BrickStorm

I was one of the Kickstarter backers, and I too never saw anything come of it, Though I knew what I was getting into, so I'm not entirely fussed about investing. It's a shame I didn't see the metal loop that was a reward for my pledge, but after all the trouble they had with the metal rails I don't blame them. I do feel for those who ordered a product throught their store though and never saw the order; as someone who was once an employee at a business that failed, it still hurts that there were some customers we just couldn't provide for, but in the end there was nothing I could do. As far as I know, I never recieved any correspondance from them asking for an updated shipping address/details during that period last holiday season where they said they were mailing out pledge orders, which seemed funny to me... Were there any Australians here that Kickstarted/Backed them that saw their pledge reward (of any sort) get delivered?

Great news! Congrats to Eric J. Olsen and the rest of the ME Team, all the best for the future! hopefully you can take this and run with it!

I'd just like to add something in regards to kickstarter, there are a lot of posters here talking like they just pre-ordered track, or talking as if these are completed packs for sale, which is absolutely NOT the case. Firstly, i mean absolutely no disrespect to Eric J. Olson or any of the ME team, I'm sure their intentions are nothing but genuine, and I'm putting some money down myself. But I want to bring attention to what Kickstarter actually is and how it works. Kickstarter is 'crowd-funding'. Instead of a company going to a bank or publisher to ask for funds to complete a project, it instead appeals to the fans, the core base, for donations to bankroll development, with some pledging incentives for increased sized donations. This can actually be a great thing, in the video-game world for example, projects have taken off after a large appeal to fans and interested parties has worked after the banks said 'no'. One of the big ideas that has just made the news is the 'Occulus Rift' Virtual reality headset - on pitch, from just an idea in one guys' head, it blew way over it's target, getting millions of dollars in pledge money. after two prototypes, The company was just bought by facebook for $2 bil. However, the distinction has to me made; the money you're pledging is to help ME 'get on their feet' so to speak, and in return ME will gift you some product as thanks. This IS NOT a purchase of product from the company. Why is this important? if, god forbid, the kickstarter succeeds but ME runs into unforseen difficulties that have unaccounted expenses etc., it's possible that they may take a long period of time to recover, or worst-case not be able to fulfill your pledge 'reward' at all. Your money hasn't gone to buying a product, remember, it was a investment towards assisting ME buying the equipment necessary for starting production. Keep in mind there is NO date for which your track will be sent to you. There have actually been a few Kickstarted projects that have failed, a lot of Video games, for example, underestimated the funding they would need to complete their work and nothing ever was released. While I'm not saying this will happen to ME, i'm just saying there is always a risk, no matter how remote. Kickstarter is there for the general public to be 'investors' in a venture, NOT a customer. Pledgers need to be aware of the risks with such a venture, and not automatically assume 'money goes in = track comes out' Please, read and above all understand the "risks and challenges" section, as well as the "accountability on Kickstarter" bits. because Kickstarters always have an element of risk, and, while it very likely everything will go to plan, all of that needs to be understood just in case of the worst-case scenario. Nevertheless, i wish ME all the best for the Kickstarter and the project.

so I was at legoland Florida yesterday, looking through the shop when the staff start putting some of the new sets on the shelf... well, I've been slightly beaten to the punch, but since its taken me ages to upload this on hotel Wi-Fi I'm putting it up anyway! http://imageshack.com/a/img708/2894/u1ii.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img20/2811/9b51.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img199/1676/ii04.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img198/9144/0gvn.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img819/9193/henc.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img571/7467/s2th.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img801/2710/hhkp.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img41/1638/4uxq.jpg http://imageshack.com/a/img69/4619/fpll.jpg (Oh and mods, sry if the image sizes are wrong, I'm doing this all on a smartphone!)

Right now I'm sitting here debating with myself to go and get one of these right this second... it's a great set, and since my job is to load freighters like this on a daily basis it really appeals to me (yes, conveyors are fun to drive!) the only thing that is holding me back is the immense size of the set - I already have 3182 Airport and that plane sits on the shelf in another room gathering dust since I can't put it anywhere else - so getting another that is a similar size is a really hard sell. though, what would have made it a must-buy for me would be if LEGO had replaced the forklift (which IRL is highly unsafe to load a plane with) for an actual scissor lift cargo loader: Something close to it was in set 7734 Cargo Plane, but it didn't really look like anything realistic. Oh, who am I kidding... I'll probably buy it anyway. i think the one mod i'll have to do to it is make it a high- wing aircraft in order to make the entire main deck one smooth floor for cargo (from experience that wing piece has two large spans that effectively cut the fuselage in half, hence the empty void in the middle) Oh, for those that are curious as to why the jet's tail swings away (or thought it was unrealistic), it's inspired by the real-life 747 Dreamlifter, a modifed 747 built to carry aircraft fuselages internally. yes, it's very ugly, and yes, the hinges for the door stick out of the sides worse than the ones on this model!

Are you sure it's not the Emerald Night but the 9v motor itself giving you problems? I'm running into a similar problem, my 9v tender-powered EN slows down and shuts down after 20 metres or so, faster if it's pulling more than 2 EN cars. I worked out that either the motor is overloading and getting too hot, or the temperature sensor inside the motor itself is on the fritz. either way, the EN passenger cars are a lot heavier than a standard freight car and tend to add more stress on the pulling motors.

Wow, my first reaction when seeing 4430 Mobile Fire Command Centre was "holy crap, did LEGO just build a bloody STRYKER?!" seriously though, making firefighting versions of armored personnel carriers isn't too farfetched an idea (Us aussies are doing it with our lighter vehicles), but Strykers can't float and they have a roof... Guess you'll have a fit first time you see a CH-47 Chinook fly. the rotors are designed to rotate in opposite directions to remove the need for a tail rotor like normal choppers. The lego box suggests you can drive the sextuplet(?)-bike up the back ramp into the chopper, though I thought it would be cooler if it came with something you could sling-load underneath the bird, even if you just did it with the sex-bike (yeah, I think I'll be calling it that from now on) I like how lego lately have been making versions of real aircraft (the SA 330 Super Puma and S-64 Skycrane being the last two examples) but I agree with the notion that this would have been better depicted as a civilian cargo/passenger aircraft. Either way, it's going to be hard for me not to pick this one up. The garbage truck really appeals to me, dunno why, maybe it's just that cab design is so different and recognizable as a garbage truck. That being said I think it would be a great idea if TLG brought out a modern garbage truck with a working technic even if the technic side of it turns out not to be feasible it would still be a so much better take on the whole "guy chucking bins in he back" lego garbo trucks that have been around since before I was born.

Hey Everyone, was gonna stick this up in the town forum but decided it wasn't the best place to chuck it - so here it is! (I did skip over the duplo sections since I figured not too many people here are interested in that) Rapidshare download link For those who haven't used RS before, simply click the link above and press the grey "free download" button - Easy!

I get a 403 error trying to get on the website... aww.

I not 100% about this, but at the time I was under the impression that this particular set didn't come with a speed regulator in AUS - anyone know if this was true? I seem to recall that TLC sold the regulator and power cable as a separate product in that catalog. There's at least two I can think of: 4559 Cargo Railway, and 4561 Railway Express. Both those trains I consider in the true "What the hell were they smoking in Denmark?" realm of design. I prefer to walk off my trains not get lifted off via forklift, and i also prefer my locomotives longer than a family car haha.

here: notable things include the truck transport car and hopper loader structure are cut from the catalog image, 7939 is also still there, and the main diorama is the same one from last year. more scans of the catalog will be provided on request.

I guess I have a mixed reaction to this news. on one hand, it great to have a new design, with new features, but on the other, I feel the current train really is a good one, and is getting replaced by an overall inferior designed set. IMO, 7939 was great for several reasons, it had lots of playability, containers could be moved around, loaded, the cars were great sets in and of themselves, it seemed like every part could be taken as a separate set. The standout bit IMO was the fact the locomotive design was that not only did it look built for speed, but it was also omnipurpose - not only did it look good hauling it's train, but it wouldn't look out of place pulling a passenger train - you could even connect three emerald night cars behind it and it would look like a modern orient express. The design was markedly different from most other freight engines from the pf, rc, and 9v eras, and was ultimately better for it. This new design seems to have been built for one purpose - which limits the playability. Personally it looks like it's purely built for low-speed maintenance operations. You have a locomotive that looks as if it's an upgraded shunting loco (though I have seen locos like this pull trains), a box wagon that looks like it's about to do some short-haul work, an admittedly cool looking hopper car (and loader), and a maintenance car that has very limited use if not MOC'ed. After seeing these pics for the first time my personal guess was that this was going to be a third train filling a niche gap, but I guess that didn't make good business sense. Sad, but personally I don't see this set being half as good a seller as 7939. I'll probably skip this one, especially seeing as the Maersk train already seems to look like a better freight train anyway.

The question I have is how the single container in the video is suspended above the void in the drop-away carriage without falling inwards. Are there going to be provisions in the set to allow this on BOTH carriages at the same time? or was this more MOC trickery for the purposes of presentation?

DW Duq, no offense taken. While I'm not citing any rule TLG have consistently taken (I'm well aware that most lego train sets have had wildly varying car counts), I was just hypothesising that it may have been in this case as well as the emerald night; i.e., both "afol exclusive trains" might possibly be built with this in mind, not so much the train line in general. Other companies have sold toy trains under this kind of 'car consist' and especially with steam trains, it makes everything look very odd. In any case I probably bought more EN sets purely because it only had one car, so one could argue that one passenger car in the EN set was a very shrewd decision on TLG part as well... argh the wild speculation is doing my head in! In any case, I haven't been disappointed with the EN, and with this new exclusive it looks like I won't be either (that is if it does happen to be a public release and not some company exclusive) So does this NDA still prevent you from talking about it, even with the EN set having been released for so long?

Or, if your pessimistic, TLG have ultimately decided that the three-car train rule is in effect. I.E TLG picture the tender car of the EN to be a complete train car in itself, and not part of the engine like most steam fans, thus EN is a three-car train. The fact that this set has it's engine entirely contained within one 'carriage' could mean TLG coincidentally 'frees' up a car slot for an actual freight car this time around, if you catch my drift. In any case, this is a must buy for me, since I missed out on a BNSF and Intermodals in my dark ages. Well, time for another round of a sighing GF and disapproving looks from the rest of my family when it arrives in the mail. Possibly twice, haha. Oh, and to the OP, No. No, I was certainly not ready for this. Ears are bleeding from the mind-blasting.