Acknowledgments On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of LeGO trains in 2016 i published my first book LEGO Eisenbahn Konzepte und Techniken für realistische Modelle now the english version The LEGO Trains Book is available after Jake Mckee’s book Getting Started with LEGO Trains this is only the second book entirely dedicated to LeGO railways and building your own train models i could not have made this book without the support direct and indirect from many people that i would like to thank here First i must mention Gabriel neumann from dpunkt verlag who came up with the idea and gave me the opportunity to create the book another big thank you goes to Tyler Ortman and riley hoffman from no starch Press who worked hard to make this book available for the international audience This english version wouldn’t have been possible without ronald Vallenduuk’s translation and Michael Gale’s reviews Both contributed their expertise to make this book a great resource for all LeGO train fans Thanks also to the numerous LeGO fans around the globe who create their MOcs and present them online even as a longstanding LeGO fan i still regularly wonder how certain details were created and i am always fascinated to see new creations Thank you to BrickLink shops big and small who supply me with the raw materials and who by parting out many sets make it possible to acquire large quantities of certain parts Thank you to all the invisible volunteers in the LeGO fan community who contribute to the various databases such as the parts catalog on BrickLink and the programmers and parts authors who create and update the open source virtual building programs Without them it would have been impossible to create my own building instructions a personal thank you to the photographers who let me use their pictures to create a link with the real world These photographers are Jürgen heegmann ralf hiesgen steffen rau Luis rentero armin schwarz and siemens aG www siemens com press x
special thanks go to roland Dahl who patiently answered all my ques tions about rendering images in POV-ray gave me many tips and brought the Monorail picture to life Many thanks to my friends and family They motivated me kept an interest throughout the process and very importantly cast a critical eye on the devel oping book The biggest thank you goes out to my old friend and master photographer andy Bahler www andybahler de without whose pictures this book would have been useless his commitment night after night was above and beyond expectation and the undiscovered broken coupling on the 7740 brought him right back into my LeGO world Thanks andy Andy Bahler at work enjoy the book and build holger Matthes www holgermatthes de bricks xi
Foreword For as long as i can remember i have always been a train fan as with many children bitten by the same bug i would indulge in any opportunity to watch ride or play with trains Playing with trains progressively evolved into the more serious hobby of model trains Building with LeGO bricks was also a big part of my childhood i would build towns spaceships vehicles aircraft or whatever took my fancy The LeGO system allowed me to explore more creative and freeform building experiences distinct from the more rigid and disciplined world of scale model trains For many years into my adulthood my hobby time was dominated by model trains But despite my focus on model trains i had the presence of mind to retain my childhood LeGO collection This proved to be a good decision since i was able to introduce that LeGO collection to my children This marked the beginning of what was to become a new era of my life with the LeGO hobby The Fairy Bricks Express a MOC that I contributed to the Fairy Bricks charity auction event at BRICK 2015 in London This model was my first serious attempt at building a LEGO train and is based on the British Rail Inter-City 125 one of my all-time favorite trains xii
Building with my children rekindled the joy of endless hours of freeform building and exploration that i enjoyed as a child it wasn’t long before i found myself attempting to build LeGO trains My early attempts were basic but my scale model train instincts suggested that better results were pos sible especially with the broad range of new LeGO parts that hadn’t existed in my childhood i started to explore the internet for inspiration and to see if there was a contemporary LeGO train hobby or community i quickly discovered that there was in fact a very active and accomplished building community Furthermore the standard of the models i was seeing was beginning to approach the fidelity of traditional scale model trains i recall this being a light bulb moment for me a realization that i could merge my two lifelong hobby interests into a combined passion for building model trains using the medium of LeGO bricks When exploring the LeGO train hobby it doesn’t take long before you come across the name holger Matthes his epic and groundbreaking cre ations vividly demonstrate the art of the possible Furthermore holger has taken the time to document and describe all the useful and creative building techniques specific to LeGO train builders i owe holger a debt of gratitude for the knowledge and inspiration that guided my progression through this hobby in this context it was almost surreal that a few years later i found myself being asked to review and make a small contribution to this book in the pages that follow you will find the collective wealth of wisdom gath ered over many years This is the book LeGO train builders everywhere have been missing it will prove to be an invaluable resource and reference for all train builders beginners and experts alike Lastly it will provide a source of inspiration and hopefully encourage newcomers to take the plunge and dis cover the joy of LeGO trains Michael Gale xiii
