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Richie Dulin /

Legeauxland Legeauxland Theme Park is constructed entirely from LEGO, featuring elements from the mid 60’s to the present, from the most basic bricks through to complex working mechanisms. Highlights include a variety of infra-red remote controlled trains, interactive amusement rides and an assortment of famous people and characters in LEGO form. Timeline Legeauxland Attractions Legeauxland Touring 4 November 2013   The old Lasso has been repowered, recoloured, and is ready for installation in Amusementaria as the Whirlwind. The Legeauxland Monorail track has been rerouted and reinforced, and the new hotel/cafe/restaurant installed in place of the old medieval buildings. 3 November 2013 Significant groundworks in the revamped Amusementaria have been undertaken, incling the installation of the new Grand Merry-Go-Round. 2 November 2013   The new Legeauxland Monorail train was completed. The possibility of adding extra carriages to increase passenger capacity will be investigated. The attractions of Sideshow Row and the Fun House have been installed. 28 October 2013   Following an engineer’s review, an extra column has been added to the frame supporting the Iron Wheel. This should provide and extra level of stability in the event of seismic activity. Work on a new Monorail train has commenced. This will have a wider body, and potentially extra carriages to provide increased passenger capacity over the exisiting Monorail train. 27 October 2013 The new Grand Merry-Go-Round, has been completed, and is ready for placement in the renewed Amusementaria. 26 October 2013 The amusements of Sideshow Row have been completed. Left to right, they are: Laughing Clowns, Home on the (Shooting) Range, The Haunted House and Test-O-Skill. All are mechanically linked and will be available for guest control. 13 October 2013 A new attraction, the Iron Wheel has been completed and is ready to be craned into Westernaria. It is an eight gondola (32 seat) ferris wheel which provides excellent views of Legeauxland and is suitable for guests of all ages. 12 October 2013   The new attraction, tentatively titled Azz’s House of Fun has been completed. It is designed to be entered via a bridge on the top level, and guests descend through the Maze of Lights, through the Amazing Sloping Room, before going down a slide in the Grand Hall. The Grand Hall provides stairway access back to the top of the slide, and also opens onto the Sideshow Row amusments. The third booth in Sideshow Row has been completed: the atmospheric Haunted House walk through. 7 October 2013   The new Legeauxland castle has been completed, waiting only to be craned into place. Work has commenced on a row of sideshow attractions to replace the existing Legeauxland Aquarium. So far, Laughing Clowns and Home on the Shooting Range are complete, and they are set to be joined by Haunted House, Hammer Down and Test-O-Skill. What’s next? The completion of Sideshow Row, and the installation of the Ferrous Wheel in Westernaria. 22 September 2013 Extensive behinds the scenes work has been underway, martially resouces for the building activity that will come over the next few weeks. 7 September 2013 Legeauxland returned to the Berowra Uniting Church lego show, in a minimalist form. Three trains (1 PF, 2RC) ran well, and issues with rechargable batteries were resolved (long periods of non-use seem not to be ideal for them, with several being rejected as bad by the fast charger). The public were generally impressed, nervertheless. Some young viewers were impressed with the contstruction equipment at work in what is tentatively titled futureattractionaria. What’s next? There’s a lot that needs to be done before Legeauxland’s next outing, including some significant re-engineering to bring the park back to its attraction-rich standard of the last few years. 6 September 2013 On the eve of a public showing, a number of disasters befell Legeauxland, clearances to the new Legeauxland station had been miscalculated, making the loading platform only accessible to the Galloping Gosling, with the larger railcars confined to the passing loop only. A clumsy engineer tripped over some critical cables, requiring extensive excavation and recabling to restore power to Amusementaria. The same clumsy engineer inadvertantly carried out some unplanned excavation. Fortunately, some important work was accomplished, with the installation of a (temporary) roof over the Mine Train through Jurassic Wonderland caverns, the reinstallation of the Aquarium, and the tempoary installation of some medieval buildings to cover over a few holes in the layout. 1 September 2013 The anticipated building frenzy of the weekend has not happened, with non-Legeauxland events getting in the way of construction work. With a public showing immenent, the hard decision was taken to not reinstall the Legeauxland Monorail at all for this showing. This was disappointing news, especially combined with the news that the locomotive for Mine Train through Jurassic Wonderland would not be completed in time due to the acquisition of an out-of-gauge mechanism. A further disappointment was that the proposed new site for It’s a Micro World had insufficient clearances for the safe operation of the water ride. 25 April 2013 A loop of narrow gauge track has now been installed a 3x2 baseplate footprint. The Mine Train narrowly fits under the Legeauxland Railway. Several scenic areas around the narrow gauge railway line will now be developed, tentatively including Rainbow Valley (a western themed town), cactus canyon and the boneyard. 14 April 2013 Several weeks has been spent developing a fourth generation (now on board battery powered) Mine Train. Much experimentation was undertaken to product a locomotive powered by a 4.5 technic motor to run on narrow gauge LEGO track. Early versions were too wide or two long (or both), and 2WD versions had insufficient traction. A small, robust, reliable, though not very ‘realistic’ narrow gauge loco has now been delivered to Legeauxland, and a revamp of Westernaria to accomodate the Mine Train can now be commenced. 29 March 2013 Work on a third prototype of Mine Train began, working on a 64x64 footprint, with a circle of narrow gauge track offset to the front right corner. A five car mine train will rotate on an arm attached to a turntable. In practice, spans are possibly too great, and a remotely powered (or self powered) train is being considered, with copper conductive tape ordered to allow for track power. 17 February 2013 A couple visits from Dusty the Cat to the Lego room have revealed some structural issues with Legeauxland. (Notably, that the Monorail supports do not support the weight of a cat...). Time for a substantial rebuild, and a rethink of the design. Almost all the layout being eight bricks and one plate above the baseboards makes for a flat, and heavy layout. Lowering the front of the display makes for more interesting options to fit under the track. Tentatively, the plan is to shift It’s a Micro World! to the front left corner, under the railway, with the front right corner being taken up by a new Mine Train (similar to the Knotts Berry Farm ride, or Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland, rather than a minecoaster) 18 January 2013 Barricade, a diorama of the barricade scene(s) in Les Miserables, won a Highly Commended award at Brickvention. 13 January 2013 Work on Legeauxland is on hold as an exhibit for Brickvention 2013 is constructed. 11 November 2012 Legeauxland returned to St Luke’s Hornsby Heights for its third outing. The Legeauxland Monorail has been expanded, now with a continuous run (the Monorail ran anticlockwise, the Railway clockwise). Unfortunately, to accomodate the expanded Monorail, the Minecoaster has been removed, and the Fort Brique mountain demolished. It is an embarassment to management that Legeauxland is now without a rollercoaster (even one as flawed as the Minecoaster was, and something that will be addressed soon. Legeauxland won the ‘Visitor’s Choice’ award for most popular exhibit. 17 October 2012 A box arrived with some more monorail pieces! More than needed, but enough to open up new monorail possibilities in Legeauxland. 13 October 2012 After a few distractions lately, some work on Legeauxland Railway was undertaken. A new, diesel railbus was completed (in a variant of the Galloping Gosling’s red-white-blue-grey colour scheme), and the Coffee Pot steam railcar was rebuilt, shifting the power bogie to the back, and building a new front bogie with a stronger connection to the valve gear. At last, the valve gear won’t fall off every time the railcar is handled! 1 Sep 2012 Legeauxland returned to Berowra Uniting Church for the 2012 Lego display. The Legeauxland Monorail and the Rodeo Barn made their public debuts, and Tilt-a-Whirl’s Tilt-a-Whirl was on display as a static exhibit. 10 May 2012     Following some serious construction work and planning, it has been decided that a second attraction will be incorporated into the Legeauxland display at the inaugural Sydney Brick Show. Accompanying SPACE!Fall will be the exciting new Orbitrain. 4 May 2012 A circle of Racers track has been retrieved from deep storage. The track will form part of the new travelling base for Legeauxland Skytower. 3 May 2012 The new railcar, the Galloping Gosling has been completed. 30 April 2012 Yesterday’s outing proved somewhat inspirational, and a new, smaller, PFT-based, railcar has been prototyped. 29 April 2012 A visit to a Sydlug meeting prompted some slight modifications to the old Coffee Pot steam railcar. It is now equipped with a large red cowcatcher. 20 March 2012     Two 32x32 baseplates in Westernaria have been replaced with two 16x32 baseplates, opening up a 32x32 area. This new open area has allowed the revised Doc Gambort’s Shooting Emporium and Rodeo Barn to drop into place. The engineers were slightly embarassed when it was discovered that the new attraction unit had been built at too high an elevation. A quick trim knocked it down to size. A major innovation with the new (and revamped) modules is to include a wiring channel of reasonable width, and on the edge of the modules (so wires never have to be threaded through them). In addition, a combination of technic axle pins within the module bases and bricks or plates overlapping module joins, help keep the modules in line and level. What’s next?:     Installation of Tiltawhirl into Westernaria and associated landscaping. 17 March 2012             The Mark 2 Tiltawhirl was completed to a reliably working standard, and has been incorporated into a temporary ride building using the Tilt-a-Whirl’s House-O-Cards facade, which is in turn waiting for space in Westernaria. In other news, a source for non-lego wheels that can be regauged to ~20mm (LEGO narrowgauge) has been located. This makes a re-work (or even a possible replacement) of the minecoaster feasible. 11 March 2012 The prototype Tiltawhirl (hereafter refered to as the Mark 1) has been put aside. Work has commenced on a simulated Tiltawhirl mechanism (Mark 2). The Mark 2 has no Tilting element, but relies on coarse gears located beneath the flat deck to spin the cars, in an apparently random (but really quite predictable) pattern. The Mark 2 also has the advantage of being smaller (16 stud diameter) than the Mark 1, giving more options for installation. 5 March 2012     Some development work has taken place on the flexible baseplate for the Tiltawhirl. The pic is of the second and best of four alternate designs tested, but it is a long way from the ideal. Some thought has even been given to cutting the base, but that would be a dramatic step indeed. 27 February 2012 Last week’s development of the Tiltawhirl was built on. The articulated rotating arms were expanded, and now rest on a ring rail with two high and two low points. Rotation and tilting are smooth. The next hurdle is the rotating flexible baseplate. 21 February 2012 Some time was spent on developing/prototyping a new attraction, Tiltawhirl for Westernaria, with the current revision (version 6 or so), looking like it might be both practical and compact enough. The end result will be less impressive than the amount of work behind it, but it will be something of a technical triumph, and it has immense sentimental value as well. 12 February 2012 Some testing was done with the Minecoaster, which confirmed earlier advice that the wheels were the limiting factor in Lego coaster performance. Further development of the Minecoaster therefore remains on hold until alternative wheels are sourced.     Removal of the old barn in Westernaria was uneventful, and the new Rodeo Barn attraction has been installed in temporary workspace along with Doc Gambort’s Shooting Emporium, which in turn boasts a revised mechanism. The Doc Gambort’s and the Rodeo Barn will be installed in Westernaria once excavation work is completed. The new mechanism for Doc Gambort’s has a narrower profile, potentially freeing up space behind the two attractions. Discussions are underway on how to make better use of this space (SPACE!), including the possibility of a new attraction. The possible relocation or re-use of Tilt-a-whirl’s House-o-Cards has figured in these discussions. What’s next?:     Installation of Doc Gambort’s and the Rodeo Barn, and associated Westernaria landscaping and themeing. 10 February 2012     Growing dissatisfaction with the look of the high rise Legeauxland Hotel led to the rebuild of the upper levels, with the construction from the It’s a Micro World! level up becoming the new Legeauxland Castle, albeit possibly the only castle with monorail access. The clock has been retained – guests often appreciate it – but it has been lowered, and framed with some decorative work. The large Legeauxland sign has been lowered too, and it is now braced with two spires. The new look has received favourable guest comment, and the engineers (and the lawyers) like the better support for the Legeauxland sign. Some concerns remain about the new look being ‘too Disney’, but a theme park being ‘too Disney’ is perhaps a little like being ‘too rich’ or ‘too beautiful’. What’s next?:     After the distractions of the Hotel/Castle remodel, plans are to return to the previously mentioned priorities. 9 February 2012     The Monorail supports were just fine until it was realised that the Monorail was too low over It’s a Micro World! for the ride boats to pass under... so the Monorail was raised again. The new support for the Monorail ramp to the Hotel seemed a perfect place for some extra detail, so a Micro World! sign was added. The sign’s colours matched those in the the Micro World! ‘generic pagoda’... so the pagoda was removed and the Statue of Liberty relocated to that there, with ‘New York’ filling in the space (SPACE!) behind. What’s next?:     The front left corner, where the Pirates of the South Pacifique building has been overshadowed by the Monorail will be a candidate for a quick makeover. Revisiting Doc Gambort’s and the proposed Rodeo Barn remain high priorities. 7 February 2012     A visit by some interstate friends (including young children) on the weekend, was a chance to show off Legeauxland. It’s interesting to see how things work in an operation intense environment. The automatic reversal of the Monorail at the hotel showed up structural inadequaces in the monorail track. It was also discovered that train clearances tested at low speed didn’t exist at high speed. However, the attractions generally performed well, except when accidentally touched (there was no crowd barrier). Doc Gambort’s Shooting Emporium had been preemptively closed, and will not be operating again until the renovation is complete. Prior to the visit, there had been a general tidying up for the presentation. The Hotel was completed, the banner sign reinstalled, a replacement ice cream bar added and the park visitors returned to their feet.     What’s next?:     Revisiting the monorail supports, and firm anchoring of the monorail into the Hotel station. 31 January 2012 Last weekend saw work on better integrating and supporting the new Legeauxland Monorail, including the addition of a dummy tunnel mouth in Westernaria and the demolition of the old Legeauxland Hotel.     As noted earlier, the addition of the Monorail helix had placed a supporting column in the operating radius of the Roquet Jets ride, so the opportunity was taken to raise the Roquet Jets hub to clear the Monorail, and to brace the monorail support to the Roquet Jets tower. The opportunity was taken to better balance the hub to counter some problems experienced since the conversion of the old Dragon’s Flight ride into Roquet Jets. Unfortunately, the raising of the tower meant that there was no plausible minifig access to the attraction, so a long and winding staircase was added. Construction of a new Legeauxland Hotel has begun. The new hotel is sectional, allowing access to the railway even when Legeauxland is against a wall (which is 95% of the time), and will also incorporate a high level monorail station. And a monorail station is de rigeur for any theme park hotel. There are some tentative plans for more attractions related to the Hotel. It’s a Micro World! saw the addition of a Statue of Liberty statue, and a pair of Bananas in Pyjamas were added (on the stairs, naturally), following some purchases at Brickvention. What’s next?:     Completion of the Hotel, a rebuild of Doc Gambort’s Shooting Emporium, lighting for Pirates of the South Pacifique and the addition of a new attraction, Rodeo Barn are planned for February. There is also a stakeholder request for a Pirate Ship ride. 16 January 2012 The Crow’s Nest ride is finally ready for the trip to Brickvention. It works... after a fashion... but is far removed from the original plan for Legeauxland Skytower. It is unexciting, and won’t be being incorporated into Legeauxland. The tower itself is amazingly rigid, and may well find some other use in the future. 27 December 2012 Legeauxland Monorail has acquired a helix! I have now managed to use all my monorail track. There is a slight issue with the supports of the helix though - one of them runs straight through the Roquet Jets ride: 26 December 2011 After much juggling, the Legeauxland Monorail is installed. A loop couldn’t be made to work, so it is an end to end arrangement and I have several track sections left over. Fortunately, Lego Monorails can be autoreversed. 19 December 2011 The Legeauxland Monorail arrived in the mail today. I had it set up on the floor, and it is mesmerising. Squeezing it into/around Legeauxland is going to be a challenge. 13 November 2011 Legeauxland returned to St Luke’s Model Railway Exhibition in upgraded form. Following publicity in local press, attendance was a record, and Legeauxland won the Manchip Award for the Most Entertaining Layout. Many attractions made their debut at the St Lukes exhibition, including It’s a Micro World! and the new Ghost Train. 10 September Legeauxland appeared in the model railway show at the Kenthurst Orange Blossom festival. It was an interim layout, with SPACE!Fall Tower removed, and a couple of placeholders for attractions which will debut in November. 4 June 2011 Legeauxland visited Berowra Uniting Church’s LEGO exhibition, which was held in conjuction with their regular markets. SPACE!Fall Tower made its first public appearance in Legeauxland, but failed mechanically early on. The set up at Berowra proved the worth of the new baseboard system - the layout was up and working within 45 minutes of arrival. One of the other exhibits at the exhibition was a monorail... I think Legeauxland needs to start seriously searching for one. 6 April 2011 The set-up time problem has been addressed through the purchase of plywood baseboards. The existing ~21 modules have been grouped onto five baseboards; two are 3x2 32x32 baseboards, the other three are 3x1 32 x 32 baseboards. This move reinforces my commitment to keeping the layout to 7x3 32x32 baseboards in area - it fits comfortably on an 1800x600 banquet table. Future development of Legeauxland will be through rebuilding and increases in height, rather than an increase in area. 14 November 2010 Legeauxland premiered at the St Luke’s Model Railway Exhibition. The layout had been hastily prepared, with some space filled with a carpark. A crowd control barrier integrated the guest controls for some of the rides, and this proved a good solution to the old ‘fingers on the layout’ problem. The major problem was the set up time. Although the layout transported well, it took more than two hours to reassemble the modules and correctly route and reconnect wires. Legeauxland follows three earlier LEGO layouts displayed at St Luke’s, under the Legeaux/Brique banner: Point Brique in 2007, Port Brique in 2008 and Fort Brique in 2009. Unlike the earlier layouts, Legeauxland is presented as a fully integrated multi-theme park.

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