Breezy's WIP Thread - trains, old stuff, etc

[Breezy]

Work in progress... from whence to where? I suppose the whence was a sentimental mood I was in one day, where I typed "lego" in front of train to see if there were any images of these on the internet. Heh, not just a few, but thousands, and an entire subculture of builders and collectors and filmmakers and groups, with a secret lexicon to go with it. Heady days of revelation they were in mid 2011.

So,  what to do with so big a revelation, beyond download a lot of pictures? Well, ideas have a habit of fermenting and gathering a momentum of their own, to propel one into a new stage of life. The rediscovery of LEGO seemed to be a good spearhead for getting back to simple fun stuff. I suppose the first stage is dreaming, followed by wanting, and then wanting very badly, to buy some LEGO.

I'd been tempted through my dark age to buy some new sets - notably 4551 the "crocodile" train, the Metroliner sets and modular buildings. But starting a new LEGO collection carried the frustration of the new being incompatible with the old, and questions about how practical it would be to go down this path. None of this musing ever led to the wanting it badly enough phase.

Fast forward from the nineties and noughties to my internet revelation, and the discovery that nearly every LEGO set ever made was readily available at a price, and the game suddenly changed. Here and now was the chance to rewrite history, and to fulfil gaps in my old collection, and reconnect with an age of true wonder. And there were people doing similar things and building random masterpieces on an epic scale - once the province only of company employees with a bottomless parts bin. So credit to BrickLink - it has made every lounge room a potential exhibition space for extraordinary creativity. So mine may as well become one of them, with perhaps some creativity.

A rambling thread needs a rambling introduction, and this is it. To Brickie's question about monorail parts in a future instalment.

B

[brickie]

A great introduction but don't let me turn blue in the face waiting for the next part of this serial.

[Breezy]

LEGO certainly moved on in a design sense from the aesthetic that grabbed my imagination in the 1970's and early 80's, and broadened its array of parts and repertoire of themes to a point where it was no longer familiar to me or consistent with my ageing collection. It had kept pace with time and moved on, and perhaps rightly it was a dark age of convenience, allowing me to also grow in other ways.

In a moment of quietude, i'd calculated that LEGO produced something like 2,000 sets from the 1950's until 1979, but more than 8,000 sets since, in many more themes. From a collecting point of view, limits would be needed, as I build things and then keep them forever, and don't have a large living area. I basically drew a line at 1979 and said to my self that with few exceptions, I'd stick to the vivid colours and super abstract brick built simplicity of the pre-minifig era. This would later reap enormous unexpected benefits for building and design.

The initial impulse I had was to acquire sets I had once owned, and others that I'd seen in catalogues which had either long ago sold out, or which, tantalisingly were never sold in Australia. By this I mean original blue era 12v train sets and the 1978 sets that included mini figures. Christmas 2011 was like being transported back into time. A cheap locomotive 727 from Ebay was the holy grail from the old catalogues, and there it was, right in front of me, together with a nice pair of set 137 sleeping cars. Thus energised, I let curiosity run free and found a nice set 113 from 1966 in very good condition. They needed somewhere to go to and from, so station 148 was an obvious completion of this fledgeling collection.

I had forgotten how big LEGO trains are, and this was naturally enough a cause for concern if I was to ever fulfil their play potential. In the end, lack of space is a blessing in disguise, as these old classics, whilst in good condition and working well, are beyond their useful life as every day trafficable trains, and the old stickers are none too fond of excess heat, humidity or sunlight. But they look magical when brought out.

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[Breezy]

LEGO collecting is an oddly compelling pursuit once you get started. But with the momentum under way, questions arose as to how to direct this effort. I was pretty amazed by the efforts of some of the Dutch and German enthusiasts in putting together massive displays of their vintage collections. But to just play copycat doesn't really respect their effort, nor add anything new to the mix.

Model trains, and indeed LEGO trains, are constrained by the fact they basically run around in circles. The more determined builders and groups come up with some ingenious ways to overcome this - integrating with towns and landscapes, and grade separating multiple tracks. I began looking at old LEGO ideas books that had been scanned and put online, and looking more closely at the functionality of the original trains. It very quickly became apparent that a lot deeper design intent had gone into providing these trains with capabilities, than a simple catalogue photomontage would suggest. There were also many ideas which would take years to be realised in the form of commercially available sets.

So in terms of musing about how to best direct a collecting and building effort, thoughts of how to honour the full vision of the original designers started to take hold.

[Breezy]

Boring workplace meetings are an an exceptional opportunity for sketching LEGO layouts. Squares plotted on a ruled notebook page could mean just about anything. Who would know? To me they represent 32x32 baseplates, with outlines of structures and the interconnectivity of everything and where best to place those wonderful new bricks with technic pins sticking out of them to plug into conventional technic bricks for modular building. Whoever invented modular building is a genius.

Anyway, I digress.

Collecting old stuff... How good that people kept examples of my favourite sets and well enough for them to be sale worthy, and that someone thought of internet commerce. Gold stars folks.

Rewind to 1966ish. LEGO unleashes its train range, just four years after the wheel. You can have it in any colour you like if it's blue. And trains for all tastes and budgets - from a pretty basic assembly to LEGO's first Hero Train - 113, a fairly hefty mail train with 4.5v operation. If you own some Town Plan or other sets for town scape, you're ready to rock and roll. On and on forever chasing 113 as the forward/reverse/stop switch is on the loco. It's a grand vision trapped in a hamster wheel. If there is an appetite for it, I can do "proper" reviews of all related sets.

1967ish arrives, and potential grows. Basic set 080 affords a station and houses, track points are introduced, and a mixed train 116 is added to the mix. Onward!

1968ish is a watershed for safety and planned movement of trains. Super train set 119, the first dedicated passenger train, includes a semaphore signal, stopping brick that attaches to the motor and interacts with the signal to mechanically bring the train to a stop remotely, and features an automatic direction changer which ingeniously clips on a milepost element to reverse the direction of the train. Add a few of all of these elements to a layout and you can replicate full signal protection, yard working and shunting. The LEGO train has arrived. Not content with this, LEGO goes further to produce an "electronic" train (118) with whistle-activated stop-go function, meaning full remote control is possible (provided you only have one engine active at a time, or non conflicting paths).

Pretty sensational technology compared to three years earlier when even having track seemed light years way. There are still drawbacks, but a mature operating train system has emerged in next to no time. Oh to have been around and had generous parents then. You'd still need deep pockets for this stuff now, and be prepared to take a risk on almost 50 year old gear being up to the task.

[Breezy]

  With all of the operational potential built into the train series of sets by 1968, and my plan to collect every set of interest, thoughts turned to what to do with it that would be interesting and fun.

The most obvious and simple thing to have miniature trains do is go around in circles, which is more interesting depending on the rolling stock you have. The parts of a real network which most interested me were junction stations and depots, because they were places of interesting movements, and activity.

So it occurred to me that by adding sets 340 (signal box), 341 (goods shed) and 342 (station) placed at 90 degrees, you could set up a modest but fully functional terminal station, with authentic shunting moves. This was the basis of a pretty cool layout, which could be displayed with minimal effort, given enough space.

The ends of the bases of the original blue rails and later grey ones had rebates (cutouts) so that you could angle the rails vertically. So right from the start, grade separation was intended to be a feature of a more adventurous layout, and suggestions were pictured in boxes, catalogues, ideas books and the like.

To me, grade separation is the most interesting thing about railways, but it isn’t always obvious in a small layout why tracks should be elevated. So I started looking at purposes for having it. With many trains, my ideal was to have many tracks, so they could all run at once. Switching tracks then becomes cumbersome, so along came the idea of elevated junctions.

Quite by accident, by planning a quirky home layout and letting my imagination run wild, I stumbled onto a formula, which coincided with the working of an actual station, requiring a much larger overall scope than I’d expected. The whole idea was simply too interesting to not do.

[Lightningtiger]

Have you joined Eurobricks yet ?
We have a special train forum there.

[brickie]

Breezy, you have certainly put a lot of time into collecting the early train sets.

Do you have any photos of your layout?

I am sure it is spectacular.

[Breezy]

Hi Brickie. Most of the layout still exists in my head at this stage, or yet to be assembled pieces in myriad boxes. The photo above is a teaser shot of the biggest module which I tackled first. It's not really visible in the picture, but it has 8 parallel tracks on 2 levels and is 1.8m long.

I need to have a spring clean and take some better shots. I started this thread partly as an outlet while I take time out to focus on duller things like organising space and storage a little better.

Lightning Tiger, yes I look at Eurobricks from time to time and note that its very popular.

[Lightningtiger]

Well, I suggest joining and become a train-tech like me.

[Breezy]

Anyway….

So I set out with the idea of designing a layout which could replicate all the functions of an actual place. Design in this context is your best friend to plan purchases, and worst enemy for planning. Solve one problem and of course, you create 10 others. Ironically, this worked out better after all, because you end up taking an engineer’s journey if you follow functional requirements as a design starting point.  

I was surprised at how exactly you end up reproducing a real life result by addressing each requirement and letting design evolve to meet each need.  Introducing 12v track to the mix went from being desirable to necessary in this context, with its remote control capability, because a human arm can only stretch so far!

By the time I’d finished track design, the station building sets ended up looking absurdly small, or in need of modification, and sparse. Height and level were becoming an issue too, so the idea of relying on sets to generate a modest yet illustrative layout went by the wayside in favour of doing a complete, if still abstract and representative MOC of a station complex.

This then threw up new questions – how big, what colours, what level of architectural detail, how much to represent, what building techniques, availability of parts and so on. A further complication was scope drift. I was getting further and further away from the simple idea I’d started with. As the scope expanded more and more, what would the design intent become, what should it cater to, and what would the limits, if any, be?

[Breezy]

I still wanted a showcase for my old trains, and old track technology, and having a complimentary look would be the driving factor. Because of that, rails would remain blue, track geometry would be to classic proportions, and anything I added or created would generally retain a look and feel consistent with the era of my collection.

My premise was that LEGO had created this alternate town reality which has its own history from at least the Town Plan era through to sets of today. In this interpretation, Minifigs are later inhabitants of a much older Town world, in which some old building sets survive and form part of a contemporary background. If newer LEGO trains run on my lines, they will be operating on an older railway established long ago, which under my stewardship has not had much new investment over the years.

From this point of view, I was not “modelling” anything real, but building within a design vocabulary of the era of my trains, with some freedom around use of parts within a common colour palette. With engineering emerging as a focus, the designing effort came to be a celebration of the use of materials. With a limited colour palette to work from using older pieces, each available colour in anything new I built came to represent a type of construction material.

The colours and what they represent and are meant to showcase are:

• Blue = metal
• Red = brick and terra cotta
• Yellow = stone
• White = concrete and cement render
• Black = timber
• Grey = bitumen
• Green = all other ground.

Inspired by other MOC builders, I decided that as red bricks would exclusively represent brick work, that no red bricks would be longer than two studs, giving a fragmented texture to walls.  I have seen plates used by others, but did not want to create other scale related inconsistencies in detailing.

Scale was a very important consideration. Again, I started out small, but function wouldn’t allow it to be just representative enough of a real place. Practicality also impacts on scale, and the need to be modular meant designing in neat sections at places that were not in the middle of arch bricks, and so on.  

I settled on Town Plan scale, which is where door size is two studs wide and three bricks high. This allowed me to build a large structure on a feasible scale, and it was the maximum scale I could go to and still use one piece arches extensively. This also nicely fitted within the imaginary chronology of the layout. Scale also played out at street level. Four bricks wide is the limit for road vehicles of miniwheel scale, and this is to keep them in proportion with 6 wide trains.

The yellow bricks, used exclusively for stonework, would have a maximum size of classic 2x4 bricks, again to add texture to walls, and to compensate for the lack of ability to be more greatly representative of decorative stone carvings . Yellow seems to be the most variable colour in LEGO, so wall texturing turns this otherwise annoying feature into a strength, replicating the character of real stone.

After these considerations, chronology played a bigger part in design and redesign. As a general rule of thumb, I kept the look, if not the whole construction, within the scope of parts available at the time. Partly this was to create and preserve a look and feel of the build, and partly to avoid dilemmas associated with having a greater number of building options and techniques to choose from.  

The fact that the blue train era extended as far as 1979 was great, because it made available a host of technic and space parts that would ultimately be “correct” for the period, and without which, the build would be far less interesting or physically feasible. The overlap with the minifig era also made it less jarring or intrusive to subtly introduce minor conveniences such as 12v train signals, road baseplates, and as the need would be later revealed to me, light grey monorail track.

[Lightningtiger]

Your ideas behind colour of bricks/plates matching to building materials seem true to the 50s/60s town plan sets......any photos yet of what's in store ?  

[Breezy]

A couple. It needs a tidy up and this thread is a reminder that I need to make some bulk brick orders.

Something I was musing with was the idea of eventually doing an exhibition layout in stages over several years showing changes as things get added. It's a lot less easy to do as it eats a whole lot of horizontal space up front, where I had planned to go vertical. However, it would really show the versatility of LEGO for building scenery in a way that conventional modelling cannot do.

Dunno. Depends on what the appetite might be.

[Breezy]

Another perplexing thing is where to draw the line at using non-prototypical elements that fit within the LEGO lexicon versus doing semi-serious MOC building. I was torn on this from the start. I suppose LEGO gives me the flexibility to try both.

[Lightningtiger]

I would try either modifying a design or MOC......it is hard to decide sometimes !   

[Breezy]

I think the answer lies in using as much LEGO inspired design as possible for generic features. Otherwise I'd get into knots over realism, which is something my build isn't really about. I think in my case key is to depict features in a certain style and have them be recognisable, without attempting to replicate them.

[Breezy]

After a period of hibernation to get on with the business of domestic necessities and living in general, I've hit LDD in a big way, designing with a level of competence, persistence and accuracy like never before.

Along with that comes a clearer idea of future bulk parts items and quantities to purchase and a renewed appreciation of the skill of master builders (not me as a newbie) and the overall joy of LEGO.

I'm developing a very deep appreciation of some handy newer pieces and the "get out of jail free" quality of Technic and Space theme parts as I explore their potential further. I'm enjoying the evolution in my thinking from a strict use of classic elements to creating a homage.

After a few more milestones being reached, some WIP photos should be forthcoming.   

[Breezy]

Hah! Talk about putting things out there in the universe! I injured myself the very night of that last post and am still not 100%.  Needless to say, I never got to clear the space I needed for building, nor much else. My better half put the computer next to my bed and using my tummy or leg as a mousepad, I managed to get some more designing done. Well, more reading about amazing things others are doing and demolition of my bad virtual designs than virtual building.

I focused on modular building technique, which is where all the traps and mismatching geometry were hiding. Sure, I could spray bricks hither and thither, and it all looked good in warped LDD  perspective, but it needed a ton of fudging where elements refused to meet or overlapped so many baseplates as to be either not portable or in constructible. Going modular with intent to buy to build forced a discipline with designing and really solved a lot of problems rather than created more.

I have also spared myself significant embarrassment by staying off the forum every time I thought I could announce a breakthrough. Just in case. The dual benefit is that I've also lost a smug temptation to philosophise along the way. I think I've cracked all the problems (which is better than cracking bones), and now just need to get down to repetitious placing of bricks in LDD and making orders.    

[Breezy]

The edit function here is quite good.

[Kaila]

Great thread Breezy. Im on Eubricks under the same name but never bother checking there these days. Seems your right into the 70's stuff? Ever considered trying to moc the 1650 maersk? Just a thought.. Since the darn thing is so expensive to buy..

[Breezy]

Hi Kaila.

Thanks for saying.

Back in the 80"s I had almost every 12v train except the ones in your signature splash! And I had a ball with them. The exotic and unreachable was the stuff they would print in catalogues in the 70's but which were "not available in Australia". Grumble grumble…

I've corrected that, and I suppose this thread is about my expansion of that into a bigger tribute into many things. Passenger trains represent the great big exotic journey to me and I've never really developed an interest in goods trains for that reason. I had the wonderful privilege of seeing the actual Trans Europ Express in Munchen HBF back in 1981, headed by the awe inspiring DB 103 class, so to get 7740 for Christmas that year, having seen blue era 12v in Aussie catalogues was the bee's knees. The real thing looked the part, let me tell you!

As for MOC's I do have the unfeasibly big layout under construction, but at LightningTiger's prompting, I have fiddled around with designs of local trains from our golden era interpreted with building techniques from LEGO's golden era. At this point, the far more rich colour palette of contemporary LEGO really comes to the fore, and I look forward to presenting my creations in due course.

[Kaila]

Wow it must have been so dreamy having such a cool collection at the time!All i got back then was 7710.. And then mum bought all the tracks and transformer to electrify it. Silly thing is that 7740 would prob have been cheaper than buying all the parts and motor etc to electrify! Oh well in hindsight. Made up for it since then though if you notice my past train posts.

Anyway nice to meet you Breezy, your posts are very interesting and bring more life to the forum. But what about 1650? Ever thought to moc it? Unless you own it of course

[Breezy]

Sorry the reference to 1650 being a ship rather than a train escaped me. I don't have any maritime sets other than poor old police boat set 314 which was part of a bulk lot. If I ever extend my collection beyond what is - I have years in front of me with my current wish list, so who knows?

Your electrified 7710 would have been pretty fast around the track with its light weight and no  other trains to compete with. I put Dutch stickers on mine back then, and SNCF stickers on 7745.

But I just looked and there was a decent sounding version of 364 Harbour Set for sale, which I ordered, so there could be hope for me yet.

[Breezy]

There are enough pieces for 1650 for sale on BrickLink to put one together if you are keen to do it the hard way. They are not too expensive either.

The set I really crave is 1601, but I've never seen one for sale.

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