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Good day,
I just bought a huge lot of monorail (7 trains and 100s of pieces of track) with the idea of integrating it with some locos in a lay-out. Does anyone have a suggestion on favorite tram designs to integrate? I have the airport shuttle, but it is pretty simplistic compared to the current designs. If we every start setting up displays, I can certainly share the track/trains for the set ups.Hmmm, that is interesting. My first thought is that a monorail needs to go through something, like a building or earthen structure. Also it seems easier to integrate monorail into existing sets displays if it is elevated.
We have had some custom designed monorails in the LUG, mostly space I think … and there is a winter-themed one. If you search the threads for monorail, you might find them.
With the LEGO monorail design you are kind of locked into a really long vehicle that bends in the middle, no? If you are not committed to a town theme, this would be a good design for a caterpillar crawling through a garden … or a jungle … or a zoo.
– just throwing out ideas, @tfdesigns probably has more ideas but is Febru-buried in another project right now
Nice Idea. Here is an example of the track that the original owner had. Quite elaborate. He was an architect, so he did a nice job of sketching it out.
@randomdan: You Have Been Summoned.
Great to see another monorail fan in the club! You’ll find monorail is a flexible system and extremely fun.
Here are a few space themed ideas based on my own builds or experiments:
* Inclined plane – monorail can operate on a 45° angle. I used a single monorail base with a boat weight and had the motor pushing. Stop/go switched on either end allow it to run continuously.
* Robot – Using just a monorail motor, the motor cover, and battery box. I mounted the battery box across the track longways, added arms, and a cockpit on top. Probably some pics on the forum somewhere (displayed at PBF ’18 or ’19).
* 60’s style bullet nose train – I built a spacey one modeled on that look. Dubbed it the Thunderbolt, also on the forums somewhere.
* Centercab train – built a cab on top the engine cover and added gondola style hoppers on either end. Displayed this many times so there’s bound to be a pic on Flickr or the forums.
* Monorail rail cars – monorail bogeys can be detached from the based and mount well on Technic plates. I’ve built a number of spacey cars using those based and magentic couplers. Be careful to articular the bogeys and couplers properly if you want to navigate switches and curves with ease.
* Rocket launching train
* Food truck themed train (always wanted to do this one, but haven’t taken the time)
* Space farm automated watering system – mount booms with sprinkler heads off the engine and push a car with battery box and tank
* Undersea (Seatron) monorail
* Mobile orbital defense laserFor collaborative builds most people do Town so here are a few ideas for that:
* Firefighting monorail
* Car hauler (like a ferry)
* Canal connector hauling boats (like the Portage Railroad of local historic game)Some fantasy ideas:
* Jousting knights
* Sea serpentUnfortunately I don’t have pictures of many (any?) of my builds on this phone, but many of them are on the forums or club Flickr.
Keep in mind that you needn’t be constrained to the traditional monorail base. You can build your own cars and integrate with the motor via its studs, just treat it as a bogey that doesn’t have built-in articulation. You can use a PF battery box if you have the converter cable (I think I had an IR receiver working with one of my monorail trains). Have fun with it!
Keep in mind that you needn’t be constrained to the traditional monorail base. You can build your own cars and integrate with the motor via its studs, just treat it as a bogey that doesn’t have built-in articulation. You can use a PF battery box if you have the converter cable (I think I had an IR receiver working with one of my monorail trains).
This I would like to see.
I tried to brick-build a monorail santa’s sleigh once. It was too top heavy. 🙁
Holy smokes, those are gorgeous drawings!!! Did he actually create all that? I saw that and I said to myself …
That is what I thought too. I decided to go out on a lim and drive to West Virginia to buy it. It was the real deal. Some of the blocks are aged, but must are not and there are over 250 monorail track pieces, 7 vehicles and working motors which was my main interest. I was surprised by the amount of bulk legos, 9V/12V train and accessories and 2 full bins (56Q) of people. so if you have any specific affections for 1988/1989 legos types let me know and we can work it out. Forestmen, bluecoat soldiers, pirates, castle townspeople, horses, and boat hauls. There are a number of non-lego pieces I need to purge which I would normally would just through away, but I think because of the number of them, I will try to find a home for them.
Back in the 80’s there was no bricklink, no LEGO store, no eBay, no internet. This architect was buying sets from ToysRUs or bricks through the LEGO catalog, 100 pieces per bag!
In a separate LUG thread, someone else posted today about getting parts for a location in Bellvue. Perhaps your surplus brick could go there.
Regardless, what a find! Were any of the buildings still intact? You’ll need to have your own Western PA model train museum … right across the street. 🙂
I’d estimate these are about five years old. Here’s an automatic block signalling system I experimented with a few years ago. It worked very well, but I didn’t have a permanent layout at the time and didn’t work on miniaturizing it.
And a simple train outdoors.
Here is a tanker transloading facility.
And an ore hauler car (the couplers didn’t work as well as I would have liked).
LegoDude, this is a real Wunderland. It’s more vertical than anything our LUG has done in a display this large. It is a massive asset and the sort of display we aspire to.
What do you plan to do with it all?
My goal was really to see if the Western PA RR Museum team would be interested in permanent larger display of legos and use these as the starting point. I would love to have the Lugs team (whoever was interested) work to integrate and refresh portions of the display bi-annually. The problem was they were not open this year, so they are on hold for now.
My goal was really to see if the Western PA RR Museum team would be interested in permanent larger display of legos and use these as the starting point. I would love to have the Lugs team (whoever was interested) work to integrate and refresh portions of the display bi-annually. The problem was they were not open this year, so they are on hold for now.
@legodude, Len, if you get any traction at the WPA RR Museum with this idea, count me in to help. I live about 5 miles away!!On your “big haul”, if there are any 9V train, track or accessories that you’re looking to get rid of, I’d be interested in talking.
I had a neighbor who was retired and was a member of the WPARRM. I made this suggestion about LEGO at the train museum about 15 years ago and he asked my a whole bunch of questions including who would sit there and monitor the display whenever the museum was open.
When I did this before at WPARRM, I did have to answer number of questions, but I made it easy for them. The first meeting I had with them, I brought some building, trains, vehicles (just sets) and they were sold. It took a little more to work the details as they are an organization with a structure, history, and like to work a certain way. We outlined the space and pre-built the set ups in my house and moved them to the building. It took me about 2 hours to set them up once I arrived. I returned the morning before they opened and got everything finished and running. I was there the first few hours and then I would stop by periodically to check. I showed them how to start everything and they did it most days. I tried to stop by when they opened most days to be sure everything was good and would fix a couple items which got touched or moved. The only thing I would not leave running while I was not there is the roller coaster as it de-railed too often even though people loved it. They are all great guys who love trains. They were very nice to me and most were amazed by the details.
The one item they really wanted that I could not help them with was a “hands on display” for the kids. My only thoughts were if we could get some duplo track and glue it down and allow the kids to use duplos to build things around the track and run the trains around the track like the Brio or Thomas the tank push trains.
Thanks Bob….I was thinking you would be in.
I have ton of 12V/4.5V items from the sets (100 RR lights, crossings, track, signals, switches, motors, trains, wires)PS….I have not followed up with WPARRM recently, so I cannot say they would support. They took this year off due to COVID, so things may have changed. I have to follow up.
I have a decent size monorail that I got for Christmas as a kid and luckily 2 extra track kits. However Something I always wanted to do but still not enough track with my city layout would be a roller coaster like monorail. Something like space mountain for example. Built a half dome of a mountain (would need a ton of big ugly rock pieces too) with some caves that you can see it from the front side pass by. Then the back is all open and can see the whole set up. As someone else said these with run at a 45 degree angle so could be interesting.
@greg I dug out my old Spyrius monorail robot (monobot?). True, it doesn’t handle hills well, but it can manage curves.
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