Hungarian train collection

It was not until recently that I have discovered this blog (in Hungarian). While the trains are most recognizable to locals, the build quality may appeal to everyone. Most of them are built with Lego Digitial Designer, which is understandable - I certainly would not have enough bricks to build all of them. Let's go through the best ones.

We start with the M28 shunter, I think it looks awesome:

There are larger engines as well. The NOHAB has Swedish origins. In Hungary it has been known as the M61. It may be familiar to everyone who travelled around Lake Balaton:

There are electrical engines too. This is the V43:

We can see interesting trains in the capital as well. This is the Cogwheel train that brings you up to the closest hill:

Once you are up, you can take the Children's railway to take a trip amongst the hills:

As the image shows the minifigs are all well. But I am sure they get tired in the fresh air. The way home is quick and comfortable in this Combino:

I am totally flattered. Each one of these has been built in LDD but they are all original: the details are right and they are instantly recognizable, full of happy minifigs. On the blog you can find other engines too: there is a V63, an M41, and M62 "Sergey" as well.

Congratulations to depi for the cool creations!

The Parliament Building, Budapest

I have finally managed to finish the Parliament Building. It was a long wait, I know, but it served its purpose: I have nominated it to a building contest! Keep fingers crossed.

One of the iconic buildings of Budapest, the Hungarian Parliament Building stands by the Danube giving visitors a perfect view from the Castle Hill on the other side of the river.

After Budapest was united from three cities in 1873, an international competition was held to establish a new, representative Parliament Building. Imre Steindl emerged as the victor. Construction was started in 1885 and the building was inaugurated on the 1000th anniversary of the country in 1896, and completed in 1904. During the communist regime a red star perched on the top of the dome, but was removed in 1990. The Hungarian Republic was declared from the balcony facing Lajos Kossuth Square on 23d October in 1989.

I chose the Parliament because it has a distinct shape that is easy to recognize. The original building has plenty of small details. To keep it all in LEGO I would have had to build in at a much larger scale. Instead I opted to keep it simple and manageable: I wanted to keep the distinct shape of the building but simplify many of the details so that it can be built at a reasonable scale. Even so it is larger than the typical buildings from the Landmark series: 36 studs wide, 19 studs deep and built from about 660 bricks.

More photos at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bricksngears/ParliamentOfHungary02
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=500138

Buildings and scenes from Hungary

It is well known that I like LEGO Architecture sets. Not so long ago I posted a review of the 21011 Brandenburg Gate on kockagyar.blog.hu (in Hungarian) that triggered some of the fans to build several famous buildings and scenes from around the country. Many of them sent me the model they created so that I can render them in nice quality. Let me show you the result, click on the images to see them in large:

The Hungarian Parliament, Budapest (Sárkányapu)	The Parliament from another angle (Sárkányapu)
Heroes square, Budapest (Könyvtároslány / Haynau)	"Truncated" church, Debrecen (Yooha)
The Great Church, Debrecen (Yooha)	The University of Debrecen (Yooha)
The Dome of Eger (Yooha)	The Dome in microscale (Yooha)
A kilenclyukú híd, Hortobágy (Mnarko)	The puszta (Mnarko)