I built this train for the layout at the March 2002 TEXLUG meeting. This was my very first attempt at creating train MOCs. Prior to 2002, I never owned any Lego train part. I remember looking at them in Toys-R-Us as a child and wondering what they'd be like. I don't know why I avoided them. I really enjoyed model trains and owned quite a few. I guess I was disappointed in the lack of detail in Lego trains compared to model trains. Also, at the time, Technic was more interesting to me. Last January my wife and I were in Target and found a Railway Express on sale for 50% off. I then bought my very first train set and hurried home. In no time I had the simplistic, juniorized train racing around a very small oval. My desire for more train parts grew instantly. In February I got more track and more wheels, and I began building freight cars and a Union Pacific locomotive. The results of my first foray into trains can be seen below. Needless to say I really enjoyed it and look forward to building more. Click on the thumbnails below to see larger image files.

Union Pacific Locomotive

The engine is built on a custom wagon plate made from regular Lego plates, and the trucks are pin connected to Technic 2xn plates. The windows are horrible. I didn't have much else to use when I built it, so I just made do with what I had. The side 1x4 yellow tiles on the front windows are connected by 1/2L gray Technic pegs on a piece of 5L stiff pneumatic tubing. I printed out the decals on white labels and trimmed them to fit. I tried to match the yellow bricks, but my poor ink jet printer just couldn't do it. If you look closely, you'll see the yellow around the red lettering is a little lighter than the bricks. During my Christmas 2001 vacation, I took a picture of a passing train from the edge of my parents' property. I got a good shot of U.P. engine 3537: If you want to see hundreds of real UP locos, check out this page.

Articulated Container Car

This is a simple three segment articulated container car. The well openings are 4x17, so they can handle 4x16 containers, or double 4x8 containers. I represented TEXLUG by labelling two containers. I even put LUGNET on one too!

Flatbed Car

This is a basic flat car, but it's 7-wide. I think the width looks just right! The tank containers are simple little frames with Technic 20x30 tire hubs making up the tanks. The tank ends are capped off with 4x4 radar dishes.

Gondola

This is a very simple design that was built in a matter of minutes. The wagon plate is 6-wide and has side plates attached with Technic bricks and 1/2 gray pegs. The final width on this little guy is almost 8-wide.

Tank Car

I finally found a use for the curved panels from my Droid Escape sets! I know real tank cars have a few tension bars on the underside of the tank, but I kept it simple and left those out. I made the cylinder structurally capable of handling all loads. The cylinder panels are "clamped" together with Technic beams inside. The clamped sections also hold a bracket that extends out of the cylinder walls, on the underside. Technic 2xn plates snap on to the brackets and provide an attachment point for the trucks. I cheated by attaching the top cover and railing with rubber bands. The cylinder walls have a few small gaps at the bottom end of the panels, and I looped rubber bands through them. The studs of all the cylinder panels point in one direction, so capping the studs-out end with an 8x8 radar dish was simple. For the no-studs end (the bottom of the panels), I again cheated by using rubber bands. The whole car is relatively delicate, but will hold up under normal operation. The only problem is that it's quite large (8 studs wide and about 14 bricks high).

See The Rest: Train Bridges »Freight Train Row Buildings

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