Below is another video showing footage from the MKMRS exhibition on Saturday
Comments and feedback welcome!
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Milton Keynes Model Railway Exhition
The exhibition last saturday was a great success for the club with over 17,000 visitors on the day.
Brickville Town Harbour was on display and big hit with young and old alike.Below is a video with pictures taken while setting up the layout on the Friday night/ Saturday morning, together with some footage during the exhibition.
The layout was popular with lots of harry Potter, Toy Story and Batman etc figure positioned around it for visitors to try and spot.
The trains behaved well as usual with the Emerald Night engine the most fussy with regard to the track (it dislikes the flexi-track sections.
The exhibition last saturday was a great success for the club with over 17,000 visitors on the day.
Brickville Town Harbour was on display and big hit with young and old alike.Below is a video with pictures taken while setting up the layout on the Friday night/ Saturday morning, together with some footage during the exhibition.
The layout was popular with lots of harry Potter, Toy Story and Batman etc figure positioned around it for visitors to try and spot.
The trains behaved well as usual with the Emerald Night engine the most fussy with regard to the track (it dislikes the flexi-track sections.
Friday, 3 February 2012
Southern Railway Inspired Concrete Goods Shed
I am determined to gradually furnish the layout with building which have typical British architecture as my collection of Lego grows and allows! One of the first models built for the new layout is this goods shed. It's inspired by the pre-fab concrete goods sheds built by the Southern Railway and I decided to have a go after getting a job lot of Lego at a carboot sale, more than half of which was light grey!
It started life with red doors as shown but I don't think it really suited it. It has therefore now developed into the building shown below and has got grey sliding doors which I feel better suit the character
The model has a small platform and door adjacent to the railway line where goods are loaded/unloeaded together with a another side door where goods can be tranfered to a lorry. The model is positioned at the end of a goods siding and once the plans are finalised for everything around it, the small details will be added to the rat which currently hides underneath
Ideas at present for other freight facilities includes a cattle dock and an engineers yard is currently taking shape - photos to follow soon
I am determined to gradually furnish the layout with building which have typical British architecture as my collection of Lego grows and allows! One of the first models built for the new layout is this goods shed. It's inspired by the pre-fab concrete goods sheds built by the Southern Railway and I decided to have a go after getting a job lot of Lego at a carboot sale, more than half of which was light grey!
It started life with red doors as shown but I don't think it really suited it. It has therefore now developed into the building shown below and has got grey sliding doors which I feel better suit the character
The model has a small platform and door adjacent to the railway line where goods are loaded/unloeaded together with a another side door where goods can be tranfered to a lorry. The model is positioned at the end of a goods siding and once the plans are finalised for everything around it, the small details will be added to the rat which currently hides underneath
Ideas at present for other freight facilities includes a cattle dock and an engineers yard is currently taking shape - photos to follow soon
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Lego Trains - Brickish event at Bucks Railway Centre
Another great day out last year connected with Lego trains was a trip to the event at Bucks railway Centre at Quainton in Buckinghamshire. A preserved railway, the event was held in the station building which originally stood in Oxford but was dismantled, transported to the BRC and been painstakingly rebuilt to a brilliant standard
There was a small but varied selection of AFoL Lego model railway layouts and there were some amazing models on display. Below is a video which I hope shows the great range of models on show
A great event and one which I hope is repeated this year as both me and my daughter thoroughly enjoyed it!
Another great day out last year connected with Lego trains was a trip to the event at Bucks railway Centre at Quainton in Buckinghamshire. A preserved railway, the event was held in the station building which originally stood in Oxford but was dismantled, transported to the BRC and been painstakingly rebuilt to a brilliant standard
There was a small but varied selection of AFoL Lego model railway layouts and there were some amazing models on display. Below is a video which I hope shows the great range of models on show
A great event and one which I hope is repeated this year as both me and my daughter thoroughly enjoyed it!
Friday, 27 January 2012
Lego Trains - Brickish Great Western Lego Show Swindon 1st October 2011
Shows are a great place to get inspiration and the Brickish show at Swindon was brilliant. Although it encompassed a wide range of Lego themes (Harry Potter, Star Wars etc), it was the range & quality of trains on show that ready impressed me. Below is a video featuring some of them
A great show so I hope its repeated this year
The brickish website can be accessed here
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Lego 3180 Octan Tanker Truck
My favourite small Lego City set in recent years is the Lego 3180 Octan Tanker Truck. Not only does it look good, it also have plenty of potential for altering and conversion.
I have made several of the sets so wanted to make some variations and 3 different tractor units are seen below
In the photo below, the unit at the back is a standard 2 axle unit as supplied. The unit lower right has been converted to a 3 axle unit as they are much more common hauling tanker trailers here in the UK, I like the slightly stockier look to it. The unit lower left is designed to be a narrow cab tug for moving trailers around a yard and was inspired by the unit supplied in the new Maersk container train set. It will have work to do soon as I hope to have an oil depot on my layout, but it may need an extension to accomodate it
In addition to the potential for various different trucks, the trailer components are ripe for conversion into rail wagons. At present I have three 4 wheel tankers and one bogie tanker. The 4 wheel wagons are simply made by mounting on standard 4 wheel chassis (from Toy Story train sets I got for only £20 each from Asda!). They are finished off with colour matched ladders on the end and gauges underneath
They make great companions to the 4 wheel Octan tanker supplied in the Cargo train set and help to add some variety.
My favourite small Lego City set in recent years is the Lego 3180 Octan Tanker Truck. Not only does it look good, it also have plenty of potential for altering and conversion.
I have made several of the sets so wanted to make some variations and 3 different tractor units are seen below
In the photo below, the unit at the back is a standard 2 axle unit as supplied. The unit lower right has been converted to a 3 axle unit as they are much more common hauling tanker trailers here in the UK, I like the slightly stockier look to it. The unit lower left is designed to be a narrow cab tug for moving trailers around a yard and was inspired by the unit supplied in the new Maersk container train set. It will have work to do soon as I hope to have an oil depot on my layout, but it may need an extension to accomodate it
In addition to the potential for various different trucks, the trailer components are ripe for conversion into rail wagons. At present I have three 4 wheel tankers and one bogie tanker. The 4 wheel wagons are simply made by mounting on standard 4 wheel chassis (from Toy Story train sets I got for only £20 each from Asda!). They are finished off with colour matched ladders on the end and gauges underneath
They make great companions to the 4 wheel Octan tanker supplied in the Cargo train set and help to add some variety.
Unfortunately the set is sold out now on the Lego UK site so best buy some soon it your interested. They are still widely available from Amazon etc so they can still be bought for a good price.
Brick on...........................
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
The MOW Engineers wagons
One aspect of real railways that particularly interests me are engineers trains which are used for maintaining the railways and infrastructure. It was therefore a foregone conclusion that space would be found on the layout for a small yard
My favourite aspect to this is the rolling stock and I am particularly pleased with the Catfish Hopper wagons. I got the inspiration from this design on Railbricks but have altered it so that it now has a 7 stud wide hopper rather than 8 stud on the original design. They really capture the character of the real wagons, a credit to the original design. I have made the 3 so far in red, black and grey. The black is correct but the red ones were a darker shade in real life (gulf red). I have not been able to amass enough of the correct type of maroon brick to build one so far but the search continues......................
This wagon was built from the new parts contained in the new Lego 4434 Tipper Truck Lorry. It makes a pretty good representation of a standard metal sided open wagon
One aspect of real railways that particularly interests me are engineers trains which are used for maintaining the railways and infrastructure. It was therefore a foregone conclusion that space would be found on the layout for a small yard
My favourite aspect to this is the rolling stock and I am particularly pleased with the Catfish Hopper wagons. I got the inspiration from this design on Railbricks but have altered it so that it now has a 7 stud wide hopper rather than 8 stud on the original design. They really capture the character of the real wagons, a credit to the original design. I have made the 3 so far in red, black and grey. The black is correct but the red ones were a darker shade in real life (gulf red). I have not been able to amass enough of the correct type of maroon brick to build one so far but the search continues......................
This wagon was built from the new parts contained in the new Lego 4434 Tipper Truck Lorry. It makes a pretty good representation of a standard metal sided open wagon
Finally I have some older style low sided wagons for transporting spent ballast, spoil or waste.
The other aspect to this is the yard and to help fill it I am amassing a range of road/rail vehicles togethr with some construction materieals and track (at least its a use for all the space curved track that I have). The mound of meterial grows as I get inspiration and I am particularly pleased with some pipe crates that I have assembled - (these will be detailed in another update soon)
There's more engineers wagons to come but unfortunately my priority has to be the docks and station on the layout - more progress reports soon
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