Sleek like a fox

As a general rule I’m quite enamoured of streamliners due to their sleek shapes and art deco stylings. Unfortunately many LEGO renditions leave me feeling a little cold due to the difficulty of pulling off the subtle curves and colouring. However Benn Coifman hasn’t disappointed me with this rendition of an Norfolk and Western J-class along with a full rake (all the carriages). The coal in the tender is particularly cool.

8 comments on “Sleek like a fox

  1. Melfice

    “Patrick Says:
    November 15th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

    meh. the axle thing kinda kills the sleek-ness”

    While the driving rods DO stick out a bit on the LEGO model, this isn’t too different from a real streamliner.

  2. Gambort Post author

    Maybe you can demonstrate how to do it better, Patrick. A lot of very skilled and very experienced train builders have tried it but I’m sure you’d have something excellent and new to offer.

  3. SavaTheAggie

    If I’m not mistaken, the axle at the top is representing the mechanism that switches the piston from push to pull depending on the orientation of the wheels. This not only allows for the piston to have two strokes per one wheel rotation, but allows for a method of setting the locomotive in reverse. It has a name but I’m too lazy to wikipedia it.

  4. Cale Leiphart

    The term Anthony is looking for is valve gear. And it can be a particularly hard item to replicate with out it getting in the way of the pistons and connecting/drive rods. Ben built this engine with the goal of good reliability so I’m guessing he didn’t want to get to elaborate here and muck up performance. Over all I think this is a really nice engine and passenger car set. Great work Ben.

  5. Peter

    Wow. In my dream life I build train stuff, so I always enjoy a beautiful locomotive. But not only is it pleasing to the eye, but he’s got the whole train to go with it, and it’s not just a display model?

    Pure, raw, awesome is what that is.

  6. Matt Hamann

    It is such a treat to see the whole train run in real life. It is truly a feat of Lego engineering. My only complaint is the the back of the boiler isn’t angled like in the prototype, but, as Benn says on Lugnet, he has fixed that problem with cheese slopes. Hopefully I’ll get to see it at the next train show we do.

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