New crossing piece for Lego Masters?

[Tcm0]

I just watched parts of the "Lego Time Train" video from Lego Masters Australia and they had a crossing piece that I didn't see before (and I'm surprised that I've seen no one talking about it). It's a "x" crossing like the old 9V one but without metal rails and with longer track connections.

There clearly is no gap between the different pieces like there would be if it was brickbuilt.

I think that it's weired that they changed the length of the track connections. But do you think that it's possible that we'll get a new official crossing piece?

The video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLR_RcW9doM

Edited June 22, 2019 by Tcm0

[M_slug357]

@Tcm0 Picture failed to load (at least on phone browsers)

What do you mean by longer connections? It looks brick built to me? Especially if you look at the middle bit, it looks like tiles.

[deraven]

If you freeze the video when they're doing the detailed look at the wild west build (the part that shows all the dynamite piled up at the crossing) you can see that it's definitely tiles at the corners and in the center of the crossing, but the rails themselves are either a new (prototype?) part or custom/modified Lego.  If you look at the placement of the tabs on the inner aspect of the track where the ends of each section connect, you can see that they definitely are shorter than a regular full track length and where they meet at the center there's a 45° break like they've been cut to have the corners mesh.  It is interesting...

[Tcm0]

8 hours ago, M_slug357 said:

@Tcm0 Picture failed to load (at least on phone browsers)

What do you mean by longer connections? It looks brick built to me? Especially if you look at the middle bit, it looks like tiles.

Sorry, I uploaded the image somewhere else.

There are bricks built above it but the rails where the train drives are directly connected. That wouldn't be possible with a brickbuilt crossing.

The rail piece itself looks to be 32x32 while the older one was 16x16

[deraven]

38 minutes ago, Tcm0 said:

There are bricks built above it but the rails where the train drives are directly connected. That wouldn't be possible with a brickbuilt crossing.

As I noted, they are not quite connected.  There is a seam/gap at a 45° angle at each of the corners where the rails meet.  So the rails themselves are definitely not brick-built and the length is not standard, but they also don't appear to be molded parts but either a prototype or modified/custom parts.  Pause the video at 12:50, 1 frame before it cuts to the gunslinger minifig to see what I mean with the gaps between rails.

[ColletArrow]

My first instinct was it's just a custom 3D printed part. But looking closer, working on @deraven's comments, and considering the unusual length of the track "arms" each side of the crossing, is it possible that someone just took 4 standard straight pieces and spliced them together? I think it was done by cutting a 45-degree arrowhead onto each part (or at least the rails themselves), gluing them together, and then adding some tiles to cover up the mess.

2 hours ago, Tcm0 said:

The rail piece itself looks to be 32x32 while the older one was 16x16

By my reckoning the crossing has an out-of-grid length of 30 studs - assuming it's symmetrical. Each "arm" appears to be 12 studs long, either side of the 6 stud "square" in the middle. This supports my hypothesis of cutting and joining 16-stud lengths of track, and also makes the crossing pretty much useless for real track circuits as far as I can tell. Only a 16x16 will work if you're building a simple figure-of-8 with standard 16-stud straights and curves.

[ALCO]

It can't be a real element and be functional as displayed in the photo. @ColletArrow is right about the length, but also there is not bit of straight rail between the rails of the crossing track to support the train. Looks to me like a MODed parts for that particular project. Shameful waist of straight track as they are total non-functional.

[Pdaitabird]

4 minutes ago, ALCO said:

Shameful waist of straight track as they are total non-functional.

At least they didn't commit that atrocity against a piece of 9v track.

[dr_spock]

Applying good old fashion model railroading kitbashing to LEGO. 

[sed6]

You should ask those guys directly. I'm sure they'd share their idea.