Train MOCs and Builders - Who/What is Your Inspiration?

[Digger of Bricks]

Who are some of your favorite train/locomotive AFOL builders, and what are your favorite creations of theirs? 

Anything and everything relating to trains amongst fan creations and builders can be discussed here, including Locomotives, Railcars, Trolleys, Monorails, Train-centric Architecture, LEGO Ideas Projects, Techniques and whatever else that may fit within the context of this subforum!

[Murdoch17]

Most recently @SavaTheAggie and his model's inspired me to make a Garratt somewhat inspired by his take on the odd-looking type of steam engine.

Way back in 2013, this fellow called Fireglo450 over on Flickr co-inspired my first British trains along with with @ScotNick and his assorted Thomas the Tank engine models, as seen here.

Oh, and a fellow called Steve B over on Flickr inspired me out of my comfort zone with his EP-2 "Bipolar" electric loco. I still need to build my own version, but it IS designed and ready to be built in real bricks.

That's all I could think of right now, but that's not to say tons and TONs of people have helped me out over the last eight years on Eurobricks alone... and that doesn't count MOCpages, LEGO .com and Flickr, among others!

[Digger of Bricks]

Here are a few favorites of mine to start:

Arkham Zephyr by Nouvilas

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Retrofuturistic Locomotives by @Sunder

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Intrepid by Ted Andes

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6 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

Most recently @SavaTheAggie and his model's inspired me to make a Garratt somewhat inspired by his take on the odd-looking type of steam engine.

Of course, this is my favorite locomotive creation of his. 

New York Central J3A Dreyfuss Hudson by @SavaTheAggie

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[Aaron]

I decided from the onset that I'd break away from the majority and forge my own path. When I started building in 10-wide, there was nobody else (that I knew of) doing it at the time.

I had nobody to look to for influence, and had to start from scratch, spending countless days visiting railroad museums, studying engineering diagrams, and collecting detailed HO scale models to use as references. It took tons of tinkering around with bricks, and tons of trial-and-error to try to make everything work at this scale. The major breakthrough for me was the release of third-party wide radius curves. It has taken years upon years to get to this stage, and only within the past few months have I begun to wrap things up in the design and building stage to finally move on to stage two: presentation and operation.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Aaron

[Digger of Bricks]

A few more favorites I'd like to share:

LBSCR E2 and GWR 1442 by @ScotNick

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Milwaukee Road F7 4-6-4 Baltic by swoofty

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The Basilisk: A Train Station by Jme Wheeler

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Edited March 13, 2018 by Digger of Bricks

[Bricksmith]

My largest inspirations when it comes to Railway MOC's all have large followings on Flickr, but for good reason.

Carl Greatrix is already a huge name in the AFOL Community, and his early train builds have always been massively inspirational. My fave of his will be his A4 Pacific.

Next would have to be Wes Turngrate, who builds some fantastic 8-wide British diesels & Steamers. 

 

Finally, BritishBricks, who has, among many other fantastic builds, made this amazing streamlined Duchess of Hamilton:

Other inspirations include @ScotNick and StreamlinedBricks :)

[Digger of Bricks]

8 minutes ago, Bricksmith said:

Other inspirations include @ScotNick and StreamlinedBricks :)

Oh my gosh, I have never seen the work of Streamlined Bricks, they've got a lot of stuff that's right up my alley, as evidenced by their name!  

Thank you so much for highlighting them! 

11 minutes ago, Bricksmith said:

Carl Greatrix is already a huge name in the AFOL Community, and his early train builds have always been massively inspirational. My fave of his will be his A4 Pacific.

Oh yeah, you can never go wrong with a Mallard MOC.  

12 minutes ago, Bricksmith said:

Finally, BritishBricks, who has, among many other fantastic builds, made this amazing streamlined Duchess of Hamilton:

That's a new favorite of mine that I only discovered recently myself. It's a beauty! 

[Stefaneris]

I get a lot of inspiration from Flickr and from this forum

Some of the most important persons are: @SavaTheAggie @raised Shuppiluliumas (I don't know if he's on Eurobricks) @Cale and @legoman666

 

[Digger of Bricks]

A few more to share:

#5544 T1 Duplex 4-4-4-4 by @SavaTheAggie

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ST100 Planetary Express by Frost

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LNER Peppercorn A1 "Tornado" by Michael Gale

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[sed6]

@Murdoch17 inspires me the most! His creations are beautiful, his write-ups and history of his locos are informative and his willingness to share his work and help others here is a great example for all to follow. I'm on lots and lots of forums and his contributions along with others like him are what makes the internet so darn awesome!

Edited March 13, 2018 by sed6

[Digger of Bricks]

6 minutes ago, sed6 said:

@Murdoch17 inspires me the most! His creations are beautiful, his write-ups and history of his locos are informative and his willingness to share his work and help others here is a great example for all to follow. I'm on lots and lots of forums and his contributions along with others like him are what makes the internet so darn awesome!

Indeed, I just love his Streamliners! Thank you @Murdoch17! 

[Glenn Holland]

Hey! I got mentioned! I'm happy to serve as an inspiration for you guys, and thank you for appreciating my work! :)

-Glenn (StreamlinedBricks)

[Murdoch17]

Thanks to @sed6 and @Digger of Bricks for mentioning me! I am deeply honored and shocked that I got mentioned, so thanks for appreciating the work I put out and me!

Edited March 13, 2018 by Murdoch17

[Digger of Bricks]

2 minutes ago, Murdoch17 said:

Thanks to @sed6 and @Digger of Bricks for mentioning me! I am deeply honored and shocked that I got mentioned, so thanks for appreciating the work I put out and me!

You're very welcome! 

33 minutes ago, Glenn Holland said:

I'm happy to serve as an inspiration for you guys, and thank you for appreciating my work! :)

Certainly, I'm so glad @Bricksmith highlighted you, as you've done some incredible work! Streamlined steam locomotives are my absolute favorite! 

These two of yours I just love, especially the Earth Green one!

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[Toastie]

For me, Rheinhard "Ben" Beneke has been the most inspiring LEGO train builder ever. His BR23 has been around so many years - actually decades - before so many others worked from there. His BR23 has been featured so many time in the good ol' Railbricks Journal in the Big Ben Wheels advertisement ... which brings me to Ben Fleskes, who has changed the world of LEGO trains - or better LEGO steamer - wheels, way before there was a 3D printer even thinkable. I really do look up to both for their visions and their >solutions<. So this is >not< about the BR23; it is about the endless ideas of building and improving, particularly when TLG is simply not responding.

Regards,
Thorsten  

  

[Hod Carrier]

I take my inspirations from what I see around me rather than from specific builders or models. Working on the railways gives me plenty of exposure to lots of interesting prototypes as well as an understanding of function as well as form. I often look at different things and wonder how I might make them in LEGO. Many of my ideas fail to get beyond the thinking stage, but some ideas show more promise than others.

Apologies if this is not in keeping with the ethos of this thread.

[dr_spock]

I look at pictures on RailPictures.net.  I try to do my own thing and make toy versions of prototypes that catch my interest.

 

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

20 hours ago, Toastie said:

For me, Rheinhard "Ben" Beneke has been the most inspiring LEGO train builder ... It is about the endless ideas of building and improving, particularly when TLG is simply not responding.

Regards,
Thorsten  

  

I agree ...when I talk about BR I think about the first perfect example of Lego steam engine: the BR23 ...an impressive evergreen!

About my mentors for the electrical machines I think that Helos is a great builder and Swoofty for the diesel locomotives is another great master!

[storms26]

Mine is hands down Tony Sava. Ever since building his Daylight, I've found new methods of building and I've even gone on to make my own engines and sets (New post coming soon!).

[Brickviller V2]

My inspiration comes from a lot of builders (mostly on Flickr), but for my latest building I was inspired by Feanor-001´s train station:

Which resulted in my own train station:

 

 

[ScotNick]

Wohoo, haven't been here for some time so I wondered why I was mentioned.
So thanks guys, I think that's the great thing about our hobby, that everyone influences each other or serves as an inspiration!

So thanks for creating this thread, this will surely help others find some inspiration and I'll also shed some light on my inspirations, some of which sadly don't build that much anymore.

As I really like many models of the following builders I'll just leave a link to their albums page which gives a good overview of the sheer amount of great works.

First of all is Carl Greatrix (@Bricktrix) with his awesome models. I'm sure he's known by most people here, bu anyway here's a link to his models: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bricktrix/albums

Next is @Andrew Harvey who's models were a great inspiration to my models (especially the brick built lining on some of his models). Even though his builds are already older there aren't many models that come close to his: https://www.flickr.com/photos/technoandrew/albums/

@michaelgale was another huge inspiration, not just his trains but also his layout and scenery builds which look stunning: https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelgale/albums

I did have a look at the first people I followed on flickr and also found @Glenn Holland (StreamlinedBricks) which is interesting because at that time he still had his tries on British engines - you should really revive some of your models now with improved skills if you read that!
(Not to say that your US models aren't great, they're hugely stunning and an inspiration as well!)

Next is narrow_gauge, an Australian guy who has really built up a stunning collection of (as his name says) narrow gauge models on 4 wide track which is brick built from the old 12V tracks - really an inspiration if you want to build narrow gauge models some time too!!!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/narrow-gauge/albums

Another great inspiration was -Zanthera-'s Hogwarts Express: 
LEGO 5972 Olton Hall Hogwarts Express by -ZANTHERA-, on Flickr

Another huge inspiration for British models was Tim Gould whose layout and models was something I really liked: 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gambort/sets/72157617319252333

And before coming back to some British (train) builders I also want to mention some more continental builders who served to me as an inspiration:

Bricknerd with some great models: https://www.flickr.com/people/bricknerd/
Gerbrand who's a Dutch builder and has some stunning models and techniques: https://www.flickr.com/photos/raised/albums
@UrbanErwin with a lot of great models: https://www.flickr.com/photos/epjl/albums

And a not so known builder who inspired me to design (and build - still in progress) some of my home country's trains: @DAN42BR https://www.flickr.com/photos/104806638@N03/

And now to come back to British models I can give back inspiration credit to @Bricksmith for his insane models at the scale of 6 studs!
Britishbricks and Wes Turngrate also serve as a huge inspiration to me!

 

Thanks everyone for this great community,and make sure to have a look at those builders, you won't regret it!

Nick

 

[UrbanErwin]

I feel honoured to be mentioned in a topic like this

My inspiration comes from both real-life models and most (if not all) of the builders mentioned above.

[Digger of Bricks]

The Blue Tornado by @dylanfarrow

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Steampunk Train by Moko

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Thomas and Percy (Island of Sodor Display) by Ryan Evans

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[LegoModularFan]

Hey @Digger of Bricks, are we allowed to post Train Station MOCs here? There are some great ones! Just want to have contributions to every “favorite/inspirational/best ....... MOCs” 

BTW, quite a lot of inspirational trains highlighted in this topic  

[Digger of Bricks]

1 hour ago, LegoModularFan said:

Hey @Digger of Bricks, are we allowed to post Train Station MOCs here? There are some great ones! Just want to have contributions to every “favorite/inspirational/best ....... MOCs” 

Absolutely! As I stated in the original post, anything related to trains in the context of this subforum pertaining to fan creations can be shared here!