[MOC] Engine Shed

[Celeste]

Hi all! When I was a kid, I got the fantastic 10027 Train Engine Shed set for Christmas. I remember being so excited to build it on the floor of my living room, but as I got older, it slowly had pieces taken off for other projects and was eventually taken apart entirely. So a few weeks back, I decided to build my own version of it, trying to incorporate the best parts of it and adding my own touches to it. Without further ado, here it is:

I knew I had to include the big black doors and the hanging lamps like in the original. However, because of the doors, the opening is only 8-wide. All my diesels can fit through with pretty much no problem, but with my steam engines, they are all too wide to fit through the opening. Oh well. I meant the shed to be used by diesels more as that is what I tend to build more of. 

The skylights were also something I wanted to bring back from the old set, but I wanted to try something new rather than rehashing the old design. I ended up picking these 8x8 plates in trans light blue which were originally used to represent ice. I also wanted some kind of exhaust stacks on the roof to help ventilate the building. I thought the TIE fighter dishes looked better than plain ones so that's what I used.

Here is the rear of the building. I stuck the black sliding doors from the original set (Which I found are very pricey on Bricklink when I was looking to buy more for boxcars) here as a loading area. I was thinking of having it raised and connected to an exterior loading dock to accommodate trucks, but I ended up scrapping that idea and I'm still pretty happy with the current doors. Maybe one day I'll put it in. Also, those vents on the upper part of the wall connect up to a big air compressor on the inside. 

A minifig perspective into the shed. The skylights let in a decent amount of light, but I also added 4 more giant lamps on the roof, which you can barely see in this photo (Just above the crane track).

I went through many iterations of how the inside was organized and what was in it. At one point, I played with the idea of a tiny forklift moc (Which I might make a separate post for in the town forum) living in there and helping move things from the black door in back, but ultimately, there just wasn't enough space. You may also notice the red lathe looks familiar, and you would be right! Another part of 10027 that I wanted brought over. You'll see later that I also brought over the bench vice design as well. I went with a different drill press design, however. You might be able to spot in the corner in one of these photos.

With the engines removed, you can see a bit more inside! Another idea I toyed with was having pits below the track. If I was going to do that, I would want the pits to be real and not just black plates between the ties. However, to make them real, I would need to raise the building up quite a few studs and then it would not connect well to outside track so I just left them out.

Another inside view facing toward the front doors.

I think this is the best photo of the drill press. Maybe I should've taken out the minifigs in some of the photos...Oops! Anyway, you can also see the crane controls being used by the man in green. The big air thing mounted up on the wall connects to the vents I mentioned earlier on the back of the building. In my mind, that would connect to the air hose being used by the guy in the red hat to clean off the drill press of metal shavings.

Here is the crane on its own. It comes right out with no problem and just slides on tiles on the inside of the building. It also can slide side to side and lower down its hook.

I was proud of this design for scaffolding, but I'm almost positive I've seen other people use something like this before.

Here is a diesel engine based on the one from the Maersk train. I tried to give it DOHCs and a timing chain, but I have no idea how accurate this is. Another design that will probably get worked on with time.

I honestly didn't know where to stick this photo, so here it is. Just showing how close the Maersk train and my ALCO diesel are from the doors when they are fully against the buffers. This is one of the main things that determined the length of the building, so I hope I don't make any more long diesels! I know I mentioned earlier that my steam locomotives don't fit width-wise, but they can fit inside if you place them through the roof. Except the Emerald Night. That thing is just plain too big for this shed in any direction! Maybe one day, when I'm feeling crazy, I'll build a roundhouse for the steam engines.

 

Speaking of engines, I thought I'd quickly show off the ones I used to display with the shed in this post. I didn't want to revive the old threads for the first two locos just to show them in brick, so here they are.

Here's the little switcher that was on the siding in that first photo. Its first iteration is probably close to 7 or 8 years old at this point, but it has gone through countless redesigns, including one just a week or two ago. It is unpowered, but I'm assembling a small powered freight car for locos like this.

And lastly, here is that handcar that was behind #1451. A simple design I came up with, but I like it.

That's about it! Thanks for reading!

 

[Murdoch17]

This looks awesome! I'm getting a vague French (or at least continental European) feel from engines 1520 and 1451, which is interesting next to the north american ALCO. Just a thought.

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Beautiful interior details and trains stuff
It is a pity that the door design does not allow entry of wider locomotives ...as you say 

[zephyr1934]

Looking good... but why not do a brick built door design to not only allow your steamers in, but also to cover the gap above the rails?

[JintaiZ]

Cool :)

[Celeste]

23 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

This looks awesome! I'm getting a vague French (or at least continental European) feel from engines 1520 and 1451, which is interesting next to the north american ALCO. Just a thought.

Thank you! I like building things from across the pond and from here in North America, so I tend to just have them all run together and ignore how horribly inaccurate all of it is.

7 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

Looking good... but why not do a brick built door design to not only allow your steamers in, but also to cover the gap above the rails?

The doors was one of the primary things I wanted to keep from the original set. I also knew from the get go that I would be putting diesels in there almost exclusively (Which are also all 6w). However, you bring up valid points with the advantages of brick built doors. I might look into designing some doors and post back if I have any good results.

6 hours ago, JintaiZ said:

Cool :)

Thanks :)

[JintaiZ]

2 hours ago, Legownz said:

Thanks :)

It'd be nice if I have the 10194 to go with it...

[LegoDW]

Nice moc.  Planning a engine shed for layout too.

[Celeste]

So I took @zephyr1934's suggestion and tried out brick built doors and expanding the opening to 10 studs wide. I'm not 100% happy with the door designs themselves, so I might change them later. Other from that, the wider opening is kinda nice. All my steam engines fit inside nicely...except the Emerald Night is still just a few studs too long. Ah well.

Also, I got those 2x2 vent tiles second hand so please don't get angry about the crooked stickers.

[zephyr1934]

I see what you mean about the trade-off, but it is nice to see the huge gap below the doors closed up. Good use of the boat studs to reinforce the doors. It's too bad that a tile build is not possible since they do not make 3x3 curved tiles. Meanwhile, to my eye, the extra exposed studs to get the vents might outweigh the benefit of the vents, but that is all a matter of personal taste.

[Phil B]

10 hours ago, Legownz said:

<snip>

Also, I got those 2x2 vent tiles second hand so please don't get angry about the crooked stickers.

 

If you have a really sharp-bladed knife, like an X-Acto knife, you might be able to lift the stickers off the tiles and reposition them. I've done this a few times with good results, ranging from fairly newly applied stickers (60197) to much older (3677 from 2011 and even some from 4708 from 2001).

Edited August 19, 2020 by Phil B

[Celeste]

4 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

Meanwhile, to my eye, the extra exposed studs to get the vents might outweigh the benefit of the vents, but that is all a matter of personal taste.

Personally I’m not a fan of them either. I had to put them there because the new doors hit the lights when they opened. I moved the lights up by a stud and I couldn’t use my previous mounting as the technic brick would be conflicting with the slope of the roof. Any suggestions for new ways of mounting the lights are welcome. I could also switch to single lights for each bay, centered above the doors. 
 

3 hours ago, Phil B said:

If you have a really sharp-bladed knife, like an X-Acto knife, you might be able to lift the stickers off the tiles and reposition them. I've done this a few times with good results, ranging from fairly newly applied stickers (60197) to much older (3677 from 2011 and even some from 4708 from 2001).

That’s a good idea! Even if I take the tiles off the shed, I still want to use them again. I will give it a shot. Thank you!

[zephyr1934]

19 hours ago, Legownz said:

Any suggestions for new ways of mounting the lights are welcome. I could also switch to single lights for each bay, centered above the doors. 

Personally I would do one light centered above each door but that is just because of how I envision an engine-house. If you keep them as is, why not get rid of the wing plates and just use the 1x8 plates (potentially moving the lights up or down a fraction of a plate if necessary).

[Celeste]

Hello all! 

It's been a few years since I last updated this project, but it seems I am in the habit of keeping MOCs around for years and doing small changes every so often. So without further ado, I present the current iteration of my engine shed. 

First off, I was on the fence for years if I liked the original color scheme I built it in. I've finally made up my mind that yes, I was going to keep it this funky paint scheme that matched my locomotives/fictional railway livery colors. Secondly, I moved this model to a MILS plate. Over the past year or two, I've been updating my modular buildings to be on MILS plates and it seemed to only make sense that I do the same for my train items. I also might bring this model to shows in the future and it would be good to be compatible with my new rail modules (Pictured above). 

I changed the rails inside the shed to be the singular 1x16 rails (for reasons that will be clear in a moment), so it took a little trial and error to create a seamless transition between that and the normal track without part modification. Because they don't actually "click" together anymore, the MILS technic bricks also help here with a good connection. I also added a back layer of plates to the doors as I hated the look of the boat studs. I also reworked the caution stripes and the shape of the doorway for clearance. 

The lamps were changed years ago, as suggested by @zephyr1934, but I apparently never posted photos of that change.

The side door was tweaked to this version. A new step was added for the extra height gained by the interior foor matching up to track ballast height. The lamps were changed as well and the sign above may get a custom sticker (if I ever get around to it). You'll notice too that I've added more greenery and flowers around the building.

Here, you see the rear of the building. I added a large concrete "patio" (?) for work to be done on and goods moved on. I built this rack to help clean up the trash that was left out behind the shed and make it look more intentional. I also plan to put one of my small forklift MOCs here eventually. In addition, I've put in a hopper of coal, in case the one or two steam engines I own need work. Of course, I had to change the lamps here too to something more of my liking. The rear door is the same, if not raised slightly with the new floor, though it does now have the proper caution striping.

Let's take a look inside at the new interior!

Let's address the elephant in the room first. Yes, the workers FINALLY disassembled the scaffolding and stacked it neatly against the far wall.

Oh, the holes in the floor? Yeah, I guess those are new too.

So, the MILS plate + ballast gave me a tall floor that finally got me the space for maintenance pits. It's not deep enough to be 100% realistic (See below), but I'm happy enough with the result. Shallow pits are better than no pits. At the far end of the pits are ramps to get out and new caution striping. The buffers were switched out to a new design and overall, the shop space was reorganized and reconfigured. There are new builds here and there, but nothing really of note. 

Here you see where a typical buffer hits on a minifig standing in the pit. So workers will need to sit or partially lay in the pit to work.

And finally, we see a reverse view of the inside. 

Hopefully you've enjoyed seeing these updates to another model of mine. Unfortunately, there are no Stud.io files to accompany this build unlike many of my other MOCs, but I would still love to hear any thoughts or suggestions!

[zephyr1934]

That's the pits! Seriously though, the pits turned out well (that pun was unintended). I've seen real service pits that aren't much deeper than the ones in your model (rails at shoulder height) so you're safely prototypical (grin). Great little improvements abound.

[Feuer Zug]

The upgrade to MILS seems to have been a boon to this shed. The pits work well and the other updates make it that much better as a part of the layout.

[Celeste]

18 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

That's the pits! Seriously though, the pits turned out well (that pun was unintended). I've seen real service pits that aren't much deeper than the ones in your model (rails at shoulder height) so you're safely prototypical (grin). Great little improvements abound.

 

7 hours ago, Feuer Zug said:

The upgrade to MILS seems to have been a boon to this shed. The pits work well and the other updates make it that much better as a part of the layout.

Glad to hear that the pits look good! I'm so happy I was able to get them into this model. They really added a lot to it. And yes I think MILS is the right choice for this build and my future builds, though my wallet doesn't necessarily agree. On the other hand, I don't have to search for the old green baseplates too, so it might be the cheaper choice too haha.