| |
A great time was had by all at the NMRA show this past weekend, but more on that
elsewhere. At the show, my son Ross and I unveiled our latest (and I think
greatest) MOC: our version of the train from the book (and motion picture) The
Polar Express.
We painstakingly perused the movie, often stop-framing in order to detect the
finer details, and I believe it has paid off:
I haven’t had time to properly photograph the train or create and apply decals,
so these pics are just ones I snapped off at the show. More to come later.
Some more notes about the MOC:
This was a truly collaborative effort; Ross built the locomotive and I built the
cars, with lots of input from Ross. For example, the coach doorways employ lots
of tasty schleim served up by Ross:-d
The loco is a Berkshire (2-8-4), from right out of the movie. Ross built
directly from schematics in our
Steam Locomotive Cyclopedia (This book, along with its Steam counterpart are
must haves for serious American locomotive builders).
The car coloration was an issue: do I go with sand blue or medium blue? Since
the book takes place entirely at night, we never actually see the Polar Express
in the daylight. So sand blue was the initial choice. But sand blue is too
gray for this particular application IMO and so I finally decided to go with
medium blue instead. HERE you can see a color comparison between sand blue and medium blue where I
had to use sand blue because the element doesn’t come in medium blue.
I went with trans yellow windows because it implies the yellow light cast from
the cars at night. That was an unexpected bonus as I didn’t think that that
color brick was widely available (I needed about 200 of them). The number of
windows in each car corresponds exactly with the number of windows in the movie.
The total number of coaches in our PE is four.
Though Ross still needs a few more elements in black to finish off the loco
(thanks to all who brought requested elements to the show:-) I think it looks
stunning, and is the best looking LEGO steam loco I’ve ever seen. BTW, I had
no input into his design:-) It employs Big Ben drivers, which means that it
actually runs! The coach truck design is a new one based on some ideas from
John Gerlach of the GMLTC (Hi, J-1!) More on that later when I can better
document it with pics.
Can’t think of anything more to say, except that I’ll be taking better quality
pics to show off more detail in the near future. But for the time being, enjoy
these, and get ready for some dark red Hogwarts Express ones coming soon:-)
JOHN
|
|
Message has 5 Replies:
 | | Re: New MOC: Polar Express pics
|
| (...) A locomotive here in Michigan was used as a model for the locomotive in movie: Pere Marquette #1225, which is owned by the Michigan State Trust for Railway Preservation, Inc. in Owosso, MI (see (URL)). This locomotive will be pulling an (...) (18 years ago, 13-Jul-06, to lugnet.trains, FTX)
| | | Re: New MOC: Polar Express pics
|
| (...) Ahh, finally it's moderated. You and your son made some interesting choices; our two trains share a lot in common, but have a lot of differences, too. First and foremost, I can see that you went with the blue and red color scheme for the cars. (...) (18 years ago, 14-Jul-06, to lugnet.trains, FTX)
| | | Re: New MOC: Polar Express pics
|
| (...) Well, hurry up with the Dark Red Hogwarts Express. It's a gorgeous train. I was just hunting around online and did not find any good shots. Apparently the train always missed the cameras at last week's Philly show. __Kevin Salm__ LUCNY (18 years ago, 16-Jul-06, to lugnet.trains)
|
13 Messages in This Thread:
  
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
