Saturday, 1 March 2025

Why I'm laying LEGO train tracks in my Garden Office...



This is a weird little video: I've snapped. And starting to build LEGO CITY train tracks all round my Happy Hut Garden Office. I lay down and assemble the first railroad tracks for the first run of our Lego City Cargo Train. Casper the Cockerspaniel isn't too impressed but will I manage to get the Powered Up hub to pair and controller to work...

BUY A LEGO TRAIN HERE! (I earn commissions from qualifying purchases)
(Amazon Rest of World!) https://amzn.to/3XI5nYE

Why I'm laying LEGO train tracks in my Garden Office...



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Hello, welcome back to the Happy Hut, and uh... I... I don't know if I should even be sharing this. I don't think I'm even going to upload this video, so we'll see how this goes.

But, uh, coming to the hut, and I'll show you—I'll show you the mess that I've made on the floor. Let me just turn the extra light on so you can see it properly. I've got so much work on at the moment, and instead, I've decided to devote my attention to this.

Um, I don't know what's happened, but I've... I've... I've gone a bit Lego trains around the floor of the hut. And I could pretend that I'm doing this for the kids, even doing it with the kids. I think my son's going to help me with this, but this... this... this is all me to start with.

So we've got so much Lego, and we've got a bit of Lego City train track. I don't know, I think I was just sitting at the desk, and I just thought, "I'll just give it a go." I think I've been thinking about it for years.

So I've got it running by the front door, which I thought would have been a problem, but the great thing, obviously, with Lego track is you can stand on it, and it might break, but it's a bit more rugged than any other railway system.

And, uh, it's just a demonstration that it—that it works. And, um, I thought, "What if... what if I just run it around the floor? Just have a little loop?" I don't have enough track for that yet.

If I show you underneath—I don't know if it might be too dark—this, by the way, I was going to film it, but it was too... too embarrassing. I just pulled out all the junk that I've been hoarding under this bench for about five years.

All my childhood stuff. Not—not the Lego, just everything else. So that's all gone into the garage, and this could be the start of a little top-secret layout that I can cover up when it's not being used and when I should be doing more work.

So I've only got this far, up to there, and now I'm going to have to clear all of this junk. And I did a big, big clear-out of the corner there—you can probably see it in the background of some of my videos. We've got Casper's dog bed in the foreground, but I've got some microphone stands and stationery and stuff there.

And now I've got to work out a way for it to somehow go behind, under, or around the Ikea armchair. I've got a nice clear run there.

And then, the bit I'm most concerned about—because this is when I should be doing work—but I don't know, it's just really nice to have some... something that takes your mind off the world.

Right, this is basically a midlife meltdown. A complete... you get it. But I thought I'd capture it on camera. If I didn't get the clear-out, at least I'd get driving the first stake.

So this is a bit like the, um, the railroad—the railroad barons of the 1800s—driving their first stake.

Um, I'm going to—I'm going to pin the track down, because the great thing with the Lego track is that it has these holes at frequent intervals. I don't need to nail the whole thing down, and I will be moving things around as well, but at least I can help stop it wobbling when it gets kicked by myself or Casper.

I think I'm going to have this switch here—we call them points in the UK. Well... see, that's the problem. As soon as you touch it, it just goes out of alignment.

Um, but you can—I can flip the switch there, and it was—it was underneath there, but I think I really want to maximize the space underneath there. So I've got the points a little bit early here.

Um, but let's—let's nail this in.

This—oh my goodness—am I going to upload this video? I've got so much that I should be doing right now. I don't know why my... my brain is kind of flipping out, but it is.

I just... there's something really pleasing about this, and I'll give you—at the end of the video, as a treat—I’ll give you a bit of a run, because I've managed to rig it up to my phone, and I'll... I'll show you how good this could be for—for the kids.

I'm going to do it for the family, obviously.

I've got a very, very small panel pin. I thought it'd be too small, but it looks like it's just the right size, and it's just—it's just to lightly hold it in place.

Anyway, there we go. Let the record show.

Now, it does wobble around a bit, that's okay. It's just to roughly hold it in place so it doesn't go flying across the room on the main door here for the—for the Happy Hut. And I could cover it up with tiles, could even cover it up with wood when it's not being used.

So I've got some wood here. I'm wondering... what if I made a bridge? And this is—this is where—this is where it all starts to fall apart—my life.

What if I put a bridge? And it—it could be really removable. Really removable? It's either removable or not removable. This will be removable, and I can just plonk it in place when I want to run a train on the top deck, and then I'll have two tiers of loops.

I've only got one train. The other train's in the garage, in bits. I'll show you that in the next video—if I make another video. We've got the world's largest tub of Lego. There's so much in there.

Uh, but that's for another time.

Let's put down the next pin, and I'm sharing this just so you can... can live vicariously through this. You'd have turned off by now if you weren't into Lego trains, so you're among friends.

Thank you! Say hi in the comments—be great to hear from you.

Right, so I'll put this one here. I'm going to use a bigger one, I think, for this one, just to experiment. But I didn’t want to make huge holes in the floor of the hut. Shall I pin it? I'll—I’ll use the pin. Don't want to hit the track, because it's really expensive.

Yeah, what I'm trying to do, I suppose, is like the equivalent of HS2 in the UK. I've got to somehow find a way through, and bizarrely, I think it will be easier to do the raised section first. I think that might be quicker than trying to clear the floor and find a path through.

It's time for the inaugural run!

I've got my remote control here—powered up remote control. I'm going to run the train around this. Let me just show you the geography, though.

There—that—that's the bench that I think I'm going to have the big station in, where all the trains will go. And then they're completely out of sight until I need to use them.

Thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really helps me to keep this channel going.

And, uh... there's the—there's the train. We're going to try and pair it up with the—with the remote.

So, I'll hold down the button there, wait for it to go purple... There we go. Is that paired? That doesn't look like it's paired.

Look, it's going to be more sensible if I do this out in the open instead of crawling under the bench. So, um... and I need to put the camera down because I think for it to work, I need to press both the green button on top of the train and the green button on the controller hub.

No, that's the controller, isn't it? The hub's in the train.

Um, I hold them down at the same time.

So here goes. They've both gone purple.

So if I let go—yay! It's gone green! Fantastic!

So I'll do a little run-up. So I'll take the train backwards... oh my goodness, here it goes!

So, other than the test—oh, there's Casper. Come have a look!

He's not a big fan of the Lego train, because I did a test run the other day, you know, just a very short one—you didn't miss anything.

So this will be the very first proper run on camera. Here we go.

I'll just press the plus button...

Oh, I think it's hitting the plug back there. So I've got to—I've got to clear everything. Keep it away from skirting board level.

Let's go back. I'll just give you one more.

Something for the thumbnail!

Previous post...
How FAKE Lego track for my SECRET train layout helps in my Garden Office...


All about me, and getting these by email.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Hi, thanks for leaving a comment - I really appreciate it!