Howdy! I’ve always been a fan of model trains (and trains in general), I even have a modest collection of HO guage trains stored away somewhere. But recently I’ve started building LEGO trains, or L guage as it’s been called. I’ve received some feedback from the general LEGO populous, but I’d love to get some feedback from some non-LEGO model train fans.
So here are some LEGO Steam Engines I’ve built recently. As a note, these engines use a non-LEGO custom wheel created by a guy named Ben Fleskes, as LEGO does not offer a decent steam engine wheels.
Consolodation and Pacific classes - The Texas State Railroad’s engines #300 and #500
I belong to a LEGO club called TexLUG, and we put on public displays from time to time (which usually includes a train track or two). After I learned about the Texas State Railroad’s financial troubles because of budget cuts from the Texas State Government, I decided to build these two locomotives in a show of support. My plan is to simply show these at every event I attend around the state and try to spread the word, so far I haven’t met anyone that even knew the TSRR existed!
Histories of the real engines and how they were aquired by the TSRR can be found HERE
I’m sorry about that. The linked images worked in the post preview, even when I went back in to edit my post, but they wouldn’t work in the final post itself. I’ve added plain text links that seem to work.
Very nice Tony. This past weekend at the local train-show the Gateway (St. Louis) Lego club had a nice display layout running. Most of what they were running looked fairly stock Lego. I think it is very impressive what you can achieve especially when one realizes that the blocks can not be easily purchased separately but come from kits of other models. This is the ultimate kit bash achievement and not exactly a cheap past-time either!
These look great, especially the Berkshire. Are you able to motorize them? How does the motor work? Does it work through the driving rods or are the wheels connected to hidden gears (like on most HO locomotives)?
I can, but it would double the thickness of the rods, which looks a bit off. There’s also the problem with those rods that extend in front of the push rod, which cannot be covered by tiles there.
All four are motorized using the standard LEGO 9v train motor, a small box with four wheels that pulls current from the rails. The locomotives are all dummies, the motors are in the tenders. It is possible to motorize them directly, but I’ve only seen it done through gears as you’ve described. Unfortunately with something as large as my berkshire, from what I’ve seen and read the non-train LEGO motors would not perform well. Adding a motor inside the locomotive would also remove the control element from the train’s operation, unless you removed the actual electric motor from the LEGO train motor so it only was used as a track pick-up.
That’s pretty cool man! I’ve got a Lego Shinkansen 200 that I set up around the Christmas tree but otherwise keep on a shelf in my train room. I’ve heard someone was trying to program DCC for Lego trains using some Mindstorms sets, know anything about that?
I have a Lego passenger train set I got a long time ago, and also a Super Chief engine. I haven’t built a steam engine, but I once built a running U50B diesel. Because of my lack of single colored bricks, it looked pretty rediculous, but the cab, walkway, hood and other parts didn’t look too bad, and the length came out pretty well. I don’t remember how, but I got it to go around standard Lego curves, and I don’t think a sillier looking thing has ever been seen in the world of model trains!!
Thanks! I don’t know the first thing about DCC (aside from what it is), but I did a search on http://www.lugnet.com/ and came up with this website, which should be what you’re looking for:
I have never seen that loco before, it has a very interesting shape. It reminds me of some cab-forward steam engines I’ve looked at. I, too, have a LEGO Santa Fe, though I’ve gone a little crazy in buying sets and parts for it. I even have a deal in the works that will let me build a B unit.
