Tag Archives: Train

Model Design, People

Builder Spotlight with Mateusz Waldowski

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Continuing our theme of interviewing builders of exception MOCs, we’re back with European builder Mateusz Waldowski. Mateusz built this awe inspiring bullet train, the Alstom Pendolino ED250 PKP Intercity. We might not have awesome trains like this in the United States, but we sure wish we did! His build is complete with lights, a complete interior (!), and custom stickers. Check it out.

BMR: Tell us a little more about the build. How long did it take? Estimated piece count?
Mateusz: My MOC is 130cm long, has 3500 pieces, 10m of wire inside, lights on the front changing by direction, and lights inside. I first made a sketch in September 2015 and I started building from real bricks in 2016. The build took longer than I expected because I had to collect lots of ideas and continually improve the model.

BMR: What inspired you to build this particular locomotive?
Mateusz: In the LEGO catalogs from my childhood, passenger trains were always express/high speed.


BMR: Is it powered?
Mateusz: Yes. It has two LEGO train motors (old 9V train motor and pf train motor) and the receiver is behind the cab. Power comes from 9V tracks and steering by pf control pilot.

BMR: What is your build process? Do you use some form of digital design program?
Mateusz: I don’t have one way in my building process. For this particular model I used “LEGO Digital Designer” to sketch it, but my 3D model wasn’t good enough and I made lot of changes. In others MOCs I build immediately from real brick.

BMR: What was the hardest bit to get right?
Mateusz: The most difficult was the front of the train. I wanted the train to look very smooth and fast like the original. I didn’t want to have “stairs” on the front of train. (Ed: you certainly succeeded!)


BMR: What’s your favorite detail that other people might not notice?
Mateusz: I don’t know. I spent too long building this train to have an objective opinion about it.

I know what my favorite detail is, the pantographs. Binoculars!

BMR: What’s next?
Mateusz: This year I plan on adding one more car to the Pendolino (with a restaurant inside). Right now I am building another diesel locomotive to add to my PKP Cargo family. I definitely must build more cargo cars.

BMR: What’s best, steam or diesel?
Mateusz: I don’t have a favorite type of locomotive/train. (ed: we’re sure that Mateusz meant to say diesel, but we’ll let it slide this once).

LEGO Train News, Model Design, Models, Products, Track

BrickTracks Announces The R104 Switch Tracks KickStarter Campaign!

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And now for some awesome news!

BrickTracks, the company behind those injection-molded R104 and R120 (with R56 now available for pre-order) curves has finally launched a Kickstarter campaign for R104 switch tracks.

I won’t be going into every detail in this post, as everything is explained on the campaign page, but here’s a run-down of what’s going on:

Continue reading BrickTracks Announces The R104 Switch Tracks KickStarter Campaign! →

LEGO Train News

The Coming of a New Era in LEGO® Trains

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last several months, you’ve probably seen the new LEGO® train sets coming out in August. We here at Brick Model Railroader have been quiet on the subject so far. The LEGO Group has been very quiet themselves on the new line until very recently, and in light of the lack of information, we decided to wait before publishing anything of significance on the matter. Wild speculation and secondhand rumors are not the kind of news we wish to write about; we would rather wait until we have accurate information and can make a fair and educated assessment of the facts. This hobby is very important to us, and we wish to be good stewards of it.

Now with the release of the new trains coming closer, LEGO has begun to open up a bit about the new sets, and the new Powered Up system that will be replacing the Power Functions line as the power/control system for them. LEGO has even released a handful of sets to LEGO Fan Media organizations for them to examine in depth. And while unfortunately we here at Brick Model Railroader have not been able to see a set in person yet, we are grateful to those who have for sharing their findings with the train community. There is enough information out there that we feel we can talk about the new trains in a hopefully informed manor. The two new trains sets in question are of course the 60198 Cargo Train, and the 60197 Passenger Train. While we could say much about the designs of the new sets, we will wait until we have them in person before writing a full review. Rather what concerns us today is the new Powered Up system that is behind them and what it means to us LEGO train fans and our hobby.

These new train sets, more than any others in recent years, will have a huge impact on the way we experience the LEGO train hobby. That is because for the first time since the end of the 9v train era, the LEGO Group is introducing a new power and control system for their train line, the Powered Up system. On the surface, not much may seem to be changing, the trains are still remote controlled, the track is still all plastic, and the trains receive their power from on board batteries. The Power Functions system we’ve had since 2009 has been governed by the same principals. But when you dig deeper into the new system, you’ll find that it has a number of key differences. So let’s take a look at what we’re getting so far.

Continue reading The Coming of a New Era in LEGO® Trains →

About BMR

Cabooses or Cabeese? Brick Model Railroader April 2018 Update

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Hello out there to all you LEGO® train fans. I know it’s been pretty quiet on the BMR website lately but it’s only because things have been very busy behind the scenes, so here is an update of what’s been happening.

Train Shows!

Being in Pittsburgh territory at the Worlds Greatest Hobby on Tour show, PennLUG made sure that the local train history was well represented with several Pittsburgh and Lake Erie RR models, as well as plenty of Pennsylvania RR locomotives and rolling stock.

The winter season is train show season here in the North Eastern US. Myself, along with BMR partner Glenn Holland have been busy with several train shows that our club, PennLUG, has displayed at, some of which you may have seen articles about here on BMR. Here is where we’ve been over the winter.

Continue reading Cabooses or Cabeese? Brick Model Railroader April 2018 Update →

Events

Nebraska Brick Days LEGO Fan Expo

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Lincoln/Omaha LEGO User Group will host Nebraska Brick Days at the Mid-America Center near Omaha, Nebraska on March 10th and 11th.

LOLUG will be joined by NILTC, ArkLUG and KC Brick Lab and all four LUG”s will display their incredible LEGO Train layouts.
Brickmania will be in attendance and selling their incredible custom sets and displaying the mighty USS Missouri.
Rocco Buttliere will join Brick Days with his incredibly detailed architectural masterpieces.
Outstanding creations from LUG members, competitions, games, and more!
www.brickdays.com for ticket information.

Models

Do Trains dream of Space Monorails?

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Even though we unfortunately can be almost 100% sure that Monorail will never make a comeback and even though the parts haven’t been produced in 20 years (luckily at least one 3rd party retailer have taken up this loss by producing their own replacements) I still consider Monorails part of our trains universe. Yes, they can be a bit wonky, and yes, they are far from prototypical and don’t look like anything you would see in the real life, but they just look so cool! Most of the monorails that are build by AFOLs nowadays are trying to look contemporary, but this week I spotted one that looks like it just escaped from 1989. Which is btw not that strange, since Frost (the builder) was inspired by a prototype-theme from exactly that year.

Continue reading Do Trains dream of Space Monorails? →

Models

Steaming up with the BR 01 513

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As one of the few (maybe the only?) contributors to BMR from across the pond, I felt like I really should share something European again, this time a BR 01.5 steam engine of the Deutsche Reichsbahn (the national railways of the DDR) by FLBRICKS. There are two reasons why this is such a great model: One, it’s spot-on, and two, the pictures are gorgeous.

 

Want to see more? Check FLBRICKS’ Flickr, or go to the Eurobricks Train Tech page where FLBRICKS explains a little bit more about this model! Or click on ‘more’, to see a TT version for comparision.

Continue reading Steaming up with the BR 01 513 →