Lego scenery?

I've occasionally seen Lego layouts at train shows. There are certainly lots of possibilities for Lego scenery if you have lots of Legos !

Photos from internet.

There are certainly lots of possibilities for Lego scenery if you have lots of Legos !

We are outnumbered by Legos and our species may be overwhelmed in time.

I have thought the same thing. You can even build lego items to transport. the minifigs would be a little too big.

 Could be very cool.  Here's my contribution: Get a bunch of flatcars and build a manifest of Lego rolling stock.

Annually, we have a LEGO contest to go with our seasonal display. It has become quite a hit with the kids, and we use the submissions on the train layout. Its fun- the kids love it & it brings a new group of families into see a train display that they would otherwise not come in for.

When I saw 611 in Front Royal, there was a group that had a decent size LEGO display set up. On my previous 2 layouts, I used some LEGO structures also. I'd go for it. 

Ace posted:

I've occasionally seen Lego layouts at train shows. There are certainly lots of possibilities for Lego scenery if you have lots of Legos !

Photos from internet.

That trestle photo is sort of what got me on this idea. I found the instructions on how they built it in a now defunct Lego railroad magazine (RailBricks). Not sure if it would hold the weight of a Lionel or MTH loco. 

There is a certain temptation to ditch O gauge entirely and go with Lego trains. They're a LOT cheaper and seem to be more reliable. We got our boy a Lego train set for Christmas for $135. That's $135 for a loop of track, 2 switches, 3 cars, locomotive, remote controller, a working crane building, cargo truck, working forklift and a 5 minifigs. $135 in O gauge would get you...a loop of track and a couple of manual switches. Says something about what high volume production can do for prices!

Plus if the kids drop an engine I can just snap it back together!! Can't do that when the little ones drop your Big Boy loco on the floor. 

Growing up in the late 70's and early 80's I would use all my Lego city sets with my lionel post war engines and mpc rolling stock. Ah those were the days. Reliable 2026 pulling my tootsie and life saver tank cars. Kept all the boxes for the trains and Legos. Our son is now getting into Legos where we encourage more city themed stuff and I have him setup with fast rack figure 8 and Harry potter set run with a postwar Zw. This will be good until we build the hi rail layout in the basement. 

mwb posted:

There are certainly lots of possibilities for Lego scenery if you have lots of Legos !

We are outnumbered by Legos and our species may be overwhelmed in time.

True. I read recently that within the next 2 or 3 years, Lego will have produced more mini-figures than there are people on the planet.

Steve

The lego train community has grown in recent years. People building lego minifig scale K4's, Reading Crusaders, DD1s, Mallet's, Daylight's, and much more. It's called L gauge or L scale.

Go for it! At the NMRA show here last weekend all scales were represented with operating layouts. Among all of that there was one three rail layout, but there were two LEGO layouts (and they were impressive!). 

Take a look at the last weekend photo fun thread for a few LEGO pics from the show. 

I happen to be part of an LEGO train club 

www.niltc.org

We do about 7 shows a year and our annual Canigny Christmas show attracts about 10,000 people over 2 days.  Families love L-Gauge trains!

LEGO is cheaper when it comes to basic tracks and even cars.  However, the cost of scenery adds up fast, especially if you're building "accurate" looking/sized buildings, and if you want more than a flat layout then multi-level landscaping is ridiculously expensive.

That said, don't give up on the idea yet. If you're looking at a flat layout, the cost of buildings isn't that different from O, and if you don't like what you have you can always take it appart and build something different, so over time you could possibly save quite a bit of money and have the freedom to experiment with different structures.

Further, it sounds like you've already got alot of buildings/LEGO and with a bit of tweaking (often putting "tile" legos over exposed studs) you can make some rather good looking structures.   Might be a pretty cool layout when all is said and done.

LEGO is cheaper *IF* you aren't using the 9v equipment, which is fantastically expensive, even compared to 3RScale.

I've actually purchased a few Lego items to use on the layout. A boat, gantry crane, Lego Train crane to unload flat cars, the Lego ferry.  Even have  a bunch of bricks leftover from when my son used to build Lego, think they are actually Mega Bloks not Lego, that will build rocky terrain. Can't wait to see how they come out.

I use everything from ceramic structures to Lego, operating accessories to polystyrene kits, HO, S and O gauge structure, vehicles and accessories.  Even used a real estate brochure holder that looked like a house. Of course I had to detail that cardboard box to make it look better, I added clapboard siding, cut out the window images and replaced them with some Grandt line windows I had laying around added some steps and voila House!

palallin posted:

LEGO is cheaper *IF* you aren't using the 9v equipment, which is fantastically expensive, even compared to 3RScale.

Very True,

         I was a long time adherent to 9v and have built a significant stock of my own, but the current LEGO "Power Functions" system has come a long way and is now probably a better option.  4 channel remote controls, long lasting battery packs and a wider and less expensive range of track options. There are even some 3rd party vendors doing wider curves for those building more "Scale" sized equipment.

Further, you have the options of simply slapping on a set of powered trucks or starting with just a motor and gearing it for your particular needs. The result is that you can get some serious pulling power that exceeds the old 9v possibilities.

Then you toss in the things that folks are doing with the Technic system and LEGO Mindstorms Robotics and you can put some pretty impressive operating (maual or automatic) features on a layout as well.

Eilif posted:

I happen to be part of an LEGO train club 

www.niltc.org

We do about 7 shows a year and our annual Canigny Christmas show attracts about 10,000 people over 2 days.  Families love L-Gauge trains!

 

My son and I have been to the NILT Cantigny show year before last and a couple of your library shows. Great stuff!!! We went to the evening "party" at Cantigny since we heard there would be far fewer people and it was definitly worth the extra cost. Lego is awesome for large scale custom city construction.

For years I thought if I ever did shows they would be either O-scale or Z-scale but somehow I ended up in a LUG and do Lego shows instead. Here are some photos of my most recent show layout in Delavan, Wisconsin. Everything in these photos is mine:

My son is sorta stuck on the 9v out of nostalgia:  his mother started us down that path years ago with the Super Chief set, but we never got to complete it before the price of the cars hit the stratosphere.  Maybe he'll grow up and get rich.

All non-rail vehicles on my layout will be LEGO.  I also have bought most of the LEGO PF train sets as they have come out.  I wish LEGO would release more trains.  They are fun to build and run.  They badly need to offer more curve sizes and packages of just straight track.

FCMR Car 21 posted:

Eilif posted:

I happen to be part of an LEGO train club 

www.niltc.org

We do about 7 shows a year and our annual Canigny Christmas show attracts about 10,000 people over 2 days.  Families love L-Gauge trains!

 

My son and I have been to the NILT Cantigny show year before last and a couple of your library shows. Great stuff!!! We went to the evening "party" at Cantigny since we heard there would be far fewer people and it was definitly worth the extra cost. Lego is awesome for large scale custom city construction.

For years I thought if I ever did shows they would be either O-scale or Z-scale but somehow I ended up in a LUG and do Lego shows instead. Here are some photos of my most recent show layout in Delavan, Wisconsin. Everything in these photos is mine:

 

Wow, that's great looking. Love the overhead walkway and your sidewalk detailing.

sinclair posted:

All non-rail vehicles on my layout will be LEGO.  I also have bought most of the LEGO PF train sets as they have come out.  I wish LEGO would release more trains.  They are fun to build and run.  They badly need to offer more curve sizes and packages of just straight track.

I think more curve sizes are probably not going to be coming from LEGO, but there's some aftermarket folks doing such things right now.  The flexible track from LEGO will get you most of the way there though.

Wierd that they discontinued strait track packs.  You can buy it on bricklink, but at the prices asked by those who have it in quantitiy, you only save a couple bucks off of buying it new.

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/c...#T=S&C=85&O={"color":85}

I have taken some lego train plans and mounted the cars on mpc era trucks rather easily.  Unfortunately it's not so easy to go full lego and build O gague trucks out of brick because of the metric to english conversion.  One of the things to remember is the lego minifigures are not a scaled down human shape, they are far too wide, but the height isn't bad.

As to scenery, its as impressive as your mind can conjure as long as you get enough bricks to pull it off.  Here are some pictures from PennLug set up at York, Jan 2013.

Here are a couple rough MOCs just to prove the concept.

You need to open the hole to 0.1875 to accept the lego connector pin.

I use my lego buildings to decorate the modular setup i use with my train club, and its always a big hit.  Unfortunately I don't have this pictures to show you from my workstation as I finish my lunch.  Trains are meant to be fun - i say go with what you and your kids like.

JZ