Benny's LEGO City Update #5 - Suburban Train Station

Video Link: Benny's LEGO City Update #5 - Suburban Train Station

City progress is good progress, especially when it involves anything in the trains department. One of my first completely custom built from scratch projects is this suburban train station, the first of 3 going into my city and the smallest.

This is modeled after a typical train station you would find in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. As a kid I used to love just hanging out at a station fence with my Grandpa and watch the trains arrive and the passengers head off to whatever adventure awaited. I was always jealous and wanted to go on a train just for the ride.

When I was older and before I had a car of my own I used to walk to the local station and wait for the train to take me to the football games. Many times after the game ended, with a rush of patrons to catch the first train, I had to stand in the rain because there was often minimal undercover areas and i usually didn't bring my umbrella. I have built this station reminisce of those times with almost no shelter from the elements.

Something I've noticed over the years is the growing popularity and use of of abstract architecture when building or renovating the real world stations. I've contributed my own azure and dark green design theme when it comes to this, and some of the abstract work is very obvious in the pillars of the foot bridge.

The station platforms are far enough apart (10 studs) to allow my widest trains to pass through, mainly sure to wheel cranks and piston rods on the steam trains.

A lot of the ballasting details still need to be finished but they are definitely on the way... any minute now... I swear!

A view across the platforms with the 
ever important vending machines.

Abstract bridge architecture. Hopefully it holds up.

Automated ticket machines, now accepting tap and go!

Please stand behind the yellow line until
the train has come to a complete stop.

While my train station system is 33.3% completed, with the next one being a bit bigger and then the main station planned to be an absolute behemoth I still have my work ahead of me.

Benny's LEGO City Update #4 - Beach & Bay Walls

Video Link: Benny's LEGO City Update #4 - Beach & Bay Walls

Hi all, this time around for my City Update video I'm trying out a bit of a VLOG style as suggested by some subscribers.

I've completed the largest stretch of bay wall, and probably the most interesting, if you could call it that at all for a bunch of grey bricks...

Some of the less boring sections are the water and sewer maintenance access area and the larger cylindrical sewer pipes. I based them off a similar build technique using arches and rounded bricks that I saw demonstrated somewhere sometime but had nothing to do with sewers or pipes. It works well for this purpose.

My next few updates will show some of my custom buildings on the suburban side of town.

Benny's LEGO City Update #3 - Modular Buildings Area

Video Link: Benny's LEGO City Update #3 - Modular Buildings Area

I really love the official Creator Expert designed Modular Building line. I always had a space reserved for the current and some future sets in my City layout. Most of these buildings lend themselves well to replication or expansion. So I will be either making them taller by adding floors or making them wider, or BOTH! In this first batch which makes up one block in the City, I have included the following sets, all modified to some degree:

• 10224 Town Hall
• 10211 Grand Emporium
• 10218 Pet Shop
• 10246 Detective's Office
• 10251 Brick Bank
• 10255 Assembly Square

I'm going to be making individual videos for each of the customized buildings, giving my quick thoughts and detailing any expansions, additions or changes I've made as well as going through any interesting design or build techniques I found.

Benny's LEGO City Update #2 - Train Track & Ballast

Video Link: Benny's LEGO City Update #2 - Train Track & Ballast

G'day, I want to start this post with a bit of a story.

When I was a child my Opa has several HO scale train layouts. My cousin an I would spend hours and hours making up trains and controlling them around. My Opa was a very talented man and would hand make and paint all the scenery, mountain landscapes, roads and he was especially good at waterfalls and rivers. I always loved my own LEGO train sets as a kid and when I started planning a LEGO city I knew that trains would play a very large roll in it. Here's hoping I have inherited some of Opa's talent and can do justice with my own layout.

The longest stretch of track covers the entire length of the table.

Full curve in place to help line up the ballast.

Plate outline of one of the switch tracks.

Switch tracks were the most complicated to get the under details lined up.
This is where 2 switches almost touch.

Unfinished train yard. The colored plates have no significance,
they were just cheap to buy in bulk and made good filler.

Finishing up the train yard... bags of parts and tracks everywhere... organized chaos.

Extra studs for detail will be added to the inside of the curves.

Quite a while ago I was trying out a few designs for the train track look. A popular method is using 1x4 black or brown tiles alternating every other stud, which I think looks amazing. However I decided to go with 2x4 plates in the middle and 1x2 plates on the outside, both in reddish brown, not just to be different but to save me a LOT of money. With so much track on the table it starts to add up fast. The tracks are placed on a double layer of built up grey plates with further layers of smaller detail to be added after the tracks are in. I made some final prototypes before going ahead to be sure I'd be happy with the design.

Straight section prototype.

Curved prototype was very time consuming...

And just some number crunching, this layout is made up of:

• 433 Straight Tracks
• 93 Curved Tracks
• 15 Switch Tracks (8 Right, 7 Left)
• Over 1500 redish brown 2x4 plates and over 3000 1x2 plates to make up the main sleepers
• Around 600 light grey modified plates + 1200 cheese slopes for station sleepers
• Over TEN THOUSAND various grey plates making up the ballast and details
• So far...

Thanks guys be sure to look at the YouTube Video for a complete dynamic run through of the finished layout. Next up I will be adding in some further details and getting some trains running.

Benny's LEGO City Update #1 - Baseplates

Video Link: Benny's LEGO City Update #1 - Baseplates

G'day all. After a bit of a break due to the birth of my beautiful baby girl, the first progress post for my custom LEGO City is here.

Since I am elevating a majority of the City off the table top height (sea level) I chose to go with a wooden MDF built rise rather than spend an absurd amount of money on LEGO that would never be seen. So with the help of my bro in law Shane, we activated expert master carpenter mode and got into it.

We started straight in this corner and hoped it would all line up at the end as well.

The size of the MDF sheets definitely meant I needed a hand.

    

Working our way around the table.

Plenty of room for subway train lines perhaps?

Just over half way through the elevation process We ran out of stumps. It's the same with LEGO parts, always underestimating how fast they get used up. Back to Bunnings for extra timber, and a cheeky Sausage Sizzle never hurts.

Over 100 of these stumps were used.

And then finally some LEGO on the table in the places it's meant to be. Over the past week I used my design on BlueBrick on the TV to lay out all the baseplates.

Time to unpack and spread all this!

I tried my best to have the different colored baseplate zones make sense and represent real world things:

• Blue = water or ocean
• Green or Bright Green = grass, paddock or unturned land
• Tan or Brown = sand or dirt
• Light Grey = concrete
• Dark Grey = concrete or tar

In some cases I know there will be other parts covering the baseplate, such as footpath tiling out the front of buildings or sand on the beach.

Have a look at my Video on YouTube to see the completed baseplate layout.

Thanks for checking out my first City Update. Next week I'll start working on what I've been looking forward to for a long, long, time. Train tracks!

Benny's LEGO Room - Part 3 - Complete Room Tour & Entertainment System

Video Link: Benny's LEGO Room Tour - 1st Feb 2018

G'day everyone welcome to the third and final part of my initial LEGO Room setup.

Look, actual LEGO sets, that makes it official! I was actually still in the process of installing the rest of the under table LEDs so I had just placed everything on top of the table and on the shelves, roughly sorted by theme.

The view of my spare parts from the door. Chewie checks my credentials before I'm allowed to enter.

Star Wars UCS good guy ships.

Star Wars UCS baddies. Lots of yet to be opened Star Wars boxes.

Mixels (for the kids) and random Classic boxes.

More Star Wars boxes yet to be opened. Including the Executor.

Lots of City stuff for... the City...

Starting to get into the more interesting City and Licensed Theme stuff.

Trains Trains TRAINS!

Creator Expert Modular Buildings, some are multiples for expanding options.

Smaller Creator 3in1 houses and buildings.

Super Heroes - No arguments from me, I love both DC & Marvel!

The centerpiece of the entertainment system is the 65 Inch Samsung KS8500 4K Curved TV. Normally I wouldn't go for a curved TV but I got this on a great sale at JB Hi Fi one day compared to its flat screen brother and for a while it was my main TV in the GEEK Room but have since swapped it out for an OLED. So into the LEGO Room it went. One of the reasons I considered this TV in the first place was a review on the RTINGS website. These guys do very in depth reviews of modern TVs and are a great resource for setting up and calibrating a new TV.

Link: RTINGS review of the Samsung KS8500

65 Inches of curved.

Straight on view looks sweet.

The other main star of the entertainment system is the new PC I built. It will be used for LEGO digital designing & BlueBrick, streaming YouTube & Netflix etc, sneaking in some games while sitting in the City and now video editing for my YouTube channel and this Blog. Originally I was going to wall mount it next to the TV but it just stuck out too far and I didn't trust my clumsy self enough to not smash my shoulder on it every time I walked past. It's now found it's place to the far right of one of the main shelves and when I finish rebuilding the UCS Death Star II (in the tub) they will sit side by side. One to destroy and one to create.

Sacrificing some LEGO real estate for the PC and Xbox.

My new Ryzen beast. I named it BenZen.

Blue and Orange lighting to match my Blog branding.

The fans have a swirly pattern that reminds me of the round things in the TARDIS.
I've always liked the round things. What are they? I don't know.

The tech specs if anyone is interested:
Case: Thermaltake Core P3 with Tempered Glass
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X overclocked to 4.0GHz on all 8 Cores, 16 threads
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kracken X52 240mm AIO Radiator Cooler
Motherboard: ASUS Crossahair 6 Hero - X370 Chipset
RAM: 16GB G. Skill Trident Z RGB overclocked to almost 3000MHz
Graphics: EVGA GTX 1070 FTW2 (nVidia)
Power Supply: Corsair RM750x Gold 750W
Primary Storage: Samsung 960 EVO 250GB M.2 SSD & Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SATA SSD
Secondary Storage: Seagate 2TB HDD
Custom black sleeved cables from CableMod
Windows 10 Pro & Adobe Photoshop/Premiere Elements 18

View from the middle of the City.

We ran 2x USB booster cables from the PC , up the wall, across the roof , down the opposite side behind the corner shelving unit and then to the middle of the tables where my keyboard and mouse await. We did it this way so that there were no crossing cables to trip on around the walkway. I use a Corsair Lapdog on my lap when I'm gaming on the couch in the GEEK Lounge so I grabbed another one on Black Friday for the LEGO Room. Any table room taken up by a keyboard means less space for LEGO and we can't have that. Throw in a couple of Star Wars bar stools I got for Christmas and we are all set.

Corsair K70 Rapid Fire mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX silver linear speed switches.

Corsair M65 Pro mouse with handy slow DPI button in easy thumbs reach.

Keyboard and mouse housed nicely in the Corsair Lapdog.

I added an Xbox One S primarily for watching Blu-Ray. I'm going to build a custom LEGO shroud around it to make it blend in with the LEGO models. Will need to include plenty of exhaust with these things of course.

Xbox One S - 500GB - White.

As I mentioned earlier I was still finishing up the LED strips and in the previous post I described my initial trouble with them not sticking. Happy to say after my solution they are now holding strong and showing no signs of letting go. I finished up the last 2 tables and am very pleased with the result. I can turn them on/off independently from the roof lights.

The LED strips will do justice for the models that will eventually be under the table.

This one reminds me of the old Nokia phone game Snake.

Underneath the tables I left enough space to either build or buy some form of storage. After looking through Bunnings at various drawer systems and tubs I found one particular 40 liter tub made by Ezy Storage that could be accessorized with trays and containers that hook onto a purpose lip under the lids. Taking one home to test I found it fit under the bottom shelf with barely a milometer to spare. Perfect. Around the entire table and including the middle standing area I could fit 36 tubs without double parking them. Back to Bunnings and I cleaned them out of everything they had in that size, which was only 16 tubs, and a bunch of accessories  I'll definitely grab more ASAP because I'd hate for them to swap styles in the meantime. I'll use them for parts storage once I start sorting it all again. I've already used some for my instruction books, train track and spare baseplates.

Like they were made to fit under there.

Great for storing my spare LEGO parts. Notice the hanging mini tub accessory inside.

A few less interesting yet important things of note are the 1080p security camera which works great in low light as well. We have 8 of these around the property... just in case.

Benny is watching!

Also a split system air conditioner to keep my collection cool in the Aussie summer... and me too I guess. I tried it out recently on a 40oC day and it managed to completely cool the room to a comfortable level in less than 15 minutes. I have a few ideas for the wall below the air con.

It's cool and quiet when I want it to be.

So that's about it for the LEGO Room initial setup for now. There will be minor updates when I add or change things around. If you haven't already please watch the accompanying video I made (my first) which goes in depth with a few plans and ideas and shows the room after I tidied everything up a bit more.

Leaving the room with the roof lights turned off. Looks nice.

Video Link: Benny's LEGO Room Tour - 1st Feb 2018

Thankyou for following. Cya next time.