I Like Trains House - LEGO MOC

Modifying a 3-in-1 set to make a house for train fans.

My local LUG is going to have a table at the International Railfair this year—as at previous years, from what I understand—and I wanted to contribute something to the scene. Since I don't have any Lego trains of my own, I decided to add some landscape.

I started with the 3-in-1 Creator set, 31025, specifically with the cabin & mountain main build. I wanted to create a minifigure-scale toy train table, as a nod to the fans at the Railfair, and add a pair of French doors so the train-lover can bring it out into the open and show to the passing engineers (my hope is to have the final result be placed alongside the tracks). The Steampunk Inventor from CMF 27 was the perfect fit for a DIY toy train builder, and since there's already a youthful fan (CMF 25's Steam Train Boy) it made sense to include him too.

So, I sketched out my idea to expand the house (the top Post-it), and decided to add a few other trains as well (the bottom one). I did a bit of research and found a few different designs for tiny Lego trains (most of them from various Advent calendars) but I had a feeling there could be more possibilities...and anyways at three studs long they were way too big for a train diorama small enough to fit inside the cabin—even with my planned expansion. So I started experimenting:

If using minifigure roller skate pieces, I found that you can't put two of them on a 1x2 base because the heel parts clash.

You can place them side-by-side, as shown above, and slot 1x1 tiles onto the heel and toe parts—as you often see in brick-built Corinthian capitals, for example—but that results in a rather flexible hold.

It's also possible to stack "L" and "7" SNOT plates, with a plate in between, to have studs on either side for the wheels, but as you can see that results in a difference of about half a plate's difference between the wheels on either side.

These seven trains are the result of my experiments, with varying degrees of success. I also mix-and-matched different solutions for the cab and smoke stack, to see what looks best. The left- and right-most large builds are built sideways, stacking bricks, plates, and modified plates; these were the lest successful, in my opinion, but someone might find them useful. 

I also built a DOTS-style 2-D train to be attached to the house as well (they like trains a lot in that household, clearly), resulting in four built trains to be included in the final design:

After I determined the scale for the smallest build, I was able to add a coal car (appropriately with a wind-up key to provide power to the toy train) and a little passenger carriage. This also allowed me to build up the train table, as shown in this post's first image. As you can see below, however, there's no way for even such a petite diorama to fit in the existing house, so I had to expand it, splitting it down the middle and adding 5 stud's-worth of space between the 6-stud halves.

In the process I improved on a few of the minor complaints I had with the original design. As a result of the need—common in 3-in-1 sets—to have basic parts that work well for other builds, there were color mismatch issues (eg, having a tan bracket in the middle of a brown wall) and texture issues (or lack thereof). I also added an attic to the expanded roof space, as well as a detachable roof for access.

 

I also changed the hinges out for ones in more appropriate greys and the clip that fastened the house closed: it was originally a black 1x1 brick with a vertical clip grabbing onto a tan 1x1 brick with a bar handle, which resulted in a 1-brick gap between them. Instead, I took a lesson from the Monkie Kid sets (for example Monkie Kid's Staff Creations and Creative Vehicles) and used a round 1x2 with bars for the clip to attach to.

As you can see in the above photos, I used two of the printed window pieces from the Trotting Lantern set for the French doors (they don't actually move, but they look too nice to complain much). The train table has legs tipped with silver roller skate pieces to emulate the look of casters, which makes it easy for our dapper train fan to bring his set out into the open.

In addition to the expanded deck, I also wanted to have a bit of landscaping that would fit well with the club's own much larger train table, so I made use of the tree design from 31025, but made them differently-sized (one shorter and one taller). To further push the Disney-style forced perspective, I used larger and more-detailed pieces in the foreground and smaller, vaguer pieces for the background:

The final result swaps the cabin and mountain from the original design, with altered proportions to better fit the needs of the design as well.

 

And, of course, getting to set it up with Sac BB's other builds (both buildings from the Modular series and MOCs) on their amazing display (as shown in this local news featurette) was quite an honor.

 

 

There was even a special little guest! Who knew lizards liked trains?