Lego MOC Tunnel

Quite likely to give Lego purists palpitations because it uses non Lego parts for scenery, but this was built for a seven year old to play with.

Due to his fascination with YouTube tunnelling videos such as the Brenner and Gotthard base tunnels, I made a rather shorter tunnel.

Originally the siding at the side of the tunnel was going to be a quarry, but there was not enough space on the board to fit it in. So it became a siding instead. From a grown up perspective, it's a bit silly having a siding in parallel to the tunnel, but it gives the most play opportunities.

The layout is built on 1/2“ MDF board, the ends where the track is have been sanded down to ease connection to other track off board.

The tunnel body is made from six pieces of 2 x 1.1/2” softwood. Very much more than required but it gives some degree of strength to the assembled tunnel. I don't actually think this was necessary, something more lightweight would have been sufficient. The tunnel portals were made from modelling expanded foam, a template was made from a photograph on folded paper, when unfolded, the two sides of the portal were symmetrical. I wanted to get the oval shape correct, so I drew the inner oval out on paper and then marked the stone shapes on. I used a craft knife to create the joints in the masonry and glued the angled sides on with UHU glue. I decided to make the portal more imposing by adding a masonry cap to the top and sides. After this was done, I created the stone texture with powered tile adhesive mixed with water and PVA glue. This was brushed on thickly enough to cover but not obscure the joints carved in the stonework. After, this was painted to get the desired colour.

Finally, after gluing the portal to the board and tunnel bore, I added some tufts of grass to weather to portal. The opposite end is similar, but slightly different.

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