I'd like to apologize in advance if the formatting is weird, this is my first real post here.
When I was young, one of my favorite displays I saw at any train show were the ones operated by the Lego clubs, the fact that a layout the size of an O gauge layout could be made piece by piece just amazed me. I'm not going to take any credit for being the first to do this, a guy on a Lego forum that did a similar project blows my little train out of the water, but I feel this is still cool enough to share.
Say hello to the Lego Liner, a combination of a two preexisting sets and a few MOCs (my own creations), as well as plenty of spare Lionel, MTH, Williams, and K line trucks:
Motive Power:
Our humble 0-4-0 leading the train is based off the KT404-1 Small Locomotive with Tender, and more specifically, the green version that I got for Christmas as a kid back in 2004. This isn't the original kit however, every piece in this train aside from the trucks was ordered from a website that deals in second hand legos called Bricklink. I made a few changes to the overall design to fill in empty space such as the cowcatcher and front pistons, as well as replacing its regular smokestack with a western style one and its European style headlights with a single one mounted on the front of the smokestack. Powering the train, at least for now, is a simple MTH bump and go trolley chassis, which is surprisingly strong enough to move the 5 car consist. The chassis is attached through a set of plates and studs that were superglued (yes I know this is cheating) to the tops of screws, and then set into the screw holes on the chassis and glued into place, while this does require a bit of care when moving, it's sturdy enough for now.
The tender rides on a spare Williams 6 wheel tender truck that has had a pair of 2x2 plates glued on to the sides which clip onto the underside of the tender. For the engine/tender drawbar, actual Lego train magnets are used, and even though they have only failed on me twice, they feature studs to easily make the coupling more sturdy should the need arise.
The Carriages:
The Lego Liner's consist is made up of 4 (5 including the tender) cars, a baggage car, two coaches, and a caboose. each carriage uses the same scheme to attach the trucks to the base, that being a 4x4 round plate with a hole in the middle originally intended for technic pins, now holding the screw for an O gauge truck. To clear the head of the screw, 1x2 plates are used, and these attach to the undercarriage of the various Lego cars. The three passenger cars are MOCs (my own creations) that I made in a Lego digital designer program and then ordered the parts online the same way I did with the locomotive, while the caboose was acquired pre owned and pre built off of everyone's favorite bay, it seems to be loosely based off of the actual Lego 10014 Caboose set.
Operation:
This video is a bit outdated due to the fact it was filmed before I finished the baggage car and built carriage #3, but it shows the train in action on the River City 3 Railer's 12x15 layout:
The Future:
While I do have a whole train, this is definitely not the end of this project. While the trolley chassis runs fine, it's limited to forward operation only in conventional mode, and it's also too weak to pull anything other than the Lego Liner. The end goal is to replace it with the chassis of a Lionel Junction 0-4-0 tank engine, which will grant it a hopefully stronger frame as well as the sounds and lionchief controls of the donor engine.