The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 24 • June 2013
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Train Layouts by Cale Leiphart and PennLUG Building a Train Station
All Aboard the LEGO® Trains!
Features Instructions AND MORE!
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DRAW! #26
ALTER EGO #119
No. 3, Fall 2013
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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #1 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #2 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #3
Former COMIC BOOK ARTIST editor JON B. COOKE returns to TwoMorrows with his new magazine! #1 features: An investigation of the treatment JACK KIRBY endured throughout his career, ALEX ROSS and KURT BUSIEK interviews, FRANK ROBBINS spotlight, remembering LES DANIELS, WILL EISNER’s Valentines to his beloved, a talk between NEAL ADAMS and DENNIS O’NEIL, new ALEX ROSS cover, and more!
JOE KUBERT double-size Summer Special tribute issue! Comprehensive examinations of each facet of Joe’s career, from Golden Age artist and 3-D comics pioneer, to top Tarzan artist, editor, and founder of the Kubert School. Kubert interviews, rare art and artifacts, testimonials, remembrances, portraits, anecdotes, pin-ups and miniinterviews by faculty, students, fans, friends and family! Edited by JON B. COOKE.
NEAL ADAMS vigorously responds to critics of his BATMAN: ODYSSEY mini-series in an in-depth interview! Plus: SEAN HOWE on his hit book MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY; DENYS COWAN on his DJANGO series; honoring CARMINE INFANTINO; Harbinger writer JOSHUA DYSART; Part Two of our LES DANIELS remembrance; a big look at WHAM-OGIANT COMICS; ADAMS cover, and more!
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ALTER EGO #120
ALTER EGO #121
ALTER EGO #122
JOE JUSKO shows how he creates his amazing fantasy art, JAMAR NICHOLAS interviews artist JIMM RUGG (Street Angel, Afrodisiac, The P.L.A.I.N. Janes and Janes in Love, One Model Nation, and The Guild), new regular contributor JERRY ORDWAY on his behind-the-scenes working process, Comic Art Bootcamp with MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, reviews of artist materials, and more! Mature readers only.
MARC SWAYZE TRIBUTE ISSUE, spotlighting FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America)! Salutes from Fawcett alumnus C.C. BECK and OTTO BINDER, interview with wife JUNE SWAYZE, a full Phantom Eagle story from Wow Comics, plus interview with 1950s Dell/Western artist MEL KEEFER, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and a SWAYZE Marvel Family cover art from the 1940s!
X-MEN SALUTE! 1963-69 secrets, rare ‘60s BRAZILIAN X-MEN stories, lost ‘60s XMen “character sheet” by STAN LEE, ROY THOMAS on the 1970s revival, art and artifacts by KIRBY, ROTH, ADAMS, HECK, FRIEDRICH, and BUSCEMA—plus the MARVELMANIA fan club story, interview with Golden Age writer ED SILVERMAN, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY, and JACK KIRBY’s unused X-Men #10 cover!
GOLDEN AGE JUSTICE SOCIETY ISSUE! Features on JOHN B. WENTWORTH (Johnny Thunder), LEN SANSONE (The Atom), and BERNARD SACHS (All-Star Comics inker), art by CARMINE INFANTINO, PAUL REINMAN, MART NODELL, STAN ASCHMEIER, BEN FLINTON, and H.G. PETER, plus FCA, Mr. Monster, and more! Cover homage by SHANE FOLEY to a vintage All-Star image by IRWIN HASEN!
Farewell salute to the COMICS BUYER’S GUIDE! TBG/CBG history and remembrances from ALAN LIGHT, MURRAY BISHOFF, MAGGIE THOMPSON, BRENT FRANKENHOFF, “final” CBG columns by MARK EVANIER, TONY ISABELLA, PETER DAVID, FRED HEMBECK, JOHN LUSTIG, classic art by DON NEWTON, MIKE VOSBURG, JACK KIRBY, MIKE NASSER, plus FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!
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KIRBY COLLECTOR #61
BACK ISSUE #66
BACK ISSUE #67
BACK ISSUE #68
BACK ISSUE #69
JACK KIRBY: WRITER! Examines quirks of Kirby’s wordsmithing, from the FOURTH WORLD to ROMANCE and beyond! Lengthy Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, LARRY LIEBER’s scripting for Jack at 1960s Marvel Comics, RAY ZONE on 3-D work with Kirby, comparing STEVE GERBER’s Destroyer Duck scripts to Jack’s pencils, Kirby’s best promo blurbs, Kirby pencil art gallery, & more!
“Bronze Age Team-Ups”! Marvel Team-Up and Two-in-One, Super-Villain Team-Up, CLAREMONT and SIMONSON’s X-Men/New Teen Titans, DC Comics Presents, SuperTeam Family, HANEY and APARO’s Batman of Earth-B(&B), Superman/Captain Marvel smackdowns, plus art and commentary by BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, GIFFEN, LEVITZ, WEIN, and a classic GIL KANE cover inked anew by TERRY AUSTIN.
“Heroes Out of Time!” Batman: Gotham by Gaslight with MIGNOLA, WAID, and AUGUSTYN, Booster Gold with JURGENS, X-Men: Days of Future Past with CHRIS CLAREMONT, Bill & Ted with EVAN DORKIN, interview with P. CRAIG RUSSELL, “Pro2Pro” with Time Masters’ BOB WAYNE and LEWIS SHINER, Karate Kid, New Mutants: Asgardian Wars, and Kang. Mignola cover.
“1970s and ‘80s Legion of Super-Heroes!” LEVITZ interview, the Legion’s Honored Dead, the Cosmic Boy miniseries, a Time Trapper history, the New Adventures of Superboy, Legion fantasy cover gallery by JOHN WATSON, plus BATES, COCKRUM, CONWAY, COLON, GIFFEN, GRELL, JANES, KUPPERBERG, LaROCQUE, LIGHTLE, SCHAFFENBERGER, SHERMAN, STATON, SWAN, WAID, & more! COCKRUM cover!
TENTH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! Revisit the 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th, and 500th issues of ‘70s and ‘80s favorites: Adventure, Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Batman, Brave & Bold, Casper, Detective, Flash, Green Lantern, Showcase, Superman, Thor, Wonder Woman, and more! With APARO, BARR, ENGLEHART, POLLARD, SEKOWSKY, SIMONSON, STATON, and WOLFMAN. DAN JURGENS and RAY McCARTHY cover.
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Issue 24 • June 2013
Contents
From the Editor....................................................2
People The Idea Book 6000 Experience: Building a Childhood Dream ................4
Building Minifigure Customization 101: Customizing Your“Friends”...................18 You Can Build It: Micro Monorail System...........................22 The LEGO® The Lone RangerTM Constitution Train Chase: Building a Steam Train the LEGO Way!...............................................28 Powering The Lone Ranger Train........31 You Can Build It: Train Station.....................................................36 Peter Norman: Building and Styling LEGO Trains..........................54
Community PennLUG: Taking Layouts to New Levels..................................................59 Designing the LEGO Monorail..............63 Building a Different LEGO Monorail..............................................65 Steven Walker: Disney -Inspired Building.......................66 Masao Hidaka: A Different Approach to the Monorail..............................................68 Joe Meno: Following and Innovating Monorail Design...........................................70 Nathaniel Brill: Suspended Monorail Design..............72 A History of LEGO Trains...........................74 Community Ads..............................................78 Last Word..............................................................79 AFOLs......................................................................80
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Community
The Idea Book 6000 Experience:
Building a Childhood Dream Article and Photography by Brian and Sue Ann Carpignano
sabc0306-idea6000@yahoo.com
Additional Photos from Idea Book 6000
Brian Carpignano’s initial building effort of the Idea Book’s movie theater.
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When I was a child in the ‘80s, I turned the pages of the LEGOLAND Idea Book (#6000) over and over again looking at all the great models and building ideas. I got to follow the photostory of two minifigures, Mary and Bill, which were pictured in the Idea Book. As I followed along with their adventures, the Idea Book provided building ideas of town, space and castle scenes. Mary, in her polka-dot shirt, and Bill, in his blue and white striped shirt, would be in all the scenes as their story unfolded in the pages of the Idea Book. The models of a snack shop, a hair salon, a grocery store, a circus, cool spaceships, and castles were enticing me to build. As a child, I attempted to create some of these models from the Idea Book. However, I had difficulty recreating many of them, especially the town models. My childhood collection of extra pieces did not allow the buildings to turn out quite right, as I did not have all the required elements, such as slope bricks and certain brick colors. When I decided to build the movie theatre pictured in the Idea Book, I used 2x4 red bricks for the roof and so I ended up with jagged edges. Also, since I did not have sufficient minifigure-scale windows and doors, I substituted them with older style windows and doors. Having lost the stickers to the theatre, I ended up cutting out the images of the stickers from the Idea Book and used scotch tape to stick them on the model.
As time progressed, the evolution of LEGO pieces made it even more difficult to recreate many of the models shown in this Idea Book. Many of the older pieces were either no longer manufactured by LEGO or rare in the newer sets. However, starting a few years ago, with the internet and a marriage to someone who was as enthusiastic about LEGO bricks as I was, a dream was to become a reality. Mary and Bill’s story could be told again. My building spree restarted about 3 or 4 years ago. My dream was launched with the building of Mary and Bill’s first house pictured in the Idea Book. Its success convinced my wife and me to continue building more of the town from the Idea Book. Since my wife and I were planning to attend Bricks by the Bay 2010, a LEGO fan convention in Fremont, California, we thought this house along with an entire scene could be a fun adventure to put together. We brought one of the town scenes to the event and received positive responses from the attendees as they reminisced on their younger years of LEGO building. Encouraged by our initial success, we began to build more of the town scenes. We continued making the town buildings and many of the vehicles, incorporating them in several shows that our local LEGO club participated in. We did not have a display ready for Bricks by the Bay 2011, this time in Santa Clara, California, but decided we could aim to have a full-fledged layout completed in time for the Bricks by the Bay 2012. We started planning a layout for the “Large Displays” category. One of the criteria for a large display was that it tell a story. We decided to only focus on the town scenes – our goal was to create a layout that would encompass all of the major town scenes so that the viewing public could walk around the layout in a sequential storyline, just like turning the pages of the Idea Book. We focused on building eleven main scenes from the book.
Driving through the hills of the layout. After building several of the scenes including this one, we discovered the Idea Book used only curve, straight, and T-intersection base plates. There was no usage of the crossroad base plates even though they were introduced as set number 6304 in 1980 when the Idea Book was published. My guess was that the Idea Book was probably designed in parallel with new sets and new pieces, and the book was not updated in time to include building ideas using these newly released crossroad base plates/pieces.
To help with the storytelling, we copied pictures from the actual Idea Book and created what we thought Mary may have written in her diaries while venturing through town. We got this storyline by viewing the smaller vignettes in the Idea Book. The pictures from the eleven main scenes were laminated and placed on stands created out of LEGO bricks. This made it possible for the convention attendees and the public to read Mary’s “handwritten” diaries from the 1980s as they walked around the display.
Picture from our layout (left), showing our LEGO card stand with 2x2 bricks in the order of the 1964 LEGO logo (above).
In the next few pages, follow our story as we build the models of the Idea Book and you might discover some new building techniques and some Lego history too. Also, if you are like us and want to reproduce these Idea Book models as closely as possible, we will show some of the details as we saw it. E-mail us at sabc0306-idea6000@yahoo.com to tell us what you have discovered.
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Building
Minifig Customization 101:
Customizing Your “Friends” by Jared K. Burks
Hello all, as some of you might know I have a 4-year-old daughter, Branwen. She is always following me into my LEGO space and has started to “build” her own custom figures. Her interest in my hobby is quite endearing; as she builds her figures she even gives them a detailed backstory. Because she has been helping me make custom figures, I decided to make a special figure for her. Therefore, for this issue I’ll demonstrate how I made her custom figure of choice. Branwen asked for Tinker Bell from the Disney Fairy films.
Want more of Jared K. Burk’s amazing minifigure customization ideas? Don’t miss Minifigure Customization: Populate Your World! (available now at www.twomorrows.com) and its just-announced sequel (shipping in November 2013).
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When I started thinking about this project and how I was going to capture Tink, I immediately went to the LEGO series 8 Collectible Minifigure Fairy. In this figure LEGO has given me wings, similar hair, and a skirt (which leaves me to wonder about the inspiration for this figure, but I digress). So I asked myself how the figure I was going to create would be significantly different from the LEGO S8 Fairy. I wanted some time to think about the creation I wanted to make for my daughter, so I watched a Tinker Bell film with her. The longer I watched, the more I came to the realization that the LEGO Friends figures would be perfect to capture Tinker Bell. The proportions are nearly identical (large head, small body, thin arms, etc.) to the Tinker Bell Disney Fairy (as portrayed in the film) character, with the only variance from the shape and style between the two being the feet. In the film, Tink’s feet are extremely tiny, whereas Friends figures have huge feet to accept a LEGO stud. This is a fixed structure that I can’t alter, so I will have to work with the feet LEGO has given the figure. There are four major regions that need to be worked on to convert a Friends figure into Tinker Bell: 1. Custom or modified hair, 2. Adding fairy ears, 3. Custom paint or decal for clothes, and 4. Wings.
Hairpiece reworked for Tinker Bell’s hair.
Hair The first thing to create is Tinker Bell’s signature hair style. As I noted above, LEGO has given me the foundation for a Tinker Bell hairstyle in the Series 8 Fairy. I could have also used the Top Knot Bun as a foundation (found in several of the collectible Minifigures including the Sumo Wrestler and the Kimono Girl). However these have minimal details, so I started with the Fairy Hair (Top Knot Bun and Forelock). Using a rotary tool, I sanded off the forelock (bangs) from the front of the hair piece. I then added clay to the front to make the hair piece look more like Tinker Bell’s hair. I sculpted in several flowing bangs to make it look a bit windswept; she does fly around all the time, after all.
Ear Transplant After I got the front of the hair correct, I started closely looking at pictures of Tinker Bell. She is a fairy with pointy ears, which could be created by sculpting them. I really wanted my figure’s hairpiece to blend in with other LEGO hairpieces, so I started examining the mythological figures LEGO has been creating in the Lord of the Rings and Collectible Minifigure Themes. Orc and Cyclops ears were either too large or the wrong shape. Elf/werewolf ears were perfect, but how would I get the ear off one of the elf/werewolf hair pieces and on to the one I created? Well, this is a simple trick: I just need an ear mold. I demonstrated this technique before with one of my articles on sculpting hair. Simply take some clay, mash it into the part you want to mimic, gently remove it from the part, and cure in the oven. Once cured and Top: Clay applied over hairpiece and prototype ear. Right: Mold made of ear and hairpiece. Bottom: Ear sculpt from clay. the heat has dissipated, simply take some clay and mash it into this tiny mold, remove the excess, and then ever so gently remove the uncured clay from the mold. This perfectly replicates the elf/ werewolf ear, which can then be gently added to the Tink hair I have created. Adding the ear with this technique will cause it to stick out a bit in relation to the hair, so it will have to be sanded down after cured. After the part is completed, I give it a light spray with a high-gloss paint to fill any imperfections so that the cast part is shiny. This new part with the bangs and ears added can now be molded and cast. As there is very little clay in the ears it is very likely that they will be destroyed in the molding process, which is exactly what happened when I did it and why the ear is broken in the photo. Spend the time to design the mold appropriately so you don’t destroy all your hard work. If the mold is wrong, you will have to recreate the ear all over again. For more information on molding and 19 casting, see the earlier article in BrickJournal on the subject.
Building
The LEGO ® The Lone RangerTM Constitution Train Chase:
Building a Steam Train the LEGO Way!
Article by Joe Meno Photography provided by the LEGO Group
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A new set that is almost an ideal starter set for a LEGO® train enthusiast is the 79111 Constitution Train Chase. At 699 pieces and a price point of 99.99 USD, this set has a complete train (a steam train, no less), off-track items and track for a full loop. However, what it doesn’t have is a motor. BrickJournal talked to Marcos Bessa (set designer and previously a LEGO fan) to find out a little more of the design decisions that had to be made on the set. BrickJournal: What were the original objectives of the Lone Ranger train set? Marcos Bessa: Rather than with just the train itself, with the whole line we tried to deliver the best play experience in a true and exciting western environment. Disney, our IP (intellectual property) partner for this project, were extremely open to our ideas on how to tweak the models to make them the greatest toys we could, while incorporating and building in exciting scenarios from the Lone Ranger and Tonto’s adventures. The train wasn’t an exception. A western movie always has a steam train. The Lone Ranger has a couple, each with its own design, but I decided to go for the one with the most iconic western feel to it in my opinion, staying quite true to the overall look of the locomotive and the coal wagon. Everything else in the set though was added out of our imagination, combining several elements of the plot and taking inspiration from different scenes in order to get the coolest train action scene possible in one single shot! Were there plans for motorizing the set? Definitely. I must say that most of the time invested in developing this product was actually used investigating all possibilities of motorizing this set. The problem is that the same way that building as a fan allows me to use elements in ways that an official product will never see when it comes to motorizing a
Getting on Track with the Constitution Train: LEGO® Model Sketches! toy, or a train in specific. The LEGO company has very strict quality control. Solutions that work perfectly in the AFOL scenario simply don’t fulfill the quality criteria and building restrictions that the company has established (i.e. “illegal techniques”). I worked extremely hard to come up with several different options of what could be incorporated into the train and this set – looking into track solutions, magnets, action features, motorization, and of course incorporating all the exciting key characters from the movie itself. We simply couldn’t include all of these design aspects into the one model, and had to prioritize which were the most important in this case. As we are basing this particular train on a movie, which of course is packed with great characters, stunts and action effects, that was where we chose to focus with this item and treat it more as a play-set. This was a conscious choice for the kids, knowing that the more avid adult LEGO fans would definitely be able to find their own solutions capable of fulfilling their specific needs and wishes. What are you most happiest with in the set? The locomotive! Definitely my favorite part of it! I had never built a LEGO train before. I have never even paid much attention to LEGO trains or model train kits before. I guess I can say I’m just not a train person – though I take it quite often to travel. But like most of the sets I get the luck to work on, I challenged myself on something new and that is always really exciting.
An early sketch model of the locomotive. At this point, the body is defined by 4x4 round bricks and plates. Also the forward truck (wheel segment) appears to be roughly the same size of the Power Functions train motor, which would have made a conversion an easy modification.
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You Can Build It Model
Train Station
Design and Instructions by Joe Meno
Here’s a model any train layout should have: a train station. The presently available LEGO train station (#7937) has a couple of platforms and an overpass for people to cross a busy track. Before that, a LEGO station was released in 2007 that was a bit larger, but was mostly a platform with a roof. I did some research online looking at images of rail stations and found that the small train terminal is something that is seen in the US. Larger terminals are more common in Europe, and for a builder, a very daunting challenge to plan and build. This model is based on a small-town station, with a pretty basic design for you to start building. The roof can be removed to show the interior, but the floor plan is open to allow you to build and modify it as you want. The color is also changeable, so it could be blue, tan, yellow, or whatever you have in quantity. You might be wondering why there are no tiles on the loading pier, steps, and floor. I did this to try to keep the part count low and also leave a lot of places to place a minifigure or decoration. This is your station to build, so add whatever you want to make it yours and have fun!
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Parts List (Parts can be ordered through Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color)
Qty Part Color Description 1 6111.dat Red Brick 1 x 10 1 6112.dat Red Brick 1 x 12 1 3028.dat Dark Bluish Gray Plate 6 x 12 1 3032.dat Dark Bluish Gray Plate 4 x 6 1 3035.dat Dark Bluish Gray Plate 4 x 8 1 3666.dat Dark Bluish Gray Plate 1 x 6 1 3811.dat Green Baseplate 32 x 32 1 3008.dat Light Gray Brick 1 x 8 1 3010.dat Black Brick 1 x 4 1 3023.dat Black Plate 1 x 2 1 3460.dat Black Plate 1 x 8 1 3710.dat Black Plate 1 x 4 1 3008.dat Light Bluish Gray Brick 1 x 8 1 3010.dat Light Bluish Gray Brick 1 x 4 1 3028.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 6 x 12 1 3456.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 6 x 14 1 4162.dat Light Bluish Gray Tile 1 x 8 1 48336.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 1 x 2 with Handle Type 2 2 3023.dat Dark Bluish Gray Plate 1 x 2 2 3002.dat Black Brick 2 x 3 2 3008.dat Brick 1 x 8 Black 2 3009.dat Brick 1 x 6 Black 2 63868.dat Black Plate 1 x 2 with Clip Horizontal on End 2 2865.dat Light Bluish Gray Train Track 9V Straight 2 3023.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 1 x 2 2 3024.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 1 x 1 3 3861.dat White Door 1 x 4 x 5 with 4 Panes 3 3010.dat Red Brick 1 x 4 3 3031.dat Dark Bluish Gray Plate 4 x 4 3 3795.dat Dark Bluish Gray Plate 2 x 6 3 2431.dat Black Tile 1 x 4 with Groove 3 4162.dat Black Tile 1 x 8 3 2431.dat Light Bluish Gray Tile 1 x 4 with Groove
Qty Part Color 3 6636.dat Light Bluish Gray 4 3002.dat Red 4 3021.dat Dark Bluish Gray 4 3022.dat Dark Bluish Gray 4 3033.dat Dark Bluish Gray 4 3022.dat Black 4 3300.dat Black 4 2453.dat Light Bluish Gray 4 3009.dat Light Bluish Gray 4 3455.dat Light Bluish Gray 5 3003.dat Black 5 3298.dat Black 5 3004.dat Light Bluish Gray 6 3009.dat Red 6 3039.dat Black 6 2420.dat Light Bluish Gray 8 60601.dat Trans Clear 8 60592.dat White 9 3020.dat Dark Bluish Gray 9 4445.dat Black 10 3034.dat Dark Bluish Gray 12 3005.dat Red 12 3297.dat Black 13 3008.dat Red 13 3068b.dat Black 15 3037.dat Black 24 3622.dat Red 28 3004.dat Red 29 3001.dat Black 32 3068b.dat Light Bluish Gray 34 3070b.dat Light Bluish Gray 34 4070.dat Light Bluish Gray
Description Tile 1 x 6 Brick 2 x 3 Plate 2 x 3 Plate 2 x 2 Plate 6 x 10 Plate 2 x 2 Slope Brick 33 2 x 2 Double Brick 1 x 1 x 5 Brick 1 x 6 Arch 1 x 6 Brick 2 x 2 Slope Brick 33 3 x 2 Brick 1 x 2 Brick 1 x 6 Slope Brick 45 2 x 2 Plate 2 x 2 Corner Glass for Window 1 x 2 x 2 without Sill Window 1 x 2 x 2 without Sill Plate 2 x 4 Slope Brick 45 2 x 8 Plate 2 x 8 Brick 1 x 1 Slope Brick 33 3 x 4 Brick 1 x 8 Tile 2 x 2 with Groove Slope Brick 45 2 x 4 Brick 1 x 3 Brick 1 x 2 Brick 2 x 4 Tile 2 x 2 with Groove Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight
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Community
Peter Norman:
Building and Styling LEGO Trains
Article by Peter Norman Photography provided by Peter Norman Art by Joe Meno Peter Norman, known on Flickr as Swoofty, is one of the foremost LEGO train builders in the US. His builds are noted for their colorful livery. BrickJournal was able to talk to him about how he got into the hobby, and spotlight some of his best work. If you were an engineer for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, traveling on the main line between Montgomery and Mobile, Alabama, just outside the town of Fort Deposit, you could look out over the bog and see my childhood bedroom window. Freight trains where a part of my life from the beginning. They provided a backdrop and a soundtrack to every day. I was also an avid LEGO fan as a child, but since I didn’t live in Europe, there were no LEGO train sets realistically available to me. I was firmly a Classic Space kid for my LEGO fix and an HO scale modeler for my train fix. I eventually moved on to Castle sets and then Technic sets. The sets were always mostly just a parts source as I would build my own designs almost immediately after building the official sets. I had an uncle who was an avid R/C pilot and I slowly got into R/C helicopters and then flight simulators 54 and then computer games. In 1991, I went off to
boarding school, sans LEGO, and then off to college, also no LEGO. During the college years I built houses, boats, musical instruments, and even grandfather clocks, but all from wood. After college I moved to Venice, CA and soon after, got married and moved onto a 35’ sailboat. In about 2000 or so, a simple, innocent internet search for LEGO trains led me to Ben Beneke’s famous German steam engines (his BR50 specifically). Upon seeing his trains, I thought to myself, if that can be done in LEGO, then that’s what I want to do. So at that moment, sitting in a small sailboat bobbing in the Pacific Ocean with a laptop in my lap, I decided to get back into LEGO, and this time it would be trains. A few more internet searches lead me to Brickshelf (although I’m all Flickr now) and then Bricklink and then eventually LDraw. I got back into building by trying to replicate Ben’s engines and I bought the Super Chief and BNSF LEGO sets to acquaint myself with the new pieces that had been introduced since my exit back in 1991. My goal at the time was to someday have an L&N LEGO layout so my early MOCs were L&N engines. I believe my first really independent build (not a copy or mod) was an L&N Alco RS3. The build was pretty simple and very robust so it turned out to be a great engine to run under any condition of track. That RS3 had a pretty long life, although it has recently met the brick separator. A much more accurate L&N RS3 has taken its place on my roster now. In 2007, I was allowed to join the Southern California LEGO Train Club and I finally had ever-changing layouts to run my trains on. My mostly L&N and CSX engine roster looked a bit out of place on our Southern California layouts so I slowly began building more of the local favorites, UP, BNSF, SP and SF. I had also gotten into rail photography, mostly as a form of research, and this introduced me to the latest and greatest in US rail technologies. Now I mostly build modern locomotives and equipment, but there’s plenty of ‘40s to ‘70s equipment on my roster as well. I browse RailPictures.net daily to find inspiration as well, and more than a few times I’ve been captivated by a picture that eventually turns into a build.
The GTW GP38AC Every year I try to build a different Bicentennial unit for the US Independence Day, July 4th. For the third year of this tradition I chose Grand Trunk Western’s GP38AC #1776. The real life one is a great looking locomotive with its ‘screaming eagle’ paint scheme. Also, GTW is technically Canadian owned so that irony was not lost on me. My bicentennial units are usually popular at shows so it’s nice if they are powered units, and that added points to the GP38AC as it could be easily powered by a 9v LEGO train motor. I try not to rely on stickers, preferring brick built designs as much as possible; this too made the GTW a good choice for building.
Here is an example of Norman’s work in creating graphics for a train. Note how he separates the grilled bricks with tiles at the rear, and also uses brackets to mount small slopes.
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LEGO History
A History of LEGO Trains
Article by Kristian Hauge of the LEGO Idea House Photography provided by the LEGO Group
The very first LEGO product line from 1932. You can see a wooden train in the lower left corner.
With a gap of just a few years, trains have been a permanent feature of the LEGO Group’s product range right from the early 1930s up to the present day. The following is a short journey highlighting key milestones in the life of the LEGO train.
A Theme’s Beginning When Ole Kirk Kristiansen, the Billund carpenter, introduces his first selection of wooden toys in 1932, trains are among the new products. Up through the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s the LEGO Group produces everything from steam locomotives to the more modern express trains in wood. In the late 1940s the LEGO Group begins adding plastic toys to its range of wooden toys. During the 1950s the company produces plastic cars, tractors and LEGO® bricks but – interestingly – no trains. These continue to be made only in wood. In 1960 the LEGO Group stops making wooden toys after a fire in the woodworking factory – which also means the end of the line for production of wooden trains. After an interval of four years, the company introduces its first plastic trains in 1964. The train is made of LEGO bricks, which – since their introduction in 1949 – have become increasingly popular up through the 1950s. The most important factor in the LEGO Group’s launch of a train built of LEGO bricks is the introduction of the LEGO wheel in 1962. Introduction of this new component brings motion to the LEGO brick – and the opportunity to launch a train theme.
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Set nb. 700-3 A from the late 1950s
Until the introduction of the LEGO wheel, trains appear only as inspiration for what can be built with LEGO bricks – not as actual building sets. This can be seen, for example, in set No. 700‑3A, which carries an illustration of a train and other constructions. It can clearly be seen that the wheels of the train are made from LEGO bricks – which means that the train cannot run.
Powering the Theme In 1966 a major advance occurs in LEGO trains when the company launches a battery‑powered train on rails. Children can now build their own train sets with rails, points – and a train powered by a 4.5‑volt battery. Two years later the LEGO Group introduces the Electronic train, developing a new and innovative system of control. The train is controlled by a whistle. The company says of its product: “The train that drives when the whistle goes – LEGO battery train with integral electronic unit, drives when you blow a special whistle. Stops when you blow again, reverses when you blow a third time.”
Set nb. 113 from 1966.
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