MOC: California State Railroad Museum

[Cooper]

This build has been in work for some time.

The Cab Forward was a near total rebuild (previous build for the curious). I realized after visiting the Cab Forward in the California State Railroad Museum that the proportions of my earlier build were off. While I was at it I corrected some other issues and added more detail including the tubing.

Then I built a replica of the display which the Cab Forward sits in at the CSRM. The display includes the "Lost" Spike which was one of the two Golden Spikes made for the meet-up of the Transcontinental Railroad.

More High Res Photos on my Flickr

[lightningtiger]

AWESOME MOC 'Cooper' !

Love the spike case, great detail and beautiful tiled floor.

Excellent work and I'm a conformist! !

[Inconspicuous]

Nice work, Cooper! I've only been to the museum once, and that was years ago, but as far as I can remember, you're pretty darn accurate! It's a very clean display with some wonderful touches like the Boy Scouts and the staircase detailing. Overall, very excellent work.

Do you plan on doing more parts of the museum?

[Cooper]

Nice work, Cooper! I've only been to the museum once, and that was years ago, but as far as I can remember, you're pretty darn accurate! It's a very clean display with some wonderful touches like the Boy Scouts and the staircase detailing. Overall, very excellent work.

Thanks. In addition to visiting the museum and taking my own photographs, I also used some other photos as guides.

Here's a composite showing a comparison with the real thing.

Do you plan on doing more parts of the museum?

The short answer is yes. In addition to the Cab Forward, I also have built the Monterey & Salinas Combo which is on the other side of the wall. I hope to build some other aspects of the museum in the future. I'm not sure if I'll hold 100% true to the current display though. I may mix in some other Western locomotives (I have a couple Southern Pacific steamers in mind).

[MightySlickPancake]

WOW! . This lego rendition gives a wonderful insight to the whole museum, and that's a hard thing to do!!

Can't wait to see more .

Thanks, cb

[RoryoCox]

Nice design with some great techniques used.

The love the tiled floors and wall.

Also the engines are very well made and the extras are good as well.

Well Done

[fred67]

It's beautiful; thanks for sharing.

[gotoAndLego]

It's beautiful; thanks for sharing.

That's beautiful.

[dr_spock]

Awesome job. I remember cab forward locos. They were good for tunnels. Nice golden spike display too.

[legotrainfan]

I've never seen such a cab forward locomotive. Did they also exist in Europe or just in America?

Your creation is wonderful! Great idea to build this museum. The loco also looks great! But I'd have preferred seeing the whole museum... just kidding! I'd cost you an unbelievably high number of bricks to build something as big as a whole museum!

[Cooper]

I've never seen such a cab forward locomotive. Did they also exist in Europe or just in America?

Your creation is wonderful! Great idea to build this museum. The loco also looks great! But I'd have preferred seeing the whole museum... just kidding! I'd cost you an unbelievably high number of bricks to build something as big as a whole museum!

To my knowledge the Cab Forwards were only used in America, and at that mainly by the Southern Pacific for their routes in California and Nevada. The main advantage of the Cab Forward design was that it was much more pleasant for the crews going through the snow sheds and tunnels on these routes. Of the course of their use by Southern Pacific, over 250 Cab Forwards were built. All but one have been cut up for scrap. The only remaining example is on display in Sacramento.

As much as I would like to build more of the museum, if it does happen, I will likely be building the floor space adjacent to this display. Building out the building with rafters and the 2nd floor would be a massive undertaking. Not just from the buildings, but all the locomotives too. So, I could see this current display expanding out by one or two baseplates in width in the future.

[broomhandle]

perfect, the cab forward is on of my fav's of all time. here is a pic of you not from the US:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6...294_Neil916.JPG

[Cooper]

Thanks for the photo. :)

I'm working on an expansion project now. The technique for the soft curves with straight track is from Holger Matthes in Railbricks #1.

Higher res images on my flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/-cooper-/4568944338/

Edited May 1, 2010 by Cooper

[jayo]

Very nice! But might I recommend the Toy Story 3 train to represent the Sonoma? Or the Genoa?