Hello followers, fans and supporters, and happy new year!
Here’s our first post of 2018! We hope that everyone had a Happy Holiday season and a safe new year’s. We’d like to reflect on our 2017 and offer some commentary on our crazy and awesome first year.
Continue reading Brick Model Railroader’s 2017 Year in Review!
Hello again to all of our awesome fans and supporters!
Christmas and the holidays are now past us and we find ourselves looking ahead to 2018. We have just a few things we wanted to cover in this article, which will likely be the last general article of the year. We have a year-in-review planned to go up soon, so be sure to check in later for that article.
Brick Model Railroader Is Going To The Train Show
First off, we’d like to announce that Brick Model Railroader will be present at the World’s Greatest Hobby on Tour train show in Monroeville, Pennsylvania on January 6th and 7th. We’ll be there as part of the PennLUG layout once again (Cale and Glenn are in PennLUG).
Worlds Greatest Hobby on Tour Monroeville PA
Instructions For Sale
Next, some information about our premium instructions. We still have some premium instructions available fore the USRA 55 ton hopper and AAR 53′ flat car ad D4 crawler. You can find these available in our online store.
We have had a resounding success with our first four kits, and we plan to continue offering more in the near future. However, we can’t keep producing the same four kits forever. We need to make room for more new stuff, so here’s our plan:
We’ll be offering all our our first four premium instructions for a limited time. They will be available as pre-order only, meaning that we will fill as many orders as we get. After the order period, we won’t be making any more. We’ll announce the pre-order dates at a later time.
We’re Finally Making A Caboose
We’re also planning ahead for our fifth premium instruction kit, which will be the North Eastern caboose. We’ve had a lot of requests for a caboose for some design, so we’ve finally decided to answer those prayers! One of the problems we ran into is that a lot of caboose designs are specific to one or a small handful of railroads. We chose the north eastern caboose because it spanned dozens of railroads in the United States, and this will allow us to produce several decals to be used with the kit. We’ll have more information on the north eastern caboose later.
PDF?
We’ve also been getting more questions about selling PDF copies of our premium instructions. We have deliberately decided NOT to sell PDF versions. There are a couple reasons for this:
Our First Locomotive Kit
We’ve also been making serious progress with our locomotive. On December 28, we (Cale and Glenn) had one of our last major work sessions on the locomotive, and we seem to have solved every operational issue that we’ve come across. Our drive train is robust and reliable, and the rods move properly. Seeing the model run circles around the living room floor was amazing!
We’ve also confirmed that it WILL negotiate R40 curves if the tender drawbar is extended by one stud. This is a concession we had to make, but we had to make the locomotive work on R40s. It’s the principle of the thing. HOWEVER, the locomotive cannot navigate through a standard LEGO turnout (switch). This is pretty unfortunate, but it’s an unfortunate reality. It should also be made clear that this is not a problem with the locomotive, but rather a problem with the design of the switch. The flanges of the driver will always ride ps on part of the rails and derail the locomotive. But seriously, who cares about standard switches anymore?
Regardless, we’ve been quite happy with the locomotive thus far. We’re still hoping to announce the locomotive in January 2018 with an announcement of our sale plan following that.
So that’s all we have this week. Look for our 1 year Anniversary Article soon. And thank you for supporting us. We love this LEGO Train Hobby, and we love sharing it with you.
The BMR Team
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
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
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!
Today is October 30th, wich means just one more day and OcTRAINber is over! For everybody that didn’t enter their entries yet, this post is a friendly reminder that now is the time to add those last pieces, render those last files, snap your last pictures and upload everything to the BMR Flickr page!
We have already seen a lot of great entries and we hope to welcome even more in the coming hours. We are truely overwhelmed by the response to our first ever contest and we are glad that this contest seems to have struck a chord with our community.
Enjoy your last mile of OcTRAINber!
EDIT: Deadline will be October 31st, 23:59 PDT!
EDIT2: Aaand this concludes OcTRAINber! Thanks all for your entries, much appreciated! We are truely astonished by all the great entries, and we know for sure this is going to be a difficult one to judge! In the next days we will communicate more about the scoring and the prizes. But untill then we thank all contestants and hope you all had a great OcTRAINber!
We’re returning with our third premium instructions kit!
Announcing the Brick Model Railroader, American Car & Foundry Type 27 Tank Car premium instructions available for order here.
The Type 27 tank car was built by the American Car & Foundry Co. from 1927 into the late 1940’s. The Type 27 was available in capacities from 4,000 gallons up to 12,000 gallons, and could be ordered with multiple compartments (each with its own dome) for hauling separate liquids in the same car. Model designed by Glenn Holland, our instructions can model 6 different versions. The two most popular tank sizes, 8,000 gallon and 10,000 gallon, each with one, two, or three domes.
As with all premium instructions, we will include the custom elements needed to build the model. All you need to do is gather the standard Lego parts from your own collection and you’ll be on your way to a great tank car model.
You can build the car in the color of your choice, or you can purchase decals to build the car in one of the following authentic railroad paint schemes bellow.
1920’s OCTAN with Logo design by Shawn Kelly
1940’s OCTAN with Logo design by Michael Gale
In addition to releasing the tank cars, we will also have more of our original premium instruction kits, the Pullman PS-1 40′ boxcar and USRA 55-TON Hopper Car. We still have decals available for these cars too.
And, of course, we will have extra wheel sets available for purchase for those wanting to build more than one car. All of the products mentioned above; the hopper and boxcar premium instructions, decals, and wheel sets will be available in our online store.
Hello everybody again, and Happy OcTRAINber!
We hope everyone is having fun building their entries for our first build competition, OcTRAINber! Be sure to read the rules if you have any questions, as well as this one, and check out this article for a description of the AWESOME prizes we have to offer for the winners! I’m enjoying seeing the entries so far and I’m looking forward to seeing what else is entered as the competition draws to a close in a couple weeks. remember, entries are only eligible for prizes if they are submitted to the Brick Model Railroader Flickr group.
Continue reading BMR’s New Premium Instructions, Restocks, Locomotive, and More!
Now that OcTRAINber is in full swing and the first entries are coming in (a first recap of the contest will follow in the end of this week!) we would like to take this opportunity to at least show you all the prizes you are contesting for. We are very glad to announce that two of our favorite brands have decided to sponsor us, meaning we have some pretty awesome stuff to give away.
First of all, we would like to thank The Lego Company for their big pack of prizes: Not only did we receive two Packs of Straight+Flex Track and a Pack of Switches, we also received the amazing Winter Holiday Train and the newly released Winter Holiday Train Station!
Next to that, our friends over at BrickTracks have decided to sponsor the contest with their newly released large radii tracks. More specifically, we received both a full circle of their R104 curves and a full circle of their R120 curves! This means that at least two of our contestants will not have to go through the pain of running their trains in R44 curves anymore!
Triggered to join the contest after seeing these prizes? You better be! For more information you can check the official announcement for OcTRAINber here on BMR. Or, just go directly to our BMR Flickr to upload your entry!
Happy building, happy OcTRAINber!
There have been some questions asked over at the Eurobricks Train Tech forums OcTRAINber thread regarding the contest, which we have tried to answer the best as we could. For completeness, we have decided to post some clarification on the rules here as well.
Sizes
For us here at BMR, we normally use the same way of measuring as other scale modellers do, meaning:
US: Over the couplers
EU: Over the buffers
It’s a rule of thumb, so all trains that have buffers are measured like the EU, and all trains that just have automatic couplers are measured over the couplers.
Also, there is no limit on the width of the entry.
Entering old entries in the contest
OcTRAINber is a building contest, meaning that you have to submit a new model specifically build for the contest. To keep in mind: We have set up this contest to inspire people to actually build, so please no old models that have been posted already!
(If it wasn’t put online before, we would be willing to consider it. In the end, the pre-announcement did state that we encourage finally finishing those previously half-failed ideas for something long.)
Third party parts
BMR has always been positive towards third-party parts, as long as they have any way of added value to the hobby. So the rule of thumb is simple:
Lego: Yes
Third Party parts: Yes
Clones: No
Flickr
All entries have to be posted on our BMR Flickr. For this you need your own Flickr account, but trust us, there is an awesome community out there you can be part of!
The Swoosh
There were some questions about how the swoosh should look like. We didn’t state any rules for this so that’s up to your own imagination!
Types of consists
Lastly, there were some questions on what type of units you can send in. To give some clarification on this: Everything that has train wheels underneath it is allowed. So think locomotive, passenger carriage, goods wagon, etc. For semi-permanently coupled units you can think about trams, rescue trains (think SBB in the alpes), MOW equipment, Truck-Train combos like Hupac, the Eurotunnel LeShuttle, etc etc.
Good luck with building and enjoy your OcTRAINber!
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