I’ll be the first person to admit I’m not a fan of most LEGO trains. While they’re interesting, and very popular, they’re not my favorite builds. I just don’t find them quite as exciting as say, a modular, or almost any other build for that matter. However, I was delightfully surprised when I checked out the LEGO Ideas Golden Spike Ceremony submission.
And really, I think it has everything to do with this staged display made to mimic the original photo that inspired the builder, jackdude101, to create this set. He writes about the project:
It was a special event that took place on 10 May 1869 in Promontory Summit, Utah to celebrate the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in the United States. During the ceremony, the rail line was symbolically completed with the driving of a final railroad spike made of solid gold using a silver hammer, ending years of building from both ends of the line from the East starting at the Missouri River and from the West starting at Sacramento, California (it was extended to San Francisco Bay by the end of the year). This was kind of a big deal because for the very first time the East Coast and the West Coast of the United States were connected by rail, revolutionizing cross-country travel overnight. Now, instead of traveling West in a covered wagon for several months along dangerous routes like the Oregon Trail and risk dying of dysentery, you could travel all the way to California in less than a week! Now, almost 150 years later, the Golden Spike Ceremony is considered one of the most important milestones in 19th Century American history. If you were to make a brand-new Lego set based around one historical event in the USA revolving around trains or railroads, this would be it.
If you want to get a closer look at the project, here are a few of my favorite photos:
What I love the most about the build is the detail the builder took to get the trains to look like their real counterparts:
Oh and as an added bonus, he added the ability to build in Power Functions!
These guys are great old-timey train models that with a little color swapping, would make a great Christmas train for any build. I also particularly like the female minifigures and the hair/hat hairpieces. (Does anyone know if those are LEGO pieces or something he made specifically for the project?)
For full details on the project, please make sure to visit jackdude101’s LEGO Ideas Golden Spike Ceremony project and take the time to vote to show your support!
And while you’re at it, why don’t you share this post and drop jackdude101 a line on Twitter to let him know you did just that. He would greatly appreciate it: