Stadler KISS Caltrain

The all-new, fully electric Stadler KISS EMU Caltrains have hit the SF Bay Area and I am all for it. After seeing these daily for the past few months, I was inspired to have a crack at making my own LEGO-size version. Here is what I was able to accomplish.

Yes, this train is built completely at 7 studs wide! This was done for the most part due to the sizing of Lego train wheels/bogies and the fact I needed to plate the sides of them to reduce their profile. At 6 studs wide, they stuck out and made the train look ugly. At 8 studs wide, the train entered a whole new scale and was accumulating pieces and weight too rapidly to the point it was going to be 1,000 pieces a car. I decided to try something new and go for a happy medium between the two options and go for 7 studs. This allowed me to more accurately capture certain aspects of the train but also made it unnecessarily difficult to capture certain aspects like the nose of the drive units. Though it may be 7 studs wide, it is still extremely rigid and strong under the hood, and it is in no way fragile to pick up and move around.

In my model, it is designed to be modular in size to make the consist as long or as short as you desire. The real trains consist of 7 cars each, but for photo purposes, I elected not to make it the full length. The train is designed to operate at full 7-car length or as short as 4 cars; however, the cars are semi-permanently joined together rather than using LEGO magnets so regularly adjusting the train length is not practical.

I designed this Caltrain model to operate using the powered-up system, and it runs on a standard L-Gauge track. The Powered-Up hub is located in each of the lead units (Front and Back) and is located right behind where the color gradient begins and ends or right behind where the driver would sit.

Just like on the real trains, my model has been designed with both the High-Platform boarding doors and the currently used Low-Platform boarding doors available to use. In most of the pictures above, I have replaced the upper doors with a door plug just as they currently are on the real trains. The High-Platform option was simply added by Caltrain to future-proof their trains for when California HSR finally comes through and upgrades stations to High-Platform. Just a neat little quirk I added for more customization options and realism.

I wanted to make all color lines and graphics brick-built. I stayed true to this, obviously, minus the Caltrain logos. All other color gradients and lines are 100% brick-built and require no prints or custom pieces.

Please let me know your thoughts on how this looks and any areas you think could've been done differently to look better.

Thank you,

Calvin