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I have finally completed building the PRR T1 MOC that I planned out in LDD2.
Naturally, I still had to make modifications once finally building in real
life. Apart from the BBB wheel set and linkages, all of the pieces used are
available from the Lego Factory (see original thread
<http://news.lugnet.com/trains/?n=29097&t=f&v=a>)
Brickshelf pictures once moderated.
<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/07/T1_color_photo.jpg<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/07/T1_color_photo.jpg/300px-T1_color_photo.jpg>>
<http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2601184<http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/ted972/PRR-Class-T1-6110/thumb/01_prr_t1.jpg_thumb.jpg>>
Link to Brickshelf folder once moderated:
<http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=249902>
Thanks to everyone in the Lugnet.trains community for sharing their train
building expertise in these forums, as it definitely helped in putting together
my first steam engine model. A couple things that I have also learned that may
help others:
- It seems most people that use a CAD program to model steam engines have
evolved to use LDRAW. For anyone still using LDD like myself, the round dish
pieces (dia 32; 4x4) are a good approximation for BBB wheels. _[HOWEVER]_, the
bottom of all other train wheels that you use in LDD should be one flat plate
height above the bottom of the round dishes. This accounted for the majority of
the modifications that I needed to make when building (Hobby Train set to the
rescue!).
- Using only one flanged wheel set in a flanged/blind drive set is a 'slippery'
prospect. To control rotation, I had to mod the original design to fix the
small flanged wheels to the drive set on the other side of the blind driver ...
I also 'cheated' a bit and added a set of small, hidden guide wheels that are
inside the piston housing of the second duplex set.
-The 8-wheel set on the coal tender has the 2 middle sets fixed together, and
they are the pivot unit that is attached to the base. The 2 outer sets are
connected (through the other set using a long flat plate, and 1/2 brick offset)
and slide together to navigate curves.
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Sorry for replying to my own message, but I just realized that I posted in plain
text instead of formatted text... another victim of the late-night internet
gremlins. Re-posting the pictures below:
Brickshelf pictures once moderated.
Link to Brickshelf folder once moderated:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=249902
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In lugnet.trains, Ted Andes wrote:
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Sorry for replying to my own message, but I just realized that I posted in
plain text instead of formatted text... another victim of the late-night
internet gremlins. Re-posting the pictures below:
Brickshelf pictures once moderated.
Link to Brickshelf folder once moderated:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=249902
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The T1 is my favorite PRR passenger engine and is on my long list of equipment
to model. I cant believe you beat me to it.
Your Engine looks great. Getting such a big loco to work in 6 wide is a real
challenge. I think you did well in capturing the spirit of this engine. The nose
has the classic T1 look. The striping and the brick built keystone look great.
And the curving of the body work on top of the tender turned out awesome.
Very Nice
Now I need to start working on my own Duplex.
Cale
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In lugnet.trains, Cale Leiphart wrote:
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The T1 is my favorite PRR passenger engine and is on my long list of
equipment to model. I cant believe you beat me to it.
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Frankly, neither can I. When you posted the pictures from the PennLUG Display
at The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, I thought for sure I’d see one that you
built on the tracks somewhere...
Digging deep into the Brickshelf archives, I did find someone’s startings of a
T-1 that looked very promising. I think it ended up more of a brick study on
the engine nose portion (I’m not sure who’s folder that is to give credit).
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Your Engine looks great. Getting such a big loco to work in 6 wide is a real
challenge. I think you did well in capturing the spirit of this engine. The
nose has the classic T1 look. The striping and the brick built keystone look
great. And the curving of the body work on top of the tender turned out
awesome.
Very Nice
Now I need to start working on my own Duplex.
Cale
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Thanks for the comments Cale. It took some time to sort it out and get the
proportions right. I think the one area that will always be open to
interpretation is how to arrive at the nose and cow-catcher shape. I debated
whether to use plates on the cow-catcher, studs out on the sides, or do some
snot brick work (like the user MOC above) and smooth it out. Since the piece
selection in LDD was limited, I opted for plates.
I think the next step for my T1 engine/tender is employing some of the fine
lettering/decal work that your PRR units show so well.
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In lugnet.trains, Ted Andes wrote:
SNIP
Dear Ted,
this engine is amazing for a LDD creation! There are some really well done
details on your design. Allthough I am not familiar with US trains, I
immediately recognized this engine (prototype pictures must have been on my
screen over the past years.)
So what do I like most?
The boiler tip rocks! This submarine-like shape is solved perfectly in your LEGO
model. I love the detail work on the tender. The top of the rear side ladder
(the robot arms). The rounded edges on top, the coal and the face side to the
engine.
I also like your nice photograph with the 5 engineers in front of the loco.
On the other hand I see a few week spots that may to be improved:
the engine looks to high to me: the real one has the driver wheels slighly
hidden on their top edge. The BBB-wheels should nearly touch the yellow stripe.
Try to get this done as near as possible (maybe by use of any other technic
elements as pivot points).
The cabin might be better done in 5-long. At least for my eyes it looks to long
with the compressed design (and the boiler 1 stud too short).
And I think there should be a possibility to hide the tender wheels.
Look at this gallery of Jeremy Rear to get an impression:
Maybe you could live with 2 motors and a wrong count of (anyway hidden) wheels?
Or use trucks like
this if you
don’t want to include 2 motors.
But these are only minor critics. I see that you have done a really good work
for 6-wide. Maybe you want to give 7-wide a trial next. ;-)
Leg Godt!
See more pictures of my models at www.brickshelf.com
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In lugnet.trains, Reinhard “Ben” Beneke wrote:
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Dear Ted,
this engine is amazing for a LDD creation! There are some really well done
details on your design. Allthough I am not familiar with US trains, I
immediately recognized this engine (prototype pictures must have been on my
screen over the past years.)
So what do I like most?
The boiler tip rocks! This submarine-like shape is solved perfectly in your
LEGO model. I love the detail work on the tender. The top of the rear side
ladder (the robot arms). The rounded edges on top, the coal and the face
side to the engine.
I also like your nice photograph with the 5 engineers in front of the loco.
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Ben,
Thank you for your thoughts. Your presentation on “5 Steps to Create Cool Lego
Steam Engines” helped immensely when I was designing this MOC (thanks again Tony
Sava for linking). I admire the attention to detail in your engines, so I am
glad that you liked the details in mine. I used your engines as inspiration to
achieve as much accuracy as possible.
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Ben/presentations/BrickfestPDX2007/brickfest07_steam_engines.pdf
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On the other hand I see a few week spots that may to be improved:
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I agree with all of the points you made, as they are the areas where I made some
compromises…
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the engine looks to high to me: the real one has the driver wheels slighly
hidden on their top edge. The BBB-wheels should nearly touch the yellow
stripe. Try to get this done as near as possible (maybe by use of any other
technic elements as pivot points).
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When I first assembled the engine, I did have the wheels nearly touching the
yellow stripe (and it is that way in the LDD file)… however, when testing the
engine wheel-sets through the curves, the wheels were rubbing against something
that prevented rotation. I could not find the cause.
Another issue was the clearance of the cab ladder piece over the magnet coupler.
There was a conflict in curves, and it was restricting the pivot of the last
wheel set under the cab. I considered raising the ladder, but I liked the
yellow stripe extending all the way back to the very end of the engine... To
address both issues, I raised the engine one flat plate in height over the
wheels.
In retrospect, the ladder catching the coupler may have been the cause of the
drive wheel resistance. It may have caused the drive wheel set to pivot in a
way that added resistance to wheel rotation. It is a design area that I plan to
revisit and correct (will try raising the ladder piece 1 plate instead and
sacrifice the stripe end).
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The cabin might be better done in 5-long. At least for my eyes it looks to
long with the compressed design (and the boiler 1 stud too short).
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You are absolutely correct. The cabin is a larger scale than the rest of the
engine. This was one of my other design compromises... but there is another
spot where it is very apparent.
I first noticed this when I decided to review the LDD design with the mindset of
using a schematic of the engine as you do. I used key reference points to check
the proportions. The key reference point that shows the cabin out-of-scale is
where the ‘slope’ for the second tier of the wheel shroud starts (the part in
front of the cabin, next to the boiler and above yellow line). That slope piece
should start just after the last drive wheel... in the MOC that is where the
cabin ends, and the slope is 6 lugs too far forward... so I should probably have
shortened the cabin and shroud by 2 lugs each, and extended the boiler 2 lugs...
When I created the cabin, I wanted it to be to scale to the mini-fig inside
(he’s a lucky guy). I then considered extending moving the slope back 2 lugs,
and the boiler another 4 lugs forward, but I thought the boiler might be out of
scale to the wheels. Another thing that was keeping me from shortening the
shroud/slope was that there are no black 1x2 flat plates in LDD (only 1x4 and
2x2). You may notice that I did use a 1x2 plate with the ½ lug offset for this
(you can see it just before the cab). If I shortened the second tier and cabin,
it would move that ½ lug plate to the front (‘first tier’) where I think it is
more distracting.
..In the end I decided that I liked the way it looked on its own merits, despite
the inaccuracy, so I kept it as it is...
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And I think there should be a possibility to hide the tender wheels.
Look at this gallery of Jeremy Rear to get an impression:
Maybe you could live with 2 motors and a wrong count of (anyway hidden)
wheels? Or use trucks like
this if you
don’t want to include 2 motors.
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Nicely done. Thank you for linking that. I can see some possibilities there.
I will have to experiment... Tony Sava ran into this same issue on his tender
for his Streamlined Dreyfuss Hudson.
A few other areas that LDD part selection compromised were: The 2x2 flat plate
on the top of the tender, next to the rear ladder. I would have liked to use a
1x2 piece if in black (didn’t want the ½ lug offset piece there). The cabin
roof is a little ‘boxy’ and I would ideally use in the 1x3 curve pieces
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But these are only minor critics. I see that you have done a really good
work for 6-wide. Maybe you want to give 7-wide a trial next. ;-)
Leg Godt!
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I’m not sure what challenge I will tackle next. Maybe something outside of the
colors black and red :P. This T1 defintely needs some pasenger cars to pull
along, so that may be next on the list.
Thanks again!
Ted
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In lugnet.trains, Ted Andes wrote:
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Sorry for replying to my own message, but I just realized that I posted in
plain text instead of formatted text... another victim of the late-night
internet gremlins. Re-posting the pictures below:
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SNIP
Looks great, Ted. I’m glad you followed through in completing it in real life.
Along with you creating the Dreyfuss Hudson, this is another engine that I’d
like to build that you beat me to :)
I don’t have anything constructive to add that Ben already hasn’t, he’s pretty
much summed up everything for me. I plan to build this sucker 8-wide, though,
so I can’t steal your great boiler nose design. I also plan to build it with
all four pairs of drivers fixed to the body (as it was in real life) so your
wheel design doesn’t help me there, either. Pity, I do so enjoy taking the easy
route.
Great job!
--Tony
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In lugnet.trains, Anthony Sava wrote:
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Looks great, Ted. I’m glad you followed through in completing it in real
life. Along with you creating the Dreyfuss Hudson, this is another engine
that I’d like to build that you beat me to :)
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Thanks Tony... However, I don’t think my LDD Dreyfuss Hudson really counts (I
have to say that LDD attempt was lacking in a lot of areas since improving my
train building skills). To be frank, I abandoned building the Dreyfuss in
real-life and started building the T1 because your Dreyfuss was done to near
perfection. Really well done.
...and while we’re at it, you beat me in the most important thing... getting a
BBQ Smoker. I am very jealous! (I check your flickr page from time to time,
mainly to see if you put a skirt on your Dreyfuss tender that I can learn from
:)).
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I don’t have anything constructive to add that Ben already hasn’t, he’s
pretty much summed up everything for me. I plan to build this sucker 8-
wide, though, so I can’t steal your great boiler nose design. I also plan
to build it with all four pairs of drivers fixed to the body (as it was in
real life) so your wheel design doesn’t help me there, either. Pity, I do
so enjoy taking the easy route.
Great job!
--Tony
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Since Ben’s post, I have already corrected the engine height. The coupler
catching the ladder was the cause of the issues...
... and I was actually thinking of re-doing the drivers so that I could get some
proper piston action. Working pistons were my original intention, but had to do
some mods to the piston housing to get the drivers to work. If extend the
boiler to proper scale to the cabin, and rearrange my flanged drivers
appropriately, I might be able to pull that off... I do think that 7 or 8 wide
will really help to put a skirt on the streamlined tenders (but I still plan to
try to solve that 6-wide). It would also orient the piston housings correctly
under the engine shrouds.
Thanks again for the comments, and sharing all the great info.
Ted
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