This will be the first in a series of articles about my process of building a LEGO steam locomotive. I intend to cover a variety of topics in this series including research, the use of custom elements, aftermarket electrical devices, and building techniques. While I will focus on a specific locomotive project I am currently working on, this series will not include a full set of step-by-step instructions to that locomotive. My intention is to share some experiences and techniques that I hope people can apply to any steam locomotive project, and perhaps other types of LEGO models as well. At any rate, my designs are usually pretty fragile and don’t really lend themselves to redistribution via instructions. Instead, I will lay out my approach to building a steam locomotive and why I think it is effective. I hope that this will help people who are struggling with what I think is a particularly difficult type of model to build or, at least, be of some interest to the readers of this site.
After the previous post on Ararat 1972 and Cale’s piece on Brick Model Railroading as such, I think the pieces are now set for the next installment in the series of inspiring layouts: Corfe Castle Station by Carl Greatrix. Lately, Carl has been the guy who has brought you the Caterham Seven and a lot of the visuals in the recent Lego games, but next to this, he is also a real trainhead and a lover of Scale Modelling. With the Corfe Castle Station layout, he had decided to fuse both of these to create an unique layout.
Corfe Castle Station – the eye-catcher and starting point of the layoutThe (almost finished) layout at STEAM 2011
The first thing that you notice when looking at Corfe Castle Station is that it follows a typical “British” approach. At least, that’s how it looks like for me after having read so many British Model Railroading Magazines (like Railway Modeller) when I was young. This means that we are looking at two mainline tracks and a siding, with a station as the main visual element. In fact, it’s just a very big diorama. The layout is an oval of which more than half is the fiddle yard and thus not part of the diorama. So, just as with Ararat 1972, there is no large yard where you can show off your trains. However, it does have two continuous loops which are ideal to show of your trains in high speed!
Overview of the layout – Two ovals and a fiddle yard.
What sets this layout apart of most other Lego Railway layouts is the design choices he makes: instead of using studs everywhere, Carl uses Scale Modelling techniques for making roads, gravel and mountains. This means that not everything in this layout is made out of Lego! The effect works surprisingly well. Instead of looking like a layout made of Lego, this is a layout that uses Lego as one of its mediums.
An example of combining Lego with scale modeling techniques
It becomes even more interesting when inserting his trains. This is because Carl, unlike most Lego Train builders, tries to use as little selective compression as possible. The result are models that are so accurate, that they don’t even look out of place in an actual O-scale layout.
Carl’s trains in an O-scale layout. Not part of Corfe Castle, but too nice not to show.
As said, the layout not only uses Lego. Carl was nice enough to keep a diary over at Flickr in which he shows how he designed the whole layout. This gives us the great possibility to dive a bit deeper into the layout and the way how it’s build.
When I woke this morning I had planned to write an article about a very different subject. But upon opening my Facebook feed I was greeted with a post I made on my wall 5 years ago, concerning the topic of “Are LEGO® Trains considered real model trains?” The post was spurred by a Eurobricks discussion going on at that time. Bellow is my entire post on the subject from January 2012 (excuse the typos). I found it very interesting to see what my thoughts on the LEGO train hobby were back then, compared to where we are now.
Railway Stations are massive things, definitely in the scales we as Lego Trainheads are building. A great example is Cale’s post about the PennLUG Lines, which shows that a Main Railway station easily rivals with its Staging Yard when it comes to size. However, that doesn’t mean you should not try building one. And thanks to The Lego Company (TLC), there is now a great example you can visit, as long as you are willing to travel to Kladno, Czech Republic. More specifically, we are talking about a model of Praha hlavní nádraží, the main Railway Station of Prague.
Thanks to a link shared on the Lego Train Fan Club page over at Facebook which caught my eye, I started to do some more research to find out as much as I could about this Diorama. There is a good reason for that: Having lived in Prague for two years and being in that station on almost weekly basis, it’s very close to me. Everything that makes Praha Hl.N. the station I love is there: The old station building, the Magistrala (the highway in front of the Railway Station), the new railway station and its interior (visible in front of the highway), the metro, and the actual double canopy above the tracks.
It turns out it’s not only a great model, but it even has running trains (one Shunter, one Main Line Locomotive which is about to couple with a rake of Intercity coaches, and a Metro!), moving elevators, lights… You name it, it’s there!
After Elroy followed up on my article about scaled Lego Trains within an already scaled L-gauge environment, this time around with a moving example, I had to follow-up on that one again. For good reasons though. Just check out the video and see it for yourself.
Miniture Train Video – by Alexander
Of course all credits go to its builder, Alexander.
It’s time for part 2 of my Finding Inspiration in Strasburg Pennsylvania. In part 1 I introduced the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and the models I’ve built, that have been inspired from there. That article can be found here. Now it’s time to take a stroll across the street, literally, to the Strasburg Rail Road.
The Road to Paradise
Strasburg’s 89 is pulling an opening day passenger train past 475 as it waits in the siding with a special photo freight charter.
Einheitswagen I der Rhätischen Bahn (side) by Leuchtstein
We as Model Railroaders have a tendency to love locomotives. This is pretty understandable, seeing that without loco’s, our trains would just be big pieces of metal rusting on tracks. However, we should not neglect our carriages, because they deserve our unconditioned love as well. Thankfully Leuchtstein at 1000steine has understood this as no other and has build the iconic Einheitswagen I from the Rhätische Bahn, the well-known narrow gauge railway in Switzerland.
With Elroy’s articles on Matson’s Landing, and the A/D Track concept, as well as the the Track Geometry article, it seems we have a bit of a theme running right now with train layout design. I too am working on some layout planning, but unlike Elroy’s smaller, personal layout, I’m working on layout designs for my club, PennLUG. And since this is a different kind of beast from a home layout, I thought it would be great to illustrate all the planing that goes into a train layout like ours.
Have you ever thought about owning a 1:5 (more like 1:2 if you read Glenn’s post on scaling, thanks for pointing that one out Matt) scale Garden Modelrailway? You know, like the ones you sometimes see in parks that can actually pull carriages with actual passengers? But you, just as me, don’t have the finances, nor the will to build something like that? Thanks to domel, you can now make this dream come true! Not for you ofcourse, but your minifigs!
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