Weirdest Working Train Inventions in Lego…

Lego has made many train sets throughout the years, like this passenger train, and this one, and this one. You get the point. But there are many more weird and unique trains out there that have never become Lego sets. So in this video, I took it upon myself to recreate three of these less common or downright unheard of trains in Lego form. Picture this, a train and a jet engine. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Because in the 1960s, someone else not only pictured it, but also built it. So I'm going to do the same with Lego. But for some reason, I don't have a fully working Lego jet engine laying around. So I'll have to do the second best thing and settle for a propeller. There's many to choose from. These are obviously too small. I don't own any of these actually useful ones. And this medium sized one inconveniently uses a technic pinhole rather than an axle hole, which means I would rely solely on friction to make it do any pushing. So short of building my own jet engine out of Lego, I'll build a larger and more effective propeller. This three pointed piece will work perfectly as the center. And using some angled plates, we can make something that will definitely have some pushing power. Okay, let's see if it spins. Yeah, that's definitely not what I had in mind. But to stop the blades from flying off, I'll add these pins and rubber bands holding it all together. Perfect. And I can definitely feel the air coming off this. Now all I have to do is grab a Lego train, connect the new propeller to the motor on top of the train and turn it on. Okay, well, that did nothing. But I think it might be all the added weight from the train car. So what happens if we just use the base and wheels? Yeah, I don't think wait, no way. It's actually moving forward very slowly. Not exactly the rocket train I had in mind. But it works. This video is brought to you by my Lego Ideas project that has 331 days left to get to 10,000 supporters. It's always been a dream of mine to even hit the final milestone and just get into a review. So if you're interested, take a moment using the link in the description and support it on Lego Ideas to help me get to 10,000 supporters. I live in the United States where trains are mostly used for cargo and are not a prominent form of public transportation in most areas. But in some other countries, suspended trains are used. So I want to build my own over this Lego road. Scaffolding pieces will act nicely as the supports for the rail and at the bottom, I'll use gray bricks to make a foundation for each one. I used hinge pieces at the bottom to get an angle and at the top, I'll connect each one with a mix of black inverted slopes and gray plates. As for the rail itself, I'll use the tried and true Lego roller coaster pieces. I placed the track with another layer of plates above it and then built up the beams on top for support. Then I fed my dog a strawberry. She dropped it. Now before I tell you how the next part of the build went, brace yourselves. Normally when I build trains or anything mechanical, it takes many attempts and variations. But I built this small assembly using a rubber band and some bevel gears and it worked instantly. But don't celebrate too early. Sit back down on your couch and put the party hats away because this track was too close to the slopes at the top I placed earlier. So all the train could do now is travel between two beams. But all I had to do to fix it was just to switch from a two by three slope at the top to a two by two, which was definitely easier than spending hours trying to make a train function. And with the frame fully complete, I could move on to making this thing actually look like a train car. I first made a second arm at the top with a Technic spacer that could roll freely along the track, balancing the motor. Then with some snot bricks on the bottom, I could fit the mini battery box that I switched to using. And at the back, I built two more arms that would run along the track as well. But it's all been going far too well. And the first issue with this design was that the wiggle room at the back meant it kept getting caught on each support. To fix this, I used another wheel like on the drive wheel for the opposite corner of the train car, which stabilized it so nothing caught. But just because the mechanism isn't complete doesn't mean we can go to sleep yet, because this still looks like a mechanism and not a train car. And I eventually came up with this. Okay, so it now has a change because there was not enough torque with the rubber band and it would just slip. But this definitely doesn't slip. There's a lot of slack, but it seems to work. Then I finished building the roof, and finally it's ready to be used. Wow. And honestly, that looks super cool. Not the smoothest ride, but it gets the job done. By the way, I'm racing a fellow Lego YouTuber, the B3 to 1 million subs. And the loser has to make a parody of the winner's most popular video for their second channel. So please subscribe, because I'm way behind and I don't need a side quest making my upload frequency go down even more. A couple years ago, I took a trip to Spain and Portugal. And while in Porto, I saw this really weird train going up this steep hill. Well, it's a funicular. And turns out they are commonly used to climb up steep inclines rather than making people climb 7,800 steps. I think you can see where this is going. Step one, connect some train track pieces using two Swiss checks to create a section for the two trains to pass each other. Some funiculars use two train cars on one track, so this will be where they can bypass each other. Step two, build a giant sloped wall out of overlapping black bricks. Step three, build another one. Step four, realize it isn't steep enough and spend even more time building both taller. And finally, build one final wall on the other side using even more 2x4 black bricks. This tub was full when I started with about 8,500 black 2x4s. And now I'm down to almost 1,000. Under the track, I added gray plates where I could and placed it on top of the black bricks. Then for the parts that don't have any track, I used a bunch of 2x16 plates to fill in the gap between each section of the slope. Even more bricks, this time in gray, are perfect to fill in the gaps between each slat. But I think the train track is looking kind of dull, so I put tiles on all of the ties. But before I go on building this, I need to make sure it's steep enough that a regular LEGO train can't just climb up it. It had a bit of grip, so it didn't roll down quite as fast, but even at full speed, it didn't have a chance of making it up. The motor even shut off after I tried for a couple seconds. So I overloaded it and turned it off, but it cannot go up. To make the funicular work, I'm just going to attempt to use a chain link that runs the length of the track up and down. That way, part of it is pulling up and the other going down. So I used gears to create a path for the chain to follow that goes over the back of the model and back around to the other end. But unlike my suspension train, this very much did not work on the first try. There were way too many problems, like the train running over the chain. Plus, the chain is only meant to bend in one direction. So I was back to the drawing board, and I decided to trust the pros and look up how it's actually done in real life. And I found this diagram of a mechanism that uses a cord. So I got to work replicating it in LEGO. These pieces are perfect for each pulley, but they are really hard to get the rope to stay on. So after an hour of struggling, I eventually got it mounted fully. There's also another pulley at the bottom that puts tension on the cord. But apart from being honestly really cool looking, it's no more effective than the chain. Mostly because of this part here that sticks out. Since the rope is attached at both ends, getting the right amount of tension to pull it outwards wouldn't really work. So I resorted to the simplest and honestly most obvious design that I should have tried from the beginning. Some funiculars use two trains as counterweights, and since they weigh the exact same amount, they would add water into a tank on the top one, making it heavier and therefore going to the bottom while pulling the lighter one up. But this meant all there was at the top was just a pulley and a rope connecting the two funicular cars together. The only problem with this design, because of course there had to be one, is that I only want one of the train cars to use this bypass section of the track. That way they could always alternate positions without hitting each other. And the only way I came up with to do that, was to remove the wheels on one side of the car that I wanted to avoid the switch track, and build a sled along the side that could run up and down without getting redirected by the switch track. At first it slid around since it wasn't locked in, but I built a wall on the side which kept it in the right spot. Wow, that works exactly how it needs to, but it's way too messy to keep working. So after a quick cleanup break, I got back to work. Since I hadn't already learned my lesson to keep it simple, I tried to automate the direction changes by using a battery box with looser switch that could be hit and make the motors reverse, keeping the trains in a constant loop. But since the pulley is just using friction to move the trains, it wasn't nearly strong enough to power it, so hand controlled it is. But just because the mechanism works, doesn't mean it looks good. So I took off each train car and got to work making them look like actual trains. First by calculating the angle they would have to be at to cancel out the slope of the hill. Then using two pillars and hinged pieces, I built up the train cars at the exact angle using windows, some brown pillars, and chairs inside. We can even add a sunroof for some extra details. And finally, after days of building and many different attempts, I still have to make the mountain look like a mountain. Here we go. Brick pieces can make a nice platform and walkway off of the mechanism, which gives us a nice spot for the waterfall to be coming from. Surrounded by plant pieces and it's perfect. More rock pieces and plant pieces all over the wall that will look like a bush. Let's even add a tree. Here's more trains to make it look planty. Oh, and in the middle of building all this, let's test it out and have the rope untie from one of the train cars so they both go crashing to the floor. Lots of random rocks would be great at the bottom as well. Oh, and finally, let's add a bit of a station at the bottom in the form of a staircase leading up to the door of the rail car. And there we go, a fully working Lego funicular to transform any figures up and down the mountain. This honestly looks so cool. Subscribe.