About Ralph

Ralph Savelsberg, also known as Mad physicist, is an actual physicist, but he's not all that mad. He has been building with LEGO ever since he could first put two bricks together. He primarily builds scale models of cars and aircraft. You can find most of Ralph's stuff on his flickr pages.

Posts by Ralph

My (not so short) journey into LEGO Trains [Feature]

At first, the locomotive on my train transport truck would be just an interesting load for the truck. As I was building it, though, it became something a little more. I wanted to turn it into a working and running locomotive.

As a child, I loved my LEGO train. For Christmas 1981, my parents and grandparents conspired to buy me a train set, some more rails, an additional wagon and a 4.5V motor and battery box. This was everything that I, aged six at the time, could have wanted. I played with it for years, modifying it to my heart’s content. As an adult Lego builder, however, I drifted away from building trains.

A fair few adult LEGO builders may be on the spectrum. And in the stereotype, LEGO train builders even more so. (They are like Texas compared to the rest of the US: very similar, but the trucks, steaks and hairdos are even bigger). I am a physicist, though, if this were true, it would be nothing I could not handle. Furthermore, some of the friendliest and most talented builders I know are “train heads”, but I am not one of them.

Choo-choo-choose to read the rest of Ralph’s LEGO train journey!

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Train truckers haul heavy metal

It is quite normal to see a truck (or lorry, if your persuasion is British) on top of a train. A train on top of a truck, however, is unusual, but that makes it an interesting Lego build.

Carrying trains is one of the specialities of British operator Allelys Heavy Haulage. The tractor is a German-built MAN TGX, specifically intended for heavy-duty use. The locomotive is a so-called Ivatt Class 2 2-6-0, built in 1952-53 in the UK. This particular example still serves with a heritage railway in the Scottish Highlands.

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With great trucks come little vans

In many countries, trucks with oversize loads, like the transformer transport I built several weeks ago, are commonly accompanied by escort vehicles. They warn other road users and their drivers can help the trucks’ drivers to navigate tight curves or narrow streets.

In the UK, such escort vehicles are usually vans. Obviously, these tend to have high-visibility markings, which, to me, makes them attractive as Lego builds. My latest two models represent two rather different examples: a Ford Transit and a Mercedes Sprinter.
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Tractor pulling

It is hard to put my finger on it, but British trucks often have a look that somehow immediately marks them as British. Case in point, my new Lego DAF XG, as operated by Manners Transport from Northumberland. I think it is mainly the colour blocking, with contrasting red and bright light yellow elements.

Manners specializes in transporting farming equipment, such as combine harvesters. However, since I already have a combine harvester transport, this model was going to carry a tractor instead. I picked a Deutz-Fahr tractor because its bright green colour contrasts nicely with the truck.

When I posted a picture of the tractor model last week, fellow Dutch truck builder Legorigs wrote that I ought to be able to fit two of them on a trailer. Such a great idea! This was not part of my plan, but two tractors are obviously better than one, so I built a second example.
Let’s see how this plan came together

Transformer, roll out!

Having grown up in the eighties, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of a Transformer is a vehicle that changes into a giant robot. In the real world, though, a transformer is less exciting. It is a device that changes the voltage of an electric current. Transformers can range from small enough to fit on printed circuit boards to massive industrial units weighing hundreds of tons. My latest LEGO model represents a mid-size example, of about 50 tons.

I’ve been building minifigure-scale vehicles lately, and a transformer seemed to be a suitable load for a nice heavy-haulage truck. The Mercedes Arocs truck is a model that I have been planning (and buying parts for) for quite a while. It should pair nicely with a Goldhofer modular trailer.

Let’s shift gears and see how this truck came together!

Battling Atlantic waves

During WWII, Britain could only continue fighting Nazi Germany thanks to constant foreign imports and weapons shipments from the US. To stem this flow, the German “Kriegsmarine” employed hundreds of submarines, that sank 3,500 Allied merchant ships and 175 Allied warships. Besides enemy action, ships, the submarines, and their crews they also had to deal with atrocious weather, particularly in wintertime.

My latest model, for a Battle of the Atlantic display at BrickFair Virginia this summer, represents a German submarine riding the waves. Originally I was going to build just the conning tower, but that left me with a problem: visible lines are running from the conning tower to the front and aft of the boat’s hull. By building more of the boat and the waves thrown up by its passage, I could attach them. As a result, I spent more time building the waves than the model of the boat itself. This was far from the easiest thing I have ever done, but I hope you agree it was well worth the trouble.

A complicated combine combination

A while ago I wrote that I feel that my Lego models keep getting more complicated due to new parts and new techniques, while building something small and simple can be a lot more fun. The flip side is that those parts and techniques allow building things I could not have built years ago. Case in point: my new combine harvester transport. For years I mainly built larger-scale models, in part because I struggled to build a recognizable make and model of the vehicle at a scale suitable for Lego minifigures.

Despite new parts, it still is not particularly easy. This is one of the reasons why even Lego’s own designers resort to using stickers for the cars in the Speed Champions range, for instance. And those are pretty complicated, certainly for sets. Furthermore, their scale really stretches the definition of what is suitable for minifigures. Of course, I could have built a truck carrying a combine years ago. It would have looked like a generic European truck, though, while this model is recognizably a Dutch DAF truck, thanks to parts such as brackets. Obviously, I did use some stickers, but only for the company livery. What kept building this fun and relaxing, despite its complexity, was looking at it as a combination of smaller projects.
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Just a simple construction site

At the start of a new year I am always looking forward to new Lego sets. They usually include new parts that I can use in my own models. What is possible now is amazing, especially compared to a few years ago, thanks to various brackets, curved elements and new colors. However, there is a drawback. I find that my models get more and more complicated. And as a result, building them becomes more time-consuming and less relaxing than it used to be.

In March, I am due to display some of my models at a show for cranes, heavy haulage and earthmoving equipment. Rather than another crane or mega windmill transporter, I decided to build a few small items typical for a construction site. I built the portable toilet and trailer last year, together with the white Iveco. The mini digger, matching trailer and blue pickup truck are new. Especially the truck isn’t all that complicated. I used old-school studs-up building and a few half-stud offsets. Sometimes building something small and a bit simpler can be a lot more fun.

The golden age of air travel rendered in silver

Nowadays, flying economy class isn’t much fun. In the early seventies though, during the golden age of air travel, things were decidedly more luxurious. Case in point, the American Airlines DC-10 “Luxury Liner” built by BigPlanes.

His model, built using roughly 20,000 Lego parts, represents one of the first of the type to enter service, in 1971. Back then, American Airlines aircraft were mostly silver and so is the model, which is pretty amazing given the limited number of LEGO parts in that color. It also has a motorized retractable undercarriage and a full interior in funky seventies colors. It includes an in-flight lounge for the coach class passengers! Such on-board luxury did not last long, though. By the end of the decade airliners started cramming as many seats into their planes as possible and the golden era of air travel was over.

Military spaceplanes: Dyna-Soar and the Orbital Test Vehicle

Usually I don’t build space-themed models, but my latest two models are exceptions. Then again, they aren’t exactly your everyday space builds, representing real-world spaceplanes developed for the US military. The first is the X-20 Dyna-Soar (for “dynamic soarer”). This was an ambitious program to build a reusable manned spaceplane. It started within weeks of the Soviet Union’s first Sputnik launch. It never came to fruition, though. A few years later, with the first prototype already under construction, escalating costs and an unclear mission resulted in its cancellation.

The second is the much more recent and successful X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. This is an unmanned reusable spaceplane currently in service with the US Space Force. So far, two vehicles have flown six missions. The latest was the longest, with almost 909 days spent in orbit. Its official role is to demonstrate reusable space technologies. However, there has been speculation that it carries reconnaissance equipment and may even be intended for anti-satellite missions or to test space-based weapons.

In less than two weeks, both of these models will be on display at BrickFair Northern Virginia, as part of the “eXperimental Military Collaboration”.

Scandinavian power, with a Dutch twist

Lego is not Denmark’s only market-leading company; Vestas, the world’s largest builder of wind turbines, is also Danish. After I built my mega-windmill trailer with a Vestas wind turbine nacelle, I seriously considered building a truck carrying one of the wind turbine’s blades. However, these blades are so big that, even at minifig scale, the model would have to be more than a meter long. This did not strike me as a particularly fun build, but I found a suitable alternative. It is a truck that carries the wind turbine’s hub. The tractor unit is a Volvo FM; another powerhouse from Scandinavia.

There’s a Dutch twist too. It is in the largely orange livery of Dutch heavy haulage specialists Van Der Vlist. And the trailer represents a semi-low loader built by Nooteboom, which is also Dutch. Its load is a lot more manageable than a turbine blade, but it is still a fairly substantial piece of equipment. It is wider than the trailer and so tall that its nose cap is transported separately on the trailer. It tapers and it has a complicated geometry because of the holes for the three blades in the sides. I built three identical sections, with angled panels between them. These all attach to a six-section bottom ring. There is a smaller ring and a separate truncated cone on top. Building all of this did turn out to be a fun challenge.

There is no substitute for a big Diesel

In the Netherlands, wind turbines are a big part of the transition to renewable energy. With the turbines getting bigger, moving their components to wind farms requires ever larger vehicles. My latest LEGO model represents such a vehicle: a Volvo FH16 with a so-called mega-windmill trailer, in the livery of Dutch heavy haulage company Van Der Vlist.

The real truck has a six-cylinder engine that produces 750 HP. It needs all that power because the Vestas wind turbine nacelle that it carries weighs a whopping 70 tons. And the nacelle’s transport frames add another four tons. This also explains the combination’s large number of axles. They distribute the weight to protect the road surface. As a result, this is a big model. Even on a small scale suitable for LEGO minifigures it has a total length of 93 cm (about 3ft).