Video Steve Jackson Shows Off the Texas Brick Railroad (Video) 41
Tim: Steve, what are we looking at over here? What is directly over here on your left?
Steve: This is the Texas Brick Railroad or at least the version of it for this show. We are a LEGO train club. We like building LEGO and we especially like trains and monorail.
Tim: Now this is an adult club?
Steve: Yes.
Tim: How many people take part in this?
Steve: Oh, it is hard to know because we are not terribly formal. A dozen regulars and more who show up occasionally.
Tim: And is this an Austin based organization?
Steve: Texas. We have members in Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and points in between.
Tim: Alright. Now the trains that you have assembled over here – you’ve got monorail and you’ve got what looks like a wider gate track?
Steve: Yes, the bigger trains which unfortunately are not running right now because the show lasted longer than the batteries did. The bigger trains are on standard LEGO track. We just call it L Gauge. And that is still in production. The monorails they quit making those 20 years ago; so if you like them, eBay is your friend.
Tim: So is that somebody’s personal stash, then, of the monorail equipment?
Steve: Yes, that is Brian Lassiter’s monorail stash. He is also the builder of the custom monorail station there and the monorail train. So basically for this show, I came and put up track and trains and buildings and then “Lasso” put in the monorail station and the big loops of track, and he owns these guys.
Tim: It does look like a big toy. Is it hard to keep children away from it?
Steve: It is exactly like a big toy. And it is hard to keep everybody away from it. It is very hard to tell people, “Do not touch”, when it is obviously a toy, but at the same time when you get hands in front of the trains, awful things happen.
Tim: Now this set here, are these pieces beside the monorail part, how much of this is vintage, and how much of it is something that you could just order the parts and build yourself at home?
Steve: How much is vintage? A lot. How much could you order? Also a lot. Most of the buildings that you see up there are built from LEGO sets and a couple of those are in the stores right now. The trains were also made from sets and modified and you can’t buy those anymore except by paying too much on eBay, so don’t unless you really love them. Because there are newer train sets in the stores now.
Tim: Is this is a complement to your day job?
Steve: No my day job is game designer, and this is just something else that I do.
Tim: I know. And if people are interested in this, and they want to see more of the Texas Lego Railroad, how can they find out more about it?
Steve: The website is www.texasbrickrr.com. And if they go there, they can request membership on a Google group which is our day to day chatter, and they can read more about LEGO trains and about what we are doing. And we welcome new members. You don’t have to be a train builder. If you want to be, then show up and learn.
Tim: How often do you meet?
Steve: Very irregularly. It is all moderated through the Google group. The next meeting will be in a few weeks at Jeanette’s business since she is in the LEGO business. If you haven’t already interviewed her, you probably will.
Tim: And is there an age cutoff, as it is an adult group, if you have somebody who is 12 or 13 to join up if they wanted?
Steve: Yes, but they would need to be accompanied by a guardian when they come to meetings. So we have a lot of kids at our meetings because a lot of our members have kids. But generally we do something to let the kids just free-build with LEGO and then we go over and build trains.
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People who know nothing about Steve Jackson's work... and possibly the Discordian Society.
How do I download the video? (Score:2, Informative)
Dear Slashdot, it would be nice if you could provide flash video in a format that would run on the open source Gnash player or that could be downloaded using a script like youtube-dl. Please do not use ooyala.com to host videos. I am unable to watch them.
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Actually it is, but Steve's involvement is security clearance ultraviolet, citizen.
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Maybe you're thinking of Illuminati?
Personally I want to see the new Ogre.
[John]
That's not a model railroad! (Score:3)
Its good! (Score:2)
Its good to be a geek to be honest, look at all the fun their having.
Meeting Steve Jackson (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to meet the man in person, he'll be at DEXCON in Morristown, NJ from July 3-7. dexposure.com
Re:Meeting Steve Jackson (Score:4, Interesting)
I met him at a game shop owner's convention in New Orleans back in the mid 90s. He was pushing his "Illuminati" card game at the time. My customers tried it out, and it received a tepid at best response. Magic the Gathering was young back then and was steam rolling other card games trying to compete. GURPS didn't take so well with my customers either, sadly. I still carried it. You need a selection to contrast and compare in a game shop, plus it adds to the atmosphere.
He was friendly and decent to talk to. I told him I had been a fan of "Car Wars" since I was a kid. He thanked me, and said he now felt old.
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It sounds wonderful, but Texas scares the fuck out of me. All those guns and an express lane to the death chamber, it just smacks of too much trouble for my comfort zone.
But seriously, it sounds fun as hell. I remember doing some minor game design in High School back in 1980 for a mercenary rpg that was just pure guns, tactics and wild ideas of such. Friends and I would play test it, switch off administrating it so we could all try out our ideas. We had a blast with it. I can't imagine that being a job, it
That not a LEGO monorail. (Score:3)
THIS is a LEGO monorail:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn5Wb88qnRs [youtube.com]
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Request an upgrade? (Score:3)
You can do it yourself. 'mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy -o video.avi video.flv' Then post a plain old download link.
ho scale lay outs are cool and DCC tech does a (Score:3)
ho scale lay outs are cool and DCC tech does a lot.
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I put DCC chips in my lego trains. It only takes 10 minutes with a sharp knife and a soldering iron.
Re:ho scale lay outs are cool and DCC tech does a (Score:5, Informative)
Details of how to do it here: http://www.lgauge.com/trains/dcc/dcc.htm [lgauge.com]
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ho ho ho
Hard-to-find Monorail? 3-D printing to the rescue! (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to say, at least for the mono-rail track, 3-D printing seems the clear way to avoid prowling E-Bay for hard to find and expensive pieces.
I wonder if owners would consent to have their pieces scanned to produce a blue-print.
(Of course, then we'd see whether Lego wants to dare the bad publicity of preventing a trade in replica pieces that Lego no longer sells.)
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I have some of those old monorail pieces (I had no idea they were valuable - should probably did them out), and I doubt that you could 3D print them at the moment. The key part of the centre rail is that it's toothed, with the train itself being driven by a vertically mounted motor in the centre power unit, engaging the fine-toothed track with a metal cog.
I just don't think that a 3D printer can produce the level of accuracy needed for that sort of track with enough strength to withstand the metal traction
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Who said you have to copy LEGO's design?
I remember seeing a monorail built by a kid and his dad at a local fair where the train itself was LEGO but everything else was hand fabricated. The rail and supports were made from wood and they'd built his own steamer box to make the curved sections. There was a copper wire glued to each side of the rail for electrical transmission which was controlled by a regular train transformer. The top of the rail had 120 grit sandpaper glued to it for the steep grade section
Steve Jackson (Score:2)
I'm confused. Is this the same Steve Jackson who created the Fighting Fantasy books, together with Ian Livingstone?
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Ok, Google cleared that up for me. This is NOT the Steve Jackson of FF, but the Steve Jackson of Games Workshop.
Thanks for Hero Quest, Steve Jackson!
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Actually, this Steve Jackson also wrote a few FF books. Holy crap. No wonder I'm confused.
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Bah, thats nothing... (Score:2)
Compared to the size of the layouts the WA Brick Society (that's Western Australia, not Washington State btw) has displayed over the last few years, that layout is tiny.
And I bet there are clubs out there doing even bigger layouts.
Is the guy in the video really Steve Jackson? (Score:1)
I only ask because I'm having trouble picturing him as the gigantic loser in the video showing off a toy train.
Yes, this is flamebait. That fact, however, doesn't negate the point nor make the weird-o in the video any less awkward.
Nice but not as impressive as (Score:2)