The PennLUG Lines: Planning a LEGO Train, Club Layout

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.

PennLUG Lines logo, based on Reading RR logo.

Planning the PennLUG Lines

Some of you may be familiar with PennLUG’s style of LEGO® train layouts. But for the benefit of those new to us, I will give a bit of background. Continue reading The PennLUG Lines: Planning a LEGO Train, Club Layout →

For me, the best way to build is to have an end goal in mind. Putting bricks together is great and all, don’t get me wrong. But if you don’t know where you want to end up, how do you expect to get off on the right foot?

That said, there should be some thought that goes into a model before the building process is begun. I usually start a model with extensive research on the prototype. For the purpose of this article, the example model will be a Pennsylvania Railroad BM70m baggage-mail car.