a slightly different way. Instead of taking forever to finish models (which does happen sometimes, I’m guilty of this for sure) old models begin to look more and more dated. This really hits home for me with two cases in point.
In 2015 I built a model of the Reading Crusader streamlined 4-6-2 and installed a sound system in it. This model probably has the most mileage on it out of anything in my collection, and has proven to be reliable and fun to use. However, that model turns 5 later this year, and to me, there is a lot of room for improvement that I can’t help but notice when I look at the locomotive. The same is true for my Cotton Belt 4-4-2, which I finished almost a year after the Crusader.
My Reading G1sas 4-6-2, built early 2015, and unchanged since then.My Cotton Belt E-1 class 4-4-2, built late 2015/early 2016, and also practically unmodified since then.
Four and five years later, I have greatly improved as a modeler since I built those two locomotives, and I have started, scrapped, and completed several other projects in that time. I still have my Crusader and Cotton Belt, but they just don’t look as good when I compare them to, say, my Buffalo Creek & Gauley #13. For this reason, I haven’t brought them to as many shows or ran them as frequently.
Moving on to other projects has been great, because new challenges are always nice and I enjoy being able to have a variety of models in my collection. However, there’s always a voice in the back of my head that suggests that I return to the old models and build new versions.
Tying it all together, I guess I could say my perpetual woe ad an improving modeler is wanting to build new versions of my old models using the new skills and techniques I’ve learned since the originals were built, but often times the lure of new ideas and models is far greater. I have yet to find a good balance between the two, since there are so many new projects to work on but an increasing number of old models to improve.
Can anyone relate to these “woes”? What are your thoughts, and what are some woes you may relate more to?
Being a Model Railroader and AFOL in one, it’s always difficult to make sure a model looks like it’s prototype. As AFOL, you are always trying to use exactly that one piece of Lego that corresponds with a certain greeble, angle or form of the prototype, even though it might not fit 100%. As a Model Railroader, you always want to make sure something fits 100%, meaning that not always you can use a piece of Lego, but for example using stickers, 3d printed rods, or custom track. This difficult trade-off is what makes our little niche hobby (at least for me!) so great. On the other hand, it does mean a lot of extra hassle. Even more, because most of the time both solutions tend to be possible.
Therefore, we thought it might be interesting to look at two amazing renditions of the same prototype, which are build in exactly those two styles: The Model Railroader and the AFOL. The prototype that we chose is the MÁV M40, a Hungarian Diesel Locomotive build in the sixties with a lot of strange lines and greebles. It looks like this:
So, how does this look like when two Hungarian Lego builders, lantlant and Rob, both try to re-build this beast in Lego, the one with emphasis on Model Railroad Realism, and the other with emphasis on Lego Railroad Realism?
First of, let us look at the Lego Railroad Realism:
side 1
side 2
As you can see, Rob has tried to solve all difficult corners and angles that the M40 has with brick built solutions. He has even done some very effective weathering by using dark red, dark grey and even black pieces to illustrate the grease and dirt that these Diesels most probably will be covered in during most of their active duty. However, no stickers means no stickers, so there are no identification numbers, no logos and nothing that explains which exact locomotive this is. For a true Model Railroader, this is of course not done. For an AFOL, this is – with good reason! – perfectly fine, because it’s not about that identification of the one loco, but the rendition in Lego of a whole class of locomotives.
Now, let’s look at the Model Railroad Realism:
side 1
side 2
As you can see, lantlant actually tried to solve quite a lot of parts by using brick-build solutions, but for example the cab and smokestack, plus the diamond pattern warning ‘stripes’ on the front of the loco are all done with high-quality stickers. It gives this loco a bit less of a Lego, and a bit more of a Model Train experience. Also, by some subtle stickering, lantlant has been able to give the shrouding of the wheelsets a bit of extra depth. On the other hand, it does, mostly with the windscreen, feel a bit ‘lazy’ that he didn’t go the Lego way. It does give you a stunning rendition of that windscreen though!
So, what do you, our readers, think about this? What do you think is more important when building, Model Railroaders Realism or Lego Railroaders Realism?
For March of 2020, LEGO® has released gift with purchase set, the 40370 Steam Engine. The set is available until the end of the month at LEGO.com and through LEGO brand retail stores for via qualifying purchase. The set is a replica of 7810 a push-along steam locomotive that was released in 1980, and commemorates the 40th anniversary of the 12v train line being launched worldwide.
I recently picked up a copy through an order to LEGO.com. Let’s take a look at this set now.
BMR: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your MOCs.
My name is Isaac, I live in the UK and have been back-and-fourth with Lego for as long as I can remember! Back when I was 13 I started exploring Stop-Motion Animation, and what better resource could I hope for than the mountain of Lego I’d accumulated as a kid! I must have caught the Lego bug without knowing it, because once out and started University, I realized I was still very much hooked on building Lego.
The MOCs I’ve built are all British locomotives & rolling stock, 6-wide. This is quite an off proportion for a lot of people, but I’ve found it to have become a unique (and slightly cheaper) style that I’m extremely happy with!
BMR: What got you started with LEGO trains?
I went to University in York, where I worked at the National Railway Museum for the best part of a year. Legends such as Mallard and Flying Scotsman were regularly visiting or on display, so it didn’t take long for the railway bug from my childhood to take hold again. By that point I already had a lot of the Lego, so the rest was a no-brainer!
Isaac’s 4468 Mallard speeding on the track.
BMR: What is your build process for making a new MOC?
It can depend on the build. For a lot of my bigger projects, like
Mallard or the Gresley P2, I designed the model on LDraw before printing a
parts list for Bricklink. In other cases I will attempt to engineer a
locomotive with my existing pieces. This is how the LSWR O2, Midland ‘Spinner’
4-2-2 and Class 48 Diesel all came about.
BMR: What is your go-to place for inspiration?
There are many – the museum was certainly a great place – but If I had to name one other, there’s a chap on Youtube called Chris Eden-Green who creates mini-documentary profiles on classes of Steam Locomotive. They’re accessible, well-shot and delight informative, and I’ve got many ideas for locomotives to build from them. I hope you don’t mind the shout-out!
BMR: What are your latest projects?
My builds are on hiatus at the moment as I take on a full-time job and work on several animation projects. By no means am I leaving the hobby, but I do think a break from the same thing can be healty once in a while! That said, I’ve been working on some rather interesting stop-motion puppets using Lego pieces as the base for the skeleton. Purists might not like it though as it involves a lot of snipping and drilling!
Purist might want to close there eyes.
BMR: What is your dream project?
Some kind of representation of Dawlish, but in Lego. A mainline running along a sea-wall beneath dramatic cliffs, then entering a small seaside town with a station before disappearing into a tunnel. Maybe throw in a castle on the clifftop for good measure. Probably impractical and definitely heavy on the wallet, but… What a sight it would be!
BMR: You have a lot of cool and interesting YouTube video’s about your MOCs. What inspired you to make these?
Thank you very much! I’ve been making YouTube videos for about 10 years now, so when the Lego Trains came along it was by far the best way for me to share them with people. Film/video making has always been in competition with Lego for my greatest passion, so combining the two was always going to be inevitable.
BMR: What is your favorite show that you have attended with your MOCs so far?
Shildon Brick Show (At NRM Locomotion, Shildon) was where I met the
wonderful fellas at the LNUR. I’ve been to many shows with them since and it’s
always been a wonderful time, but it doesn’t beat where it all began.
A few of Isaac builds at the Yorkshire Brick Show 2018.
If you want to see more of Isaac builds check out the following links:
Since our launch in early 2017, we have had a pretty small crew. Mainly consisted of Cale Leiphart, Jim Catagnus (our webmaster), Elroy Davis (our LAN Ambassador), and myself, the only others we’ve had on our team have been occasional guest writers, many of whom have had to answer calls from their non-hobby lives.
We quietly added raised (Gerbrand) to our team a while ago, and he has since taken charge of writing excellent articles, spearheading our OcTRAINber challenge, and representing our website in the Netherlands. More recently, we have also added Enrico Lussi, who has quickly become a frequent contributor. We’re glad to have our two Netherlanders on our team.
Raised (left) and Cale hanging out at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.Enrico fixing (or breaking) Raised’s yellow NS 1600 at Lego World 2019.
Since about the middle of 2019, we have been working to bring a few more people on board, primarily in the United States. After some discussion, back and forth, and dropped conversation, we are happy to officially announce our newest team members: Aaron Burnett, Matt Csenge, and Chris Stone.
Aaron Burnett, who has been previously featured on BMRMatt standing between Frisco no. 1621, a 2-10-0, and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy no. 9908, Silver Charger in St. Louis, Missouri.Chris Stone: previous OcTRAINber winner and also featured on BMR
All three individuals are known and talented builders and passionate hobbyists. The rest of us are excited to have each of them on board to both write articles and join in the model-making side of Brick Model Railroader. Cale, Elroy, Gerbrand, Enrico, and myself are all excited to have some new team members aboard.
You can read a little more about our newest team members on our updated Team Page.
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