I never had LEGO trains to play with when I was younger, but we did have a good collection of HO trains and would usually have some sort of layout running in the basement. My favourite cars and train were the Rivarossi CN Super Continental that my Dad had picked up used somewhere for a good price. It was made up of 5 passenger cars, including an observation car and was powered by an F9B and two FP9s painted in CN's distinctive Zebra Stripe paint scheme.

Now that I'm a older and have young kids of my own, we've been setting up an HO train set every year at Christmas to run around the dining room table. This has made me realize the HO trains are too delicate for my 3 and 6 year old to handle, but a LEGO train that can be rebuilt will be fun for all of us. I got a great deal on a batch of used LEGO including a set of Santa Fe Cars and BNSF loco, but I wanted to build my own passenger set. So, drawing upon some ideas I found on the web and here, I made up plans to build my own 7-wide/44 long passenger car.

My original inspiration for creating a 7-wide Passenger Car was Cooper's excellent collection of 7-wides. Though I came up with the window design on my own, I later found that Tim Gould had posted instructions for the windows on brickshelf. I did follow some of Tim's plan for the doors on my car.

Here's a shot with one of our old HO scale cars for comparison. I don't have the HO scale car that I based my LEGO car on (38-seat Club Galley).

The ends of the car are currently open, I'd like to add a door but haven't gotten a good idea yet.

Beneath the removable roof we have seating for 20.

I'm looking into sticker options now, as I need to add the 'wet noodle' CN symbol and the car name. I do plan on building more of these cars and the engines to go with them, but for now I'm happy with how this one turned out.

cheers - mark

Very nice looking model - does it have any brothers, sisters and father locos, mother B units?

I especially like the way you did the doors; it certainly looks good. Im just a bit unsure about the height - it almost seems slightly too flat. Perhaps one stud higher - or is the image skewed?

Im also intrigued with the SNOT work on the windows - which technique did you use to legally accept the window studs? (Im sure I saw it described somewhere, but my mind only remembers the ilegal technic 1x1 brick approach).

Edited February 17, 201213 yr by roamingstudio

Nice looking coach and I certainly like the clean lines. What engine are you thinking of to pull it?

Very nice looking model - does it have any brothers, sisters and father locos, mother B units?

I especially like the way you did the doors; it certainly looks good. Im just a bit unsure about the height - it almost seems slightly too flat. Perhaps one stud higher - or is the image skewed?

Im also intrigued with the SNOT work on the windows - which technique did you use to legally accept the window studs? (Im sure I saw it described somewhere, but my mind only remembers the ilegal technic 1x1 brick approach).

The rest of the train will come later, I have to spread the LEGO purchases out over time to avoid trouble with my wife :) I based the train's height on a standing minifig, I didn't want it too seem to tall, so just made it tall enough for a minifig to stand inside the car.

The end of the window line looks like the below. I'm not sure what you mean by illegal technic 1x1, but that's what I used.

cheers - mark

... I'm not sure what you mean by illegal technic 1x1, but that's what I used...

Jamie Berard's presentation "Stressing The Elements" does a good job of explaining the "illegal" technic 1x1:

http://bramlambrecht.com/tmp/jamieberard-brickstress-bf06.pdf

Very nice passenger car, I like how is long and I like this beautiful color scheme!

Do you already have a locomotive for this wagon?

Edited February 18, 201213 yr by LEGO Train 12 Volts

Great car. I love 7 wide cars and this one looks really nice.

The only thing that bothers me a little bit is that is seems that the windows are relatively high which makes the lower white half slightly ackward. But I may be biased after seeing that HO model.

Edited February 19, 201213 yr by Man with a hat