This is a scale model of a generic liquid-transport railroad tank car, where 1.875mm on the model is equal to 1 scale inch, intended for use on an 8-wide Lego train. Using this scale, a minifig is about 6 feet tall while the car is 40 feet long, approximately 10 feet wide, and about 13.5 feet high, not including the trucks. The tank on its own is about 32 scale feet long. As this is my first attempt at a tank car - and my first design to make such heavy use of SNOT construction techniques, conincidently - I've simply called it the Mk. I. The car isn't functional by any means, and the only moving parts are in the trucks, but I'm nonetheless quite pleased with it.
There are some unfinished details on this model, the most glaring being the side ladders, which certainly won't be sticking straight out. These ladders are primarily just to note what type of ladders I'm intending to use, pending a potential issue which might prevent this type of ladder from hinging downward alongside the car body. It is also more likely that I won't use the 7-rung ladders with clips shown here, but several of their smaller cousins, the 4-rung ladders with no clips. While it is not particularly evident in this particular shot, the geometery of the end caps didn't quite work out as I might've liked, as a 6x6 plate is a fraction of a millimeter too tall to fit on the end. If I was actually constructing this with real bricks, that would be an easy adjustment to make, and the slight gap that exists in the underside of the endcaps presently would not exist. The discs used as wheels are simply there to take the place of the actual train wheels, which I will modify into this American-looking truck style as per instructions in a back issue of Brick Journal. A chain running from beside the brakeman's wheel to the car's base is missing due to this part not being available in LDD. The last issue I have yet to resolve is that of the brake cylinders; I can't get an accurate idea of how much space exists underneath the tank in LDD, so I'm not sure where I would position those on an actual construction of this model.
A paint scheme might be difficult to do on this model, as the main piece used doesn't come in a wide variety of colors - black, grey, white, red, orange, and yellow. Nonetheless, as this is primarily an industrial car, those should serve well enough for most purposes.
This picture is primarily to illustrate how I accomplished the fairly-cylindrical body. The surface consists of 8 curved 3x1 slopes, available on BrickLink here. Directly beneath the top two is a black 2x10 plate, which holds all the sections together. The blue pieces just below that are two jumper plates placed side-by-side, running lengthwise (this is done to achieve the same offset as the sides.) Below the blue jumpers is another long plate, though I believe this yellow plate is a 2x8. Every 8 studs, I would place another 2x6 red brick like the one shown here. Several things are attached to the red bricks: to hold the sides on, long technic bricks with several 1/2 pins support black 2x10 plates that correspond to the 2x10 supporting the top pieces. The two yellow headlights each have a 1x1 round dot piece on them which in turn supports the end cap sections. (The white plates underneath these are simply L-bends to provide additional support.) Two green 2x8 plates run lengthwise the full length of the car and underneath every red 2x6 brick, they provide the spacing needed for the two sideways 1x1 bricks with two knobs. These tan bricks provide the transition for the upside down bricks below, which follow the same pattern as the bricks of corresponding color above.
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