I enjoy building different LEGO themes, but when it comes down to it, I really trains make it to the top of the list. LEGO hasn’t offered much for a while and hopefully the new Crocodile Locomotive is a start towards more brick trains. Despite LEGO not diving into trains, the fan community has done their best to pick up the slack. One such group has a website called Brick Model Railroader. The site has been built by a group of LEGO train fans from around the world. You can read about them and find links to some of their work here. The team is trying to promote the hobby. They want to show other model railroad fans that the “L Gauge” is a real thing. They’ve built a standard for everyone to follow so people collaborating on a train display can build separately and then assemble it all at a show and have it fit together.
They’ve also done something great for fans like me who are not good at building MOCs. They’ve turned their detailed MOCs into sets that you can customize. You can peruse their shop here. I purchased a few of the sets and today I’ll take you through one of them.
Let me back up a bit. I purchased four sets and three decals. I received an order notification and shipping notification rather quickly. The package arrived promptly and was possibly one of the best packed items I’ve ever received. The box size was right and the sets were wrapped in bubble wrap. There was zero damage. Props to the BMR team! An order sheet specified that I would be receiving one of the decals in the mail directly from OKBrickWorks. It showed up a few days later.
Onto one of the sets. I ordered the North Eastern Style Caboose for $40. It arrived in the box pictured below. It is a plain white box with a BMR sticker affixed to the top.
Inside were the parts, an instruction book, and the decals I ordered. No bricks? Correct. You are buying the instructions, but they aren’t just any instructions. They provide the design for you to match multiple historical versions of the car based on what you want to build. Then you can use your own collection or purchase bricks to build one or multiple versions of the set. So not as easy as buying a LEGO produced set, but lots more options.
The LEGO purists will freak out at this point, but the set includes some custom parts. GASP! It includes the train wheels with ball bearing axles and then some custom clips. I have not tested out the wheels yet, but BMR advertises that they run much smoother and cause less friction than standard LEGO train wheels. So we’ll see…
The instructions are the key to the set. They come in an individually wrapped bag and weren’t crammed in like they usually are in LEGO sets. The first few pages contains some details about the actual caboose to include when it was first built, where it was used, and some of the stats about the caboose itself. The actual build instructions compare with ones you would see in a LEGO set where it shows you the pieces you need and a picture of where you are at with the build. I haven’t actually built the set so I can’t verify that they are good or not.
The back of the instructions comes with a bill of materials stating all of the pieces you will need for the set. For customization purposes, the bill of materials lists what pieces go on the inside, what goes on the outside, and which pieces should be specific color (mostly black). This way you can build based on actual cabooses or come up with your own color scheme. If it wasn’t helpful enough, the instructions also list the part numbers on BrickLink for your ordering purposes.
Last bit of usefulness to report… included in the instructions are details about replacement pieces to use if specific pieces aren’t available in another color. I found that useful on another set I purchased as the color I picked didn’t have a few of the pieces available in that color.
The last bit of detail I ordered were some decals. These are printed by OKBrickWorks and cost $7.50. I purchased a Conrail version as I remember Conrail trains going through my town as a kid. I didn’t buy decals for all of the cars I purchased, but I figured I’d try them out on a few. As a kid, I built plastic model aircraft. I was never good at the decals that went on them so we’ll see how this goes.
Overall, I’m impressed with the set and look forward to building it. I’m holding off on the build process as most of my collection is in storage. I want to raid my own parts before I go out and buy more. I’m excited to see what the final end product looks like and can’t wait to someday run it on a train display somewhere. The set is a bit pricey considering you aren’t getting all of the parts, but you are paying for the time and effort to put a custom build into instruction form with a bill of materials for you to repeat as you desire. The ordering and shipping process was smooth and Cale took the time to make sure the sets showed up in pristine condition. Props to the BMR team for a great set!
Have you purchased a BMR set before? What are your thoughts?
Happy building!