Lego Trains in New England

On Saturday morning I dragged Jason up to Wilmington, Mass, to check out a Greenberg Train and Toy show. The reason I wanted to go was because NELUG, the New England Lego Users Group, was putting on a display at the show. Their display was HUGE! 6 ft. x 35 ft., with tons of trains, buildings, and a fully functioning carnival all included. It was pretty cool to see so much Lego in one place outside of a Legoland park.


My pictures aren't the greatest, but they give you an idea of the layout. My favorite part was absolutely the carnival. I've toyed with the idea of putting together a Lego carnival for years, and seeing one executed so well was inspiring. I took lots of close up pictures of ideas I want to stea- err incorporate into my own projects.


The NELUG members running the display were very friendly and I'm seriously considering joining up. I was a member of BAYLug (Bay Area Lego Users Group) back in California, and attended a few of their events. It is always a lot of fun to get together with other AFOLs (Adult Fans of Lego) and see the amazing things they put together in their spare time.


I've been a long time Lego collector, almost 22 years now, but have been going through a bit of a dark age for the past five or so years. Prior to my most recent move, any time I wanted to get my Lego out to do some building it meant taking over 3/4s of my house. Now that I have the whole basement of the condo to myself I can pull out my Lego to work on projects and not have to worry about putting everything away when I want to take a break.

A project I would like to take on, and have been planning out in my mind since this summer when Jason and I visited Provincetown, is to build the Pilgrim Monument. I think it would be a fun project, and something that would really get me back into the swing of Lego design. Lego Castle has always been my first love, and the Monument has an excellent Gothic architecture that falls right into the building style I like the most.

My hope is to build it as "realistically" as possible - meaning I want it to be to minifig scale. The typical Lego Minifigure should be able to make their way up to the top of the model and look around, just like we can in real life. It should have some unique building challenges, as I would also like to incorporate the many different engraved stones that pepper the inside of the tower showing the years the various towns in Massachussets donated to the building process. I'll keep you posted as I begin work on the project!