[MOC] 1st MOC in 25 years - Train tunnel (corner build)

[HereWeGoAgain]

Hello,

I guess this will serve both as an introduction and a moc presentation.
I'm 34 years old. Got 2 kids, 8-5 job, a mortgage etc., you know, the basics.

I'm someone who needs to keep his brain active with different projects, whether it be handy work around the house, computer stuff (I work in IT) or you name it. It's been difficult since we've had kids (they are still too young for Lego) to find activities that both stimulate creativity and building and that I can do at odd hours.

About 3 months ago, I stumbled upon my old Lego collection from the late 80s to 90s in the attic. What a blast it was to open those boxes. All sets were still accounted for (divers & adventurers with the pharaohs what awesome themes these were!) I even still had a few instruction booklets. This was it though, I had contracted the virus again, but for good this time.

The hardest part when you get back to Lego building and creating your own stuff after so many years is the bazillion different parts and colors that exist in Lego today. Back when I was a kid, not only were there a lot less, but since we had no internet etc. back then, we built with what we had. Not mentioning all the techniques there are...

Now I've spent...well a fair amount of money on lego bulks (probably about 40Kg worth to extend my parts inventory) and sets in the past few months. I really wanted to build a city again, like when I was a kid but this time with money...:-). This became even more of an urge after I saw Jangbrick's underwater layout. I have always loved the diver and sea exploration themes from Lego and I just had to do one myself. I do plan to make a big beach/ocean/underwater display in my city in the future.

I have more or less planned my city layout. It will sit on 3 custom tables. I currently just have one to start with, which is 6 baseplates wide and 4 baseplates deep. I already laid a few train tracks (I made them modular on 16x32 plates) but I didn't want to have any bland or dull corner with just tracks in the corner of the table.

.
So here's my first MOC in like 25 years or so. It's a 48x48 train tunnel with a mountain, a river, trees and other stuff I think I've spent a good 2 months on this, working on it whenever I got an hour or two to spare. I spent some time in LDD to moc up how I wanted it to look. Took some inspiration here and there from other mocs. I would say it's 98% complete and I'm 90% satisfied with it (I need to redo the rock part in the water at the front of the MOC, don't like how it looks).

It certainly isn't perfect and it's far from the quality of other MOCs. However, it's the first time I do any rockwork, built a tree that isn't a preformed Lego one and well over 25 years since I built a simple house lol. Enough rambling.

Here's the complete build:

The rock path, bridge, river and waterfall:

A dude and Johnny Thunder going for a hike:

This guy (a hermit? Or maybe a baddie hiding out?) and his dog don't like it too much when folks come around these parts:

This is a viewpoint spot with some of those binoculars you often find in these places:

The MOC in its final position connected to one of the modular straight tracks:

Checking for train clearance:

Edited August 12, 2019 by HereWeGoAgain

[Chiaroscuro]

That is an amazing first offering (I would have a hard time trying to do some similar, and I am out of the dark ages for 3 years). Welcome!

[Vorkosigan]

Looks very nice, I like the arches on the train tunnel!

[gotoAndLego]

I like the brown technic pieces for the barrier in the corner closest to us. Clever parts usage.

Edited August 12, 2019 by gotoAndLego

[BenA]

Welcome back to Lego ! This is really nice, lots of lovely details to spot. I like the waterfall and the curved steps up the cliff a lot. I also really like the rounded tree trunk - looks great! Looking forward to seeing your city as it emerges, and especially what you do with an underwater scene. 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Thanks for all the cool feedback guys, very motivated to continue my endeavors and get this city going :). Next to this MOC currently sits an old Octan service station from the 90s followed by the pet shop and the palace cinema. They aren't in the picture though.

Going further down, as the river needs to go somewhere, I don't know yet what I'll do. Maybe a camping site or a forest with a dirt track of some kind. Also need to transition the straight track where the Octan wagon from the train is in the picture with the MOC so it doesn't go green | grey like it is now.

Regarding the waterfall, I think it's an illegal technique as it's just a bunch of 1x4 clear blue tiles held together and offset by 1 stud. The waterfall then just sits in that spot, it isn't attached in any way. It was the cleanest and simplest solution I found with the parts I had on hand.

The curved steps is inspired by I believe it was Mr. Bookieboo on Youtube as I was looking at techniques people use. The rounded treetrunk comes from innovalug, really like that design to make massive trees.

Cheers!

[Littleworlds]

Nice MOC and a more than appropriate start to get back into Lego again!  It looks very busy, with good attention to detail. The sculpting of the rocks and stairs is very well done. Overall very charming, with a lot of personality. Just the big tree sticks out a bit. To me the trunk is too massive. I would slim it down somewhat to balance the scene a little.

[HereWeGoAgain]

Yeah it did end up a bit large lol. I mean I like how it looks but being a 6 sided trunk it does take up a lot of space in the MOC. I just wanted to try it out and see how it looked. It also stands on a rock formation which makes it even taller. I'm currently focused on sorting out some bulk Lego in which I got Ninjago's Temple of Airjitsu, needed a change.

I had initially planned to make more of a small forest with smaller trees and a pick-nick table in that corner.

Just check out your blog, I see we have some of the same memories. Funny how Lego is like the one and only toy from our childhood which just makes us feel extra nostalgic and urges us to get our hands on those bricks again at an age where we probably shouldn't be playing with toys any longer (at least that's what society tells us). Really hope I can transmit the virus to my youngest daughter as she grows up so we can build together!

[Littleworlds]

I think a pick-nick table and a little forest at this spot would be splendid!  About my blog: oh, dear... again a year has passed without me posting anything on it. I'm glad you still like it  Lego was maybe not our only toy, but probably the one that left the biggest impression. It was so many toys at once, where others were pretty narrow in their scope. And its just great to get back into it and do all the things you wanted to do back in the day but never had the means to, isn't it?! 

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

What a fantastic tunnel and stunning layout!

[Man with a hat]

Great layout. Lots of thing to see and still well balanced. Very nice. I must say I like those tunnel entrance details. Makes it even better.

[HereWeGoAgain]

On 8/18/2019 at 9:47 PM, LEGO Train 12 Volts said:

What a fantastic tunnel and stunning layout!

 

On 8/20/2019 at 2:47 PM, Man with a hat said:

Great layout. Lots of thing to see and still well balanced. Very nice. I must say I like those tunnel entrance details. Makes it even better.

Thanks guys, appreciated!

[LegoDW]

Looking good.  Everything looks great.  Will give you a few things to think over, but really they are not needed.

1) Agree the tree is a little large.  I'm ok with it thou.  Maybe it needs a tree house in it?

2) You have room for more height on top of the tunnel.  Suggest making your cottage two stories or something big up there.  Maybe a windmill or radio tower? 

My favorite parts are the two small bridges over the water.  That is were I would want to hang out and do some fishing!  There currently is a cheap Kayak set available that might look nice in that river?

 

 

[jus1973]

Hey HereWeGoAgain.

good to see another Swiss resident out here.  Loving your new MOC, and I do think there is room there to build into the Ideas Treehouse.  Have you thought of taking that hermits hut into something a bit more Swiss farmers chalet? Might work out.  

Keep up the great work.  Hope we see more soon.  

[HereWeGoAgain]

Hi mate, thanks.

I haven't had much time to build lately, got into a an accident with my bicycle a month ago and hurt my right shoulder (a car didn't see me coming). That on top of work and kids makes it hard to find the time at the moment :-)

Actually I was initially planning to make more mountain work in the corner behind the cottage on top of which I could indeed add a radio tower of some sort. I have the Vestas set to build too but I think it'll be way too large to fit in the corner. I also have the very neat Ninjago Temple of Airjitsu set 70751(was part of my first +20Kg Lego bulk haul) which would look very nice on top of a rock formation. It is also rather large though so I would have to redo everything on top of the train.

I actually purchased that kayak set already, was on sale a while back. I've always liked Lego sets that are nature/camping oriented. I'm planning on continuing the river down to the edge of the table where this Kayak would indeed fit in nicely!

1 hour ago, jus1973 said:

Hey HereWeGoAgain.

good to see another Swiss resident out here.  Loving your new MOC, and I do think there is room there to build into the Ideas Treehouse.  Have you thought of taking that hermits hut into something a bit more Swiss farmers chalet? Might work out.  

Keep up the great work.  Hope we see more soon.  

Hey jus1973, I'm in Geneva, where are you located?

A swiss chalet looking hut would be nice. I actually wanted it to look more like a log cabin/chalet at first, but I gave up as I couldn't get it to look like what I had in mind. Don't forget I haven't built any MOCs for a looooong time so figuring out all the right techniques to do stuff is taking time 

[jus1973]

4 hours ago, HereWeGoAgain said:

Hey jus1973, I'm in Geneva, where are you located?

A swiss chalet looking hut would be nice. I actually wanted it to look more like a log cabin/chalet at first, but I gave up as I couldn't get it to look like what I had in mind. Don't forget I haven't built any MOCs for a looooong time so figuring out all the right techniques to do stuff is taking time 

I feel your pain on figuring out techniques.  I’m only 3 years into my ‘second lego life’ myself.  I’m at the other end of the lake.  Montreux.  Sadly most of my set collection is in my UK home.  (Modulars and fairground mostly) I just have a few crates of bricks here. 

[HereWeGoAgain]

So had a bit of time to work on the city. Started prolonging the river on the side of the road. It's just a moc-up for now. I'm thinking I'll go from something "natural" to something more "canal-like", hence the straight line. I'm out of translucent tiles though. It'll all get detailed and textured. In place of the green plate I'm thinking of putting a skate-park or something (have the 3-1 creator set with it) with another little cross-over bridge:

The city is more or less a big mess at the moment. I've got a ton of modulars to build to fill it up(PR, AS, AD, BB and DO), just haven't had the time to :( :

But I like integrating older sets like the Octan service station. Was a perfect fit with in terms of size for that spot. will have to order replacement stickers for that one though and maybe modernize it a bit:

Here's the straight train track in the back of the layout. The 2 curved tracks at the front will then go to a bridge that spans something like 4 baseplates, this is were the ocean/beach part will be, slightly lower than the other tables:

I'm trying to do everything in a modular fashion with the tracks. This is what I came up with yesterday evening for a 16x16 curved track portion. Note: I know very little about train signals etc., just wanted to add a bit of details and colors to warn the train driver that an intersection (+ eventually a train station) was comming up after the curve. Detailing curved train balasts is kind of annoying as its difficult to put a tile in the middle portions. Ended up going for a more "used" kinda look:

Edited August 30, 2019 by HereWeGoAgain