Kiwi teen breaks world record for most carriages in a toy train
Posted by FlagsNZ,
Appearing on several news channels today are articles about a New Zealand teenager who has broken a Guinness World Record for the most carriages in a LEGO toy train.
Read on as I describe how this day unfolded inside Auckland's busiest transport hub as this Kiwi teenager attempted this Guinness World Record (GWR) on national train day.
Alex Blong
I have known Alex Blong, the 14-year-old teenager behind this GWR attempt, for some time.
He is an active LEGO enthusiast and an active member of All Blocks LEGO User Group and AuckLUG - the two RLUGs in Auckland, New Zealand.
Background
The challenge
The previous record for the Most Carriages in a Toy Train was set by a team comprising members from the LEGO Group (Singapore), K K Cariapa, John Seemon, Nexus Malls at Seawoods Grand Central Mall, India, on January 4, 2019.
The record that Alex set out to beat was their accomplishment: sixty-nine LEGO toy carriages.
The GWR attempt
Alex has always considered that a Guinness World Record is a pretty big thing.
"The first idea I had was to build the tallest LEGO tower. I thought that would be an excellent idea because a really cool LEGO tower would be quite a good thing.
"The next idea I had was a Great Ball Contraption, and my reasoning was it was more collaborative. I thought there was a higher chance that could happen because everyone would do little, but the problem is; that obviously, it's collaborative.
"For the first few Guinness World Records that I have suggested, there was always some logistical issue behind it that was a problem.
COVID 19
New Zealand and the rest of the world have been affected by COVID 19.
This affected Alex's GWR project in three ways:
- COVID Lockdown gave Alex more time to prepare his project, however,
- There were delays in shipping parts, and
- The initial intention was to demonstrate this GWR attempt during Armageddon in 2021 - an event that was cancelled due to COVID 19 restrictions.
The trial run
Early in April, Alex gathered a few trusted assistants and held a dummy run of his concept.
That day, Alex proved that his concept was valid, and he achieved the GWR - albeit without any evidence to prove it.
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Britomart Train Station
Following witnessing Alex's success during his dummy run, my significant contribution to the record attempt was arranging access to Britomart Train Station.
Britomart Train Station is Auckland's principal transport hub connecting trains and buses. It sits adjacent to Auckland's historic Downtown Ferry Terminal.
I have a role in managing a fleet of harbour ferries. Because of this role, I have regular contact with representatives from Auckland Transport.
After witnessing Alex achieve his record during a dummy run in early April, I contacted some people in Auckland Transport to see whether Alex could have access to a train platform as a backdrop to his official attempt.
I wasn't all that confident that we would be granted access as, back in 2018, when I reviewed 60197 Passenger Train, I had asked to use a train platform as a backdrop to that LEGO train set review.
On that occasion, despite repeated efforts, I could not gain permission to take some images of the trains from AT Platforms.
As mentioned in that review, I did, however, find a little-used service road and car park next to a local train station where I was able to wait for a chance to capture some images as the AT train pulled into the platform.
So, within twenty-four hours of my request, I was somewhat surprised to hear back from Auckland Transport that they had put together a team to look into this proposal.
The team consisted of representatives from the following departments:
- Auckland Transport (AT) management,
- AT Health and Safety
- AT Media Team,
- AT Platform Managers,
- AT Security, and
- Auckland One Rail (AOR) - the train operator,
AT and AOR's support was comprehensive and easy to work with right from the start.
A feature of the AT response was that Saturday, May 14, was designated as National Train Day. Therefore, they encouraged us to use this as a marketing tool to generate interest in this project.
Scoping the project
There was extensive maintenance on the Eastern Line of Auckland's rail network, so Platform 3 at Britomart was not being used. Alex and I met with Vincent from AOR to look at the opportunity of using this platform for this project.
Vincent from AOR with Alex at Platform 3.
Using a laser level, we proved that the platform was . . . well . . . level!
We had to produce a risk assessment and site safety plan which was lodged to the AT Health and Safety team for approval.
National Train Day
National Train Day was a celebration started in 2008 by Amtrak.
It was held each year on the Saturday closest to May 10, the anniversary of the pounding of the Golden spike in Promontory, Utah, which marked the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in the U.S.
Alex's train
The criteria for this record is that the carriages must be readily available from a commercially available LEGO set. Alex chose 60197 Passenger Train as the basis of his record attempt.
The Guinness World Record rules allow for the engine to be modified. However, there can be only one engine, and all the parts used in the engine must come from the same set as the carriages.
All the carriages must be built according to the set's instructions but need not contain Minifigures.
Alex built a Goliath engine with six motors fed from six Powered Up hubs. There were fourteen Powered Up hubs in the train in total, all filled with AAA batteries, to weigh the engine down.
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60197 Passenger Train
60197 Passenger Train is a one-engine, two-carriage train released in July 2018.
It is assembled with 675 parts, predominantly Earth Blue (BrickLink: Dark blue) and Flame Yellowish Orange (BrickLink: Bright light orange).
It is showing as Out of Stock on the LEGO website, but there may be some sets available at your local store.
AM class train in Auckland
Auckland Transports trains are designated AM Class.
A train of three cars weighs 155 tonnes and is 72m long.
These trains were introduced into service in 2014.
Image: Auckland Transport
Set up
Since no GWR representatives witnessed this attempt, Alex had to capture various images and video evidence to prove his attempt.
Once the track was set up, a string line and tape measure were taped to the platform. The laser level was used to establish that the platform was level.
Laser level witness mark.
Alex connected the train carriages.
To make this all come together, Alex had a team of helpers.
- People connecting all the carriages together,
- Helpers were acting as Platform Ambassadors to help out and provide informal security,
- There were a few people capturing evidence from various cameras,
- Family members were providing mental health support
Vaughan with Alex's dad Chris connecting carriages together.
Witnesses
Alex had to have two independent witnesses to verify serval aspects of this GWR attempt.
Fortunately, LEGO Masters NZ premiered on Monday, 9 May and Matanga Pereki, Brickmaster - Robin Sather was in Auckland and agreed to be the principal witness to this attempt.
The other witness was JP Hansen, who also worked behind the scenes with Robin on the set of LEGO Masters NZ.
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LCP Robin Sather verifies that there are 101 carriages.
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Robin Sather checks the assembly of the carriages.
Powered Up and Bluetooth
The Powered Up controller communicates with the Powered Up Hub via Bluetooth.
As the deadline loomed, Alex struggled to get the train motors to function correctly. Fortunately, Robin Sather saved the day and, with his presence as LEGO Master, was able to get the assembled public to turn off any Bluetooth on their smartphones.
Alex was relieved. His train worked correctly.
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The Goliath engine is open, showing all the Powered Up components.
The final result
Alex's train, with 101 carriages, travelled for 14 metres - the criteria is 10 metres. This was because he ran out of track: it could have travelled further.
Seen next to the AM class train.
BrickScene
All Blocks LEGO User Group had several members on Platform 3 supporting Alex in this attempt.
Richard, then All Blocks LUG Ambassador, videoed the event and has posted this on his YouTube Channel - BrickScene.
Other media coverage
Alex's GRW project generated lots of media interest.
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1 News, New Zealand's national TV news channel, covered this event on their 6 pm news that night.
Stuff, an independent news channel, also covered this event.
Today FM was there interviewing Alex.
The official record
You can visit Guinness World Records to see for yourself that this is officially recognised as a Guinness World Record.
Alex's certificate is proudly displayed.
A special thanks
I would personally like to thank, along with Alex Blong's family, the exceptional support Alex received from the staff at Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail.
From the moment the request went in to consider using an Auckland Transport train platform as the venue for this project, the support he received was considerable and very straightforward.
AT and AOR supplied (free of charge):
- Paid security guards,
- Assistance in health and safety management,
- Platform guides,
- Safe and secure storage of our equipment,
- Extensive media coverage and social media advertising,
- And a bright yellow train on a working train platform that made the whole day seem more real.
245 likes
47 comments on this article
Wow, what an impressive achievement for Alex!
This is a great story! The deep dive on the details is good reading.
Congrats on the achievement, Alex! And this is one of the reasons why 60197 will always be special to me and why I think it's so underrated. Very impressed and grateful that AT management was keen to help make it all work. It's reminiscent of how the Orient Express exhibition staff helped me with my Orient Express MOC shoot.
On a side note:
"The previous record for the Most Carriages in a Toy Train was set by a team comprising members from the LEGO Group (Singapore),"
Singapore? On my birthday that year? Why did I not hear about this?
"K K Cariapa, John Seemon, Nexus Malls at Seawoods Grand Central Mall, India, on January 4, 2019."
Oh. It was in India. Despite LEGO Singapore being involved. That's so strange.
Congratulations to Alex and his team of supporters! That was a tremendous effort from all involved. Thank you for the well written, heart-warming article and the fabulous photos. The minifig crowd looked like they had a great day at the event!
Kudos to Auckland Transport - pretty sure you'll not see the NYC MTA doing this for anybody lol.
A fantastic write-up of this achievement, very cool to see all the setup behind the scenes. Well done to Alex!
Awesome!
Congratulations to everyone involved! Kudos to Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail too!
So awesome and thank you Brickset for sharing this amazing accomplishment!
@LegoSonicBoy said:
[[The previous record for the Most Carriages in a Toy Train was set by a team comprising members from the LEGO Group (Singapore),]]
Singapore? On my birthday that year? Why did I not hear about this?]]
Cool, there’s not much relevance but it’s my birthday this year— my 18th, in fact. Congratulations to the creator of this train, this had a ton of effort put into it and it shows.
Well done, Alex, and great write-up. This was a true team effort!
Please Brickset team, we need more quirky Lego news like this! <3
It makes my heart happy!
Great article and great achievement!
Excellent result to a great story!
Wow! He did it! I've seen him talking about it on FB!
So cool.
That's fantastic.
A fun - and different - article! Thanks @FlagsNZ.
Question: Why are the media reporting this now when the record was broken in May? I remember seeing this somewhere online back in the spring and had a weird sense of déjà vu from the article above.
Congrats to Alex on the achievement and at only 14yrs old, bright Lego future ahead for him I'm sure! Kudos to all the team that helped Alex reach this goal and very cool of AT and AOR to let him use an active major train hub to do this. Thanks David for the fantastic write up on this, it's a great read and the pictures are perfect for bringing you into the scene. Cheers.
Congratulations! Quite an achievement!
Congratulation Alex and all parties involved to make this happen. And pretty awesome to have Robin Sather (Canadian LCP) there as well :)
@Zander said:
"A fun - and different - article! Thanks @FlagsNZ.
Question: Why are the media reporting this now when the record was broken in May? I remember seeing this somewhere online back in the spring and had a weird sense of déjà vu from the article above."
Maybe it's taken this long for Guinness to verify it and issue the certificate?
Congratulations to Alex Blong and the support team.
Nice article. Fun to read!
So it sounds like one of the key tricks is you have to know how to game the system within the limits of the rules. One engine, but the more sets you pull rolling stock from, the more materials you have on hand to make your engine both more powerful and heavier (for traction). You also have to be delicate ramping up the speed, unless you’re allowed to add plates and/or tiles to lock the magnetic couplings together. No using parts that weren’t in the kit means you can’t slip rare earth magnets between each coupling to prevent the load from separating the cars.
Using your own witnesses and shooting video is probably a better option than having a company rep show up to certify the attempt. The latter, from what I recall, have to charge a fee for every trip they make, and I think there’s a limit to how many attempts you can make before they call it off for the day (I used to watch the short-lived GWR tv series).
Lastly, I have to chuckle a bit at the Bluetooth issue. I’ve been saying repeatedly that PU stinks for public exhibits, where every man, woman, and child is carrying a stray Bluetooth signal in their pocket, creating unpredictable amounts of interference.
@Zander:
A couple weeks ago I spotted a Sunday edition of the main local newspaper that had an article about the most endangered dragonfly in the US being spotted (twice) in the county where my mom grew up (which is not one of the half dozen tiny pockets around Lake Michigan where it has been confirmed to reside). I grabbed a couple copies of the paper just for kicks. Then I tried looking up the article online, only to find out the story originally broke back in April. And this made the front page headline of a major U.S. newspaper, with a color photo, in July.
Thanks, everyone for your supportive comments.
@Zander said:
"A fun - and different - article! Thanks @FlagsNZ .
Question: Why are the media reporting this now when the record was broken in May? I remember seeing this somewhere online back in the spring and had a weird sense of déjà vu from the article above."
There was a delay between the actual attempt, Alex submitting all the evidence to Guinness World Records, and then the record being verified with a framed certificate shipped to Alex.
It only became an official record recently.
@FlagsNZ said:
"Thanks, everyone for your supportive comments.
@Zander said:
"A fun - and different - article! Thanks @FlagsNZ .
Question: Why are the media reporting this now when the record was broken in May? I remember seeing this somewhere online back in the spring and had a weird sense of déjà vu from the article above."
There was a delay between the actual attempt, Alex submitting all the evidence to Guinness World Records, and then the record being verified with a framed certificate shipped to Alex.
It only became an official record recently."
I see. Fair enough! Thanks for explaining ;~)
Amazing article, great to see so many People coming together to achieve this
Very cool story! Although this is a bit of a weird solution for the "it's just half a train"-problem of the 60197 :-)
One thing I was wondering was what exactly the definition of a "toy train" was. After all, I have seen model trains longer than this. But apparently that's a different category, with its own record of 282,11m, made up of 31 HO scale locomotives and 1563 carriages.
Wow, what an achievement! The sheer scale is mind-boggling if you think about it and remember it has to pull that much weight over that long of a distance. Amazing job!
@FlagsNZ:
That’s one of the unstated things about GWR. There may be hundreds of actual records that aren’t recognized because nobody could prove it by their criteria. One in particular that I’m aware of is the largest wave ever surfed. NOVA did an episode called Condition: Black, which involves two major storm systems converging right on top of Hawaii, combining their strength to the point that the US Coast Guard recalled all of their vessels and informed the public that if you went out, and you got in trouble, they weren’t coming to save you. The surf community tried to run the Eddie Aikau but wave tournament, but the normal surf spots were bottoming out, so they called it off. A small group of adventurous/insane individuals realized that Outer Log Cabins was actually breaking, so they could surf there…except the wave faces were tall enough that they couldn’t paddle fast enough to drop in before the wave had passed them. So they invented tow-in surfing, where you grab a rope tied to a jet ski, and they pull you up to speed. In 1998, Ken Bradshaw surfed a wave that was estimated, based on photographs and video, to have been ~80’ from trough to crest. Within a couple years, the official record was set at less than 70’, and it wouldn’t be until 2017 that an 80’ wave went on record. In 2020, an 86’ wave was the first that clearly exceeded Bradshaw’s wave from 22 years prior. Why wasn’t Bradshaw’s wave recognized? For one thing, it wasn’t surfed during a sanctioned competition, or an official world record attempt. Then they only had two real sources of evidence. One was a guy who set up a camera quite a ways from the shore and just started recording. The other was an IMAX crew that had travelled to Hawaii in the hopes of shooting video of big wave surfing. It was their last day of filming, and they hadn’t shot a single frame, when they got the call to head to Outer Log Cabins. The crew filmed from a helicopter that was piloted by a Vietnam War vet. They have aerial footage of these surfers that was shot from below their surfboards.
So, yeah, it’s gone from a means of settling bar bets to a major enterprise, full of bureaucracy. If you break a world record, and you don’t run afoul of their rules, and you submit the proper paperwork, they’ll recognize your achievement. Just don’t try beating the “eating a Jeep” record, because they won’t accept further submissions for that one.
@FlagsNZ said:
"Thanks, everyone for your supportive comments.
@Zander said:
"A fun - and different - article! Thanks @FlagsNZ .
Question: Why are the media reporting this now when the record was broken in May? I remember seeing this somewhere online back in the spring and had a weird sense of déjà vu from the article above."
There was a delay between the actual attempt, Alex submitting all the evidence to Guinness World Records, and then the record being verified with a framed certificate shipped to Alex.
It only became an official record recently."
I'd love to know how fast that Goliath engine would go without any carriages behind it. Any idea?
I thought I was going mad! I knew I'd seen this story before. Thanks for the explanation and thanks to @FlagsNZ for the great article.
Congratulations Alex, punching well above your age!
How did the magnets stick?
Wonderful story! Thank you so much for sharing!
@asherkobin:
The modern sealed coupler magnets have studs on top and bottom. Given the “only what’s in the box” restriction seems to rule out rare earth magnets being used to boost the power of the couplings, an easy trick is to just slap some 1x2 plates on top and bottom to harden the couplings. That is, if doing so doesn’t count as modifying the rolling stock. If it does, it probably comes down to slow acceleration so you don’t yank too hard and separate one of the couplings.
The other thing to remember is that they’re on a track that is both straight and level. Level means they aren’t fighting gravity on even a slight uphill grade. Straight means they don’t have any additional drag from the curves. As you go through a curve with a towing engine, the line of cars pulls to the inside, and you put a lot of additional strain on the couplings as they pass through the curve (after all, you’re pulling slightly sideways on them at this point). For a pushing engine, the opposite is true, and you force the cars into the outside rail. This compresses the couplings, so they’re less likely to separate on their own, but you can roll the train off of the curve if it’s being pushed too hard and/or has too much resistance.
Congratulations! I'm glad the authorities were very helpful and supportive too. I did find the idea of a risk assessment rather silly. What do we put? Sore fingers from pushing Lego together? Someone might drop a carriage and the lego breaks??
Well done to all involved
@Brickchap:
Are you likely to fall off the platform? Are you likely to fall off the platform as a train is passing through? Is anything likely to catch fire? Do you need to load massive structures into the space that might not fit through doors? Risk assessment in a situation like this is a catch-all for any and every type of activity, from doing a card trick on a small table, to doing skateboard stunts off the walls. It’s mandatory because you know better what your activity involves than they do, but they have to assume a certain level of liability if they approve your request (if you accidentally blow up the platform, someone on payroll is going to have to answer for allowing you to proceed).
Congratulations, Alex! That's awesome!
(Also, that locomotive is an absolute monster)
Brilliant. Well done. Enjoyed reading all about it.
Loved this article and congrats to Alex on breaking the record!!
I think this record attempt might be why 60197 suddenly seemed to disappear from shops everywhere. I was waiting for the price to come down somewhat before I purchased a second set to lengthen the one I own, but now it looks like I've missed out :-(
Do they mean "LEGO Toy Train" or are saying this is different than "model" trains? Because 101 seems low for model trains but indeed is impressive for LEGO trains. The original record seemed low. Could have sworn I saw some back in the late 90s that were more than 100 cars but that wasn't people seeking GWR. Also model trains at shows regularly have more than 100. Just wondering what they mean by "toy train." This was an impressive feat by the young man
Lol whenever I mentioned that I "still" like LEGO when I was 14yo I was being extensively abused by everyone around.
@Jaabo said:
"Do they mean "LEGO Toy Train" or are saying this is different than "model" trains? Because 101 seems low for model trains but indeed is impressive for LEGO trains. "
Correct, "model train" is a different thing than "toy train".
A nice text to read and a great achievement to read about :-) Congrats to Alex and to all involved.
@Drzhivago138:
Certainly there’s a difference in hair color between the average hobby train and LEGO train fanatic.
Impressive, would be good to see the physics behind this as there must come a point when the weight of all the 100+ carriages mean that adding any more extra motors at the front does not help as the magnets will eventually fail leaving the carriages behind. The only solution is to have motors throughout the train but this is not allowed.