AT&SF #2926 - 4-8-4 Steam Locomotive

[Daedalus304]

Hello! Today I'd like to share my newest LEGO locomotive - AT&SF's #2926. Some of you who have been here for a while may remember that I have posted a build of this locomotive before, 4 and a half years ago. Since February, I've been completely re-designing and updating the model from the ground up, and I'm really excited to have finally completed it.

A quick history - #2926 was one of the last group of steam passenger locomotives built for AT&SF in 1944. The 2900 class of Locomotives were the heaviest of the 4-8-4s built in the United States, weighing in at just shy of 1 Million pounds when fully loaded with water and oil, and they were also among the largest Northerns ever built as well. In the 9 years it was originally in service, #2926 logged over 1 million miles of both Passenger and Fast Freight service. In 1956, #2926 was donated to the city of Albuquerque, NM and it was placed on static exhibit in Coronado Park.

In 1999, the New Mexico Steam Locomotive and Railroad Historic Society purchased #2926 from the city for $1, and began putting into motion a full restoration of the engine with the intention of having it running again. This restoration is now very nearly completed and the engine is expected to be back in service next year. Anybody who is interested in the restoration can check out their website, http://www.nmslrhs.org/, and I heartily recommend going through their 15-year photo history showing the progress. 

My model of #2926 has a lot of really cool features and interesting building techniques I'd like to show and explain, but first I'll just do a quick overview. #2926 is powered by 2 XL Motors in the tender, each geared up 40:24 for some extra speed. In my testing the last 5 years, 2 XL motors has had more torque than I could make use of - so even with sacrificing some of that strength for speed, this engine is still incredibly strong. I've used some 3D printed XXL Boxpok Drivers designed by Shupp, as well as Benn Coifman's rods. The decals were made for me by OKBrickworks, who do some fantastic work - including something especially cool that you'll see in some other pictures. This engine is also fully lit using a total of 9 of Brickstuff's LEDs, and with some help from my dad I've also got a smoke unit installed (A Seuthe #5). 

The engine+tender are just shy of 100 studs in length. I've designed it primarily with r56+ in mind for "ideal" running, but it will take an R40 curve. The experience is not dissimilar to this video, but it will make it. 

Luckily for me, a friend owns a 1/48th TruScale model of a 2900 locomotive, and the real #2926's restoration site is only a half hour away. Between the two, I was blessed to have probably the best reference material I could have asked for, and it really pushed me to try to build the most accurate, nearly-perfectly 1/48th scaled Lego Locomotive I could. 

The first thing that's probably caught your attention is the safety tread on all the walkways. This was a custom design I had the guys at OKBrickworks make for me, and I think they did a great job. I spent a lot of time this year watching video reviews of O-Gauge models on Youtube, and one of the things that caught my eye was the pattern of the safety tread on the walkways. To me, it helps break up the endless, shiny blackness and give some more definition and detail. This is also my first time using the technique of 1x1 Tile with Clips to hold on the running boards. In the past when I'd tried it the clips were always too mushy, or brittle, and the tiles were always held in at a bit of a slant I couldn't stand. Then, this revision of the clip piece came to my attention. It suffers none of the issues I'd had with the tiles-in-clips methods I'd had before, so I definitely recommend using that version of the clip.

In addition to the OKBrickworks decals, I've also used a little yellow vinyl inside the headlight to keep it shining bright (The black plastic was absorbing a lot of the light), and some black vinyl on the tops of the Light Gray slopes to keep the boiler jacket black and avoid a "collar" at the front. 

Moving back along the top of the engine, there's a lot to see here that isn't so obvious from other views. Both the Bell and Whistle have each their own ropes running along back into the cab, and you can easily see the size and shape of the sand dome.

The interesting apparatus you see around the funnel is a special device 2926 was equipped with that adjusted the height of the stack - raising and lowering it depending on available clearance and, on open lines, letting them fine-tune the amount of draft. 

This view also highlights what I feel is one of the defining details of my model of 2926 - just like the real engine, the boiler enlarges towards the middle. Here, you can clearly see the diameter is wider behind the sand dome than it is in front of it. The sides of the boiler expand by an entire plate on each side, and I've done everything I could to keep this expansion smooth and seamless and avoid the 'stepped' feeling. This made the build a lot more complex than usual, and the Sand Dome became a very interesting component to have to build as it had to fully fill a very unconventional gap. Lining it up just right between everything, and then also attaching the number boards, took a lot of weird approaches. For example, if you noticed the 1/2 plate gaps on the front and back of the dome and are curious how they've been filled in - you may be surprised to learn that I used this tail rudder. 

Moving further back you can see the Steam Dome and the pop-off valves, the dynamo, and all the pipework. Of note here is that the last 8 studs along the sides of the boiler also gently slope inwards, this time a half a plate between the cab and the front of the firebox. The top of this area has some of the 'stepped' look I tried to avoid, but I couldn't find a way around it that fit everything I wanted and needed.

My cab roof has the hatches and their rails, though non-functional. I realize that there's been a really lovely advancement in cab roofs made over the last year, that I first noticed on Cale Leiphart's amazing Blue Comet Locomotive. I've considered a few times trying to reverse engineer that technique, but for a variety of reasons (Structural/hatches/time) I've decided to stick with my now-antiquated design.

The running gear has also been significantly altered from my old version, with more complete valve gear and more accurate motion than I'd had before. These XXL Boxpoks look fantastic, and I really appreciated that there were multiple sizes of counterweight available so I could go just that extra little inch of detail. One thing to make note of is that the drivers are not rigidly attached to the locomotive - The engine pivots off a technic pin over the 2nd axle, and in the back pivots off the trailing truck. This means that there is a very narrow and carefully adjusted seam between the drivers and the boiler to allow enough freedom of motion for the chassis to rotate enough to navigate R40 curves - a very, very tricky balance.

I've got a video of the wheels and gear in motion, here:
 

Now, for those of you who are remembering when I said this engine was powered by 2 XL motors in the tender, and finding the above a little contradictory - I build a special stand for #2926 that has an M-Motor in the base. There are some supports between the drivers that hold the locomotive just barely off the rails, and an geared axle from the stand powered by the M-Motor interfaces with a gear on the 2nd set of drivers. This lets me run the locomotive's motion while on otherwise static display, which is super fun.

Moving on, here you can see the rear of the engine and again, there's a lot going on. The sides of the firebox slope inwards as on the real locomotive, from 9-wide at the bottom to about 7 by time it meets with the boiler. Once again inspired by O-Gauge locomotive reviews, #2926 is equipped with a drop plate to bridge the gap between the engine and the tender. Thanks to the tightness of even R56 curves, I had an issue with the drop plate colliding with the tender through S-bends and causing some trouble. To rectify that, the drop plate has been put on a bar and can slide left and right so that it won't cause any issues when the tender needs to push it a little. The springs are sadly a bit of an eyesore, but for now necessary - they keep the drop plate perfectly centered when it's not being moved. I needed an incredibly soft and gentle spring to keep this from causing trouble, and unfortunately out of all the springs I've found and tried so far these were the only ones soft enough. So, yes, they are too big in diameter for now, but they'll do until I find the perfect spring.

Also in this photo you can see some wires sticking out of the cab. These are for the smoke unit and the lights, that I'll be showing more of later.

Now, not many of my photos of the tender turned out super well, so hopefully you'll be able to bear with me with what I did get. 

The biggest point of interest on the tender is the detail put into the shaping and positioning of the Fuel Bunker. On the real #2926's tender, the fuel bunker has a small but noticeable gap between it and the tender walls. It also sits a couple inches lower than the tender walls and the water tank section. It took a very long time to get it figured out, but as you can see, there is indeed a noticeable gap between the fuel bunker and the walls of the tender, and the top of the bunker is inset a half a plate lower. To the rear of the bunker, you'll also see that the Wall Panel Corners wrap around the back of the bunker too, to prevent a rather unsightly gap that would've been there had the wall panels just run right up to the curved bricks. This all meant that securing this bunker top was a nightmare - a half a plate lower, a half a plate more forwards, and it's an 8-wide section of paneling in a 9-wide tender build. Somehow in the end it all worked out, and the top of the bunker is securely attached, by studs no less.

One section of the panel isn't attached, and that's the access hatch for the battery, that's held in place by friction. Using the thin tail-end of the modern orange brick separator, it's easily removed and I can turn the battery on and off and charge it as needed. It really, really amuses me that the charge port of the battery is almost perfectly underneath the hatch for pouring in more oil.
On the far left, you can see that weird old hinged bar sitting there. That's there as an approximation of the tool the crew would use to open the oil/water hatches. It's a bit large to scale, but it's fun to have and the Minifigs pose well with it.

The back of the tender does have the prototypical lettering, but the bulkiness of the ladder obscures it a bit. For those curious, the text above reads:

7170 G.O.S-858
24500 G.W

Which is, 24,500 gallons of water and 7,170 gallons of oil. From everything I've been able to find online, #2926's tender may actually have been the largest tender ever constructed. If you check through the restoration photos of #2926 at the website I linked earlier, they actually have pictures of people climbing around inside the water tank scrubbing out scale - and also some pictures of a crane lifting out the fuel bunker. It's really, really cool to see.

Okay, now the home stretch. I've got some fun features to show off:

When I said this engine was fully lit, I meant it. The headlight and the marker lights are lit, but also you may notice the number boards are lit up as well. I'll go more into those soon.


The firebox also has an LED inside of it, which lights up the cab and, with the help of a little aluminum foil lining my firebox (Because, again, the black plastic just soaked up all the light), you can see the locomotive also features an ash pan glow.

The tender also features a reversing light that only lights up when the engine is driving in reverse, as you can see in this video:

 

Okay, now on to the number boards.

Okay, so, the number boards. These were made using White 2/3 Slopes ("Cheese slopes") with Brickstuff lights inside them. Because of the variations in LEGO's white and different densities of plastics, it was actually a little bit harder than I expected to find 4 white slopes with the matching transparencies. The number faces themselves are on a transparent vinyl, printed black with the numbers left as unprinted "blank spots". The LED lights up the the white slopes just enough that the light shines through the numbers, but none of the black vinyl. I had really hoped that it would turn out this way, but until I got my decals from OK Brickworks and applied them and the vinyl there was no way to know for sure - but I think they turned out really nicely.

The last picture I'd like to show here is this, a comparison between my original #2926 from 2014 and the 2018 version:



Back when I build the original model, I'd hoped that some day XXL drivers would be available. Shupp's 3D printed XXL drivers were more than I could have hoped for, and thus kicked off the "2926 v3 Project" back in February. When I started, I'd really only thought that I would make some minor adjustments to my then-current v2, which was basically v1 with some slightly better details and the chassis was reworked to no longer be rigid. v2's wheelbase articulation was the same as v3's is now. At first, I'd really just planned to elongate the boiler to make room for the larger drivers. 

But, then I got ambitious. A friend had a 1/48th TruScale model that he let me use as a reference, and the restoration of the real 2926 had finally reached a point where the locomotive was mostly intact and no longer strewn about the site. I saw an opportunity to fix all the details and shapes that were wrong before, and I leaped upon it. Realizing how close in size my model was to the 1/48th O-scale model only fueled the madness, really, and that was the point where I went for the huge goal of the expanding boiler. It wasn't a simple update anymore - I had a whole new build. 9 months later, I think it's finally done. There's a few things I'd like to add in the future, but for now, I'm satisfied with it, and I hope you all enjoy it.

If you would like to see more pictures of my model of #2926, you can take a look at the Flickr album. If you're really keen to take a stroll down memory lane, here's the album for my original model. as well as the original Eurobricks topic. I add these because I find it fascinating to look at the old version and think, when I first built that, it was the best build I could achieve. 4 years has made a huge difference, and not just in my personal ability, but also the amazing support that the Lego Train community has built for itself. Custom rods, 3D printed drivers, amazing custom stickers, Lego-compatible lighting options - all of these wonderful things enrich our hobby. I'm really excited to see what the next 4 years brings.

Thank you for your time!

 

Edited October 28, 2018 by Daedalus304

[Toastie]

The story behind this is - simply wonderful. Full of memories, so many details, so much dedication.

The model is beyond anything I have seen regarding American steam engines - ever.

Time it took to arrive here: More than appropriate. It is, as if one can feel the years >required< to build, rebuild, build and so on ...

The video with her disappearing is showing so much: Elegancy, strength, pride. Wonderful.

The usage of third party parts - so carefully chosen and applied - "enriches" this model, as you said, to a stage that is - wonderful.

Congratulations to this breathtaking LEGO model. It is unbelievable.

With very best regards,

Thorsten 

[sed6]

2 hours ago, Toastie said:

The story behind this is - simply wonderful. Full of memories, so many details, so much dedication.

The model is beyond anything I have seen regarding American steam engines - ever.

Time it took to arrive here: More than appropriate. It is, as if one can feel the years >required< to build, rebuild, build and so on ...

The video with her disappearing is showing so much: Elegancy, strength, pride. Wonderful.

The usage of third party parts - so carefully chosen and applied - "enriches" this model, as you said, to a stage that is - wonderful.

Congratulations to this breathtaking LEGO model. It is unbelievable.

With very best regards,

Thorsten 

Ditto! Your attention to detail is fantastic! Thanks for sharing!

[pagicence]

This is exceptional. From the string for the bell, to the smoke from the chimney. It truly is a steam locomotive.

Edited October 29, 2018 by pagicence

[ProvenceTristram]

Amazing. Runs smooth as silk, too. 

 

I really wish I could get access to those driving wheels. I'd love to design something incredible like this around them :/ Shupp doesn't sell those, does he? Also, would you mind saying what the technic axle hole spacing required to mount them is (like how many holes between)? I've been meaning to design a Hudson...

Edited October 29, 2018 by ProvenceTristram

[harnbak]

Very nice and industrial look - great piston movement

[Sven J]

This is a truly magnificent build!

Lots of details (I find something new every time I look at the pictures) and absolutely stunning building techniques. it is obvious that you spent a lot of time studying the prototype, and you have tremendous skills to turn your knowledge into such a model.

Having tinkered with smoke generators myself, I'd like to ask one question: The Seuthe no. 5 is quite bulky - how did you integrate it into the smokebox, and how did you attach it to the bricks?

[monai]

Really amazing MOC

also if the scale is not the LEGO right one (1:38), the rendering is absolutely magnificent. The smoking is ice on the cake, I'm curious too about its engineering.

Just one observation, it looks as the shcupp's brick wheels are not really black, what about painting them?

many compliments

Sergio

 

[JasonL]

Wow! It looks to be quite an improvement over the already fantastic original, and the smoke is a clever touch. Gonna have to revisit my own 4-8-4 now. :) How long does your battery last with 2 XL motors? Do you have any pictures of the motor assembly? I still struggle to build motors without the whole thing breaking. Again, great job! 

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Wow this second version makes the first model pale!

What a fantastic improvement ...those new wheels are epic!

Great lights and amazing smoking chimney!

The only problem is that now I want to change the wheels to my Big Boy! 

[Freezingvettes99]

That is simply outstanding!

[Laura Beinbrech]

That is one awesome (and awesomely huge) steam locomotive you made there, and some interesting history with the real one as well.  I'm kinda curious what the custom driver wheels look like by themselves (they almost look like they'd be big enough for making the 4-2-2 Midland "Spinner" locomotives).

That valve gear & push-rod action is smooth as silk, and I could almost just sit & watch that all day. :)

[Daedalus304]

On 10/28/2018 at 4:15 PM, Toastie said:

The story behind this is - simply wonderful. Full of memories, so many details, so much dedication.

The model is beyond anything I have seen regarding American steam engines - ever.

Time it took to arrive here: More than appropriate. It is, as if one can feel the years >required< to build, rebuild, build and so on ...

The video with her disappearing is showing so much: Elegancy, strength, pride. Wonderful.

The usage of third party parts - so carefully chosen and applied - "enriches" this model, as you said, to a stage that is - wonderful.

Congratulations to this breathtaking LEGO model. It is unbelievable.

With very best regards,

Thorsten 

Wow, thank you so much, I feel very honored by your words. The things you say you've seen in the video, elegance, strength, pride, to me those are the words that define a steam engine. And it's always fascinated me to watch them, the way they move and work - and I really wanted to try and capture that elegance in the motion. It's really hard to get it in a medium like LEGO, and it's really easy to make it still look crude... to be honest, it's a relief to hear that it seems to have mostly worked! And of course, again, I couldn't have ever gotten to this point on my own. The community is awesome, both the people who create these custom items and the people who've used those items in inspiring ways.

Thank you very much, again.

On 10/28/2018 at 6:42 PM, sed6 said:

Ditto! Your attention to detail is fantastic! Thanks for sharing!

 

On 10/28/2018 at 6:42 PM, pagicence said:

This is exceptional. From the string for the bell, to the smoke from the chimney. It truly is a steam locomotive.

Thank you both!

On 10/29/2018 at 1:50 AM, ProvenceTristram said:

Amazing. Runs smooth as silk, too. 

 

I really wish I could get access to those driving wheels. I'd love to design something incredible like this around them :/ Shupp doesn't sell those, does he? Also, would you mind saying what the technic axle hole spacing required to mount them is (like how many holes between)? I've been meaning to design a Hudson...

Oh, well then, let me show you this wonderful little Shapeways Page! Shupp's got tons of driver/wheel designs up there that you buy straight from Shapeways. They're very sturdy and definitely feel up to the job.

The spacing of the wheels is 7 holes total, so you have 1 with an axle, 5 empty holes, and then another axle. So for just axles you'd need a 1x8 technic brick.

On 10/29/2018 at 5:35 AM, harnbak said:

Very nice and industrial look - great piston movement

Thank you!!

On 10/29/2018 at 10:16 AM, Tenderlok said:

This is a truly magnificent build!

Lots of details (I find something new every time I look at the pictures) and absolutely stunning building techniques. it is obvious that you spent a lot of time studying the prototype, and you have tremendous skills to turn your knowledge into such a model.

Having tinkered with smoke generators myself, I'd like to ask one question: The Seuthe no. 5 is quite bulky - how did you integrate it into the smokebox, and how did you attach it to the bricks?

Haha, I feel the same way every single time I see one of your MOCs. I don't know if I've been able to stuff in half the detail on here that you get on your locomotives. Thank you very much for your kind words.

So the Seuthe #5... is definitely bulky. Back when I built the original model, I - purists, look away - may have drilled out the centers of two 2x2 Round Bricks and one hole in a 2x8 technic plate, and fit the Seuthe through that. To keep in supported in place, underneath the Seuthe #5 I ran the wires through a 2x4 Technic Plate and built a support for it out of bricks. That keeps it pretty securely in place. So for v3, I just kept that how it was and brought it over. 3 modified parts didn't seem too bad, all things considered.

For the electronics side of it, I used a half a PF Extension cord and wired it into the C1/C2 lines with a resistor to get the voltage correct. I have to give out a very thankful shout-out to Philohome for all the extensive documentation of the PF system that made this possible for someone as electrically ignorant as I am.

On 10/29/2018 at 11:08 AM, monai said:

Really amazing MOC

also if the scale is not the LEGO right one (1:38), the rendering is absolutely magnificent. The smoking is ice on the cake, I'm curious too about its engineering.

Just one observation, it looks as the shcupp's brick wheels are not really black, what about painting them?

many compliments

Sergio

 

Hi! I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean about the scale not being the 1:38? It is 1:48th scale, within a 1-plate margin anyways.

The 3D printed drivers generally are pretty black looking, but their texture is a lot rougher than LEGO is due to the 3D printing. Indoors, it's not a big difference - but out in the bright sunlight, you can see, the rough surface catches a lot more light. The wheels on the real 2926 are a bit more of a "gray-black" than the black of the engine, so, I'm content for now with the way it looks on the model.

On 10/29/2018 at 12:28 PM, JasonL said:

Wow! It looks to be quite an improvement over the already fantastic original, and the smoke is a clever touch. Gonna have to revisit my own 4-8-4 now. :) How long does your battery last with 2 XL motors? Do you have any pictures of the motor assembly? I still struggle to build motors without the whole thing breaking. Again, great job! 

I haven't had an opportunity yet to run the battery through a full, timed cycle since I modified the gearing and got all the lights added in, but generally I've gotten 3.5-4 hours I think off the box. I don't expect it'll change much.

I don't have any pictures of the motor assembly, but if I can find 15 minutes to dink around in LDD I can recreate the assembly and show you. I'll try to get to that soon.

On 10/29/2018 at 2:02 PM, LEGO Train 12 Volts said:

Wow this second version makes the first model pale!

What a fantastic improvement ...those new wheels are epic!

Great lights and amazing smoking chimney!

The only problem is that now I want to change the wheels to my Big Boy! 

Thank you! At first when I was still working on the model and it was all torn apart, I'd look back at pictures of the original one and think "What have I done?!", but now that it's finished and I see them side-by-side, I agree, the first one doesn't come close. I'm very glad I tore it apart

As for the wheels on your Big Boy, well, that's not really a problem now is it? Except maybe for your budget. If you ever do that, I'd love to see it.

1 hour ago, Freezingvettes99 said:

That is simply outstanding!

Thank you very much!!

[Feuer Zug]

The amount of detail in your MOC is incredible. You've explained it well and the locomotive looks great. Even the older version would turn heads, but now you've really raised the bar. Congrats on a fine bit of work.

[ProvenceTristram]

Many thanks for the link and spacing information!

[monai]

13 hours ago, Daedalus304 said:

Hi! I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean about the scale not being the 1:38? It is 1:48th scale, within a 1-plate margin anyways.

well the LEGO gauge (38mm) is scaled to the standard one (1435mm) as 1:38.  Ok you choose to model at 1:48 and the result is spectacular, but generally for railway model the scale is computed on the gauge so the discrepancy.

As regard the wheels,  the 3D printing technique (filament extrusion) is inherently less robust on the deposition planes, have you noticed any defect on this regard? Are they more prone to ruin themselves?

again many compliments

Sergio

 

[Daedalus304]

23 hours ago, Laura Takayama said:

That is one awesome (and awesomely huge) steam locomotive you made there, and some interesting history with the real one as well.  I'm kinda curious what the custom driver wheels look like by themselves (they almost look like they'd be big enough for making the 4-2-2 Midland "Spinner" locomotives).

That valve gear & push-rod action is smooth as silk, and I could almost just sit & watch that all day. :)

They're pretty large, but I'm not sure quite large enough for a Spinner! At least, not at 1/48th. 2926's drivers were 80 inches across, or about 6 1/3 feet. As best as I remember the 4-2-2 engine's giant drivers were around 8 or 9 feet! Perhaps an XXXL would do the trick.

Also, thanks! Steam locomotive motion has always really mesmerized me.

22 hours ago, Feuer Zug said:

The amount of detail in your MOC is incredible. You've explained it well and the locomotive looks great. Even the older version would turn heads, but now you've really raised the bar. Congrats on a fine bit of work.

Thank you very much! I'm glad I explained things alright, I always get worried I'm not doing so good at that.

You know, though, I remember now when I was running v2 of 2926 at a train show last November, there was one of the model railroader guys who'd been looking at it for a while, asking questions, and after a few minutes he asked how much it had cost - I told him, and he looked at it, shook his head, and said "Not worth it" and walked away. I was lost for words at the time, but it kind of amuses me now. I certainly haven't had him in mind as I've built the new version, but I can't help but wonder if this version would change his mind.

22 hours ago, ProvenceTristram said:

Many thanks for the link and spacing information!

Of course! I hope you get to try some out!

9 hours ago, monai said:

well the LEGO gauge (38mm) is scaled to the standard one (1435mm) as 1:38.  Ok you choose to model at 1:48 and the result is spectacular, but generally for railway model the scale is computed on the gauge so the discrepancy.

As regard the wheels,  the 3D printing technique (filament extrusion) is inherently less robust on the deposition planes, have you noticed any defect on this regard? Are they more prone to ruin themselves?

again many compliments

Sergio

 

Ah, well, yes, technically I suppose that's true, but I'm not really worried about that. Even in O-gauge and other traditional model model railroading, the track gauge will often be too wide for the locomotives running on it (If I remember correctly, O-gauge track is actually a couple millimeters too wide for 1/48, and there are plenty of 1/35th engines for LGB track which should be 1/22.5). The other thing of course, is that with the size of this locomotive, building it any larger would have brought some tremendous difficulties. For example, XXL drivers wouldn't be near big enough for 1/38th, and I have serious doubts a loco of this size at 1/38th would be able to survive Lego's tight, tight curves and switches. I'm very glad to hear you like it despite this scale problem!

As for the wheels, well, they've been a lot sturdier than I'd ever have expected. When I first got them, the axle holes were quite tight and it was difficult to put the axles in. I pressed down very hard on these wheels to try and get them in to little avail, and I can't say the wheels seem to have suffered at all for it. It was surely several times as much pressure as the wheels would get under any normal use, and on their weakest approach (From the flat side, not the rim like they're intended). I think it's very safe to say that there are no concerns about the robust-ness of these wheels, I don't see these ever breaking from even rough usage.

As for the issue of getting the axles to fit, I learned - don't force them in. It's best to carefully scrape out the axle hole with a sharp hobby knife until the axle goes in.

[Sven J]

On 10/30/2018 at 11:43 PM, Daedalus304 said:

So the Seuthe #5... is definitely bulky. Back when I built the original model, I - purists, look away - may have drilled out the centers of two 2x2 Round Bricks and one hole in a 2x8 technic plate, and fit the Seuthe through that. To keep in supported in place, underneath the Seuthe #5 I ran the wires through a 2x4 Technic Plate and built a support for it out of bricks. That keeps it pretty securely in place. So for v3, I just kept that how it was and brought it over. 3 modified parts didn't seem too bad, all things considered.

For the electronics side of it, I used a half a PF Extension cord and wired it into the C1/C2 lines with a resistor to get the voltage correct. I have to give out a very thankful shout-out to Philohome for all the extensive documentation of the PF system that made this possible for someone as electrically ignorant as I am.

Ah, thank you for this detailed explanation. I agree that modifying parts is quite the only way to incorporate third-party parts like that. I even had to use glue...

43 minutes ago, Daedalus304 said:

[...] there are plenty of 1/35th engines for LGB track which should be 1/22.5

[Slightly off-topic] Correct me if I'm wrong, but at least from a European perspective (don't know what models are available in the U.S. ), this seems to be a misunderstanding. In the "Old World", there are 1:35 models (or correctly 1:32) for 45 mm track width, the same that LGB models use; but these 1:32 models are standard gauge trains, and the rails have a much lower profile than LGB ones. By contrast, LGB 1:22.5 models are of narrow gauge trains. However, these narrow gauge models are running on 45 mm track width regardless whether the actual prototype had 750, 760, 900, 950, 1000 or 1067 mm, so it's true that "traditional" model railroading doesn't always care for correct proportions, too... After all, it's the overall impression that counts.

Off-topic section finished - now back to your awesome model!

Edited October 31, 2018 by Tenderlok

[Daedalus304]

1 hour ago, Tenderlok said:

Ah, thank you for this detailed explanation. I agree that modifying parts is quite the only way to incorporate third-party parts like that. I even had to use glue...

[Slightly off-topic] Correct me if I'm wrong, but at least from a European perspective (don't know what models are available in the U.S. ), this seems to be a misunderstanding. In the "Old World", there are 1:35 models (or correctly 1:32) for 45 mm track width, the same that LGB models use; but these 1:32 models are standard gauge trains, and the rails have a much lower profile than LGB ones. By contrast, LGB 1:22.5 models are of narrow gauge trains. However, these narrow gauge models are running on 45 mm track width regardless whether the actual prototype had 750, 760, 900, 950, 1000 or 1067 mm, so it's true that "traditional" model railroading doesn't always care for correct proportions, too... After all, it's the overall impression that counts.

Off-topic section finished - now back to your awesome model!

I haven't had to use glue yet, but I've sure been tempted a couple times before. Perhaps in the future I'll try to 3D print a LEGO compatible stack to insert a smoke unit in.

As for your "off-topic" section.... I think you're correct, and I think I had a misunderstanding. I'm not very familiar with the LGB system and didn't know that was the reason some were 1:32 and some were 1:22.5. You're definitely more knowledgeable on that subject than I am. Thank you for teaching me!

[BurkusCircus]

Absolutely stunning! As someone who has both Lionel and Lego, the smoke and lighting look fantastic, and take the best parts of Lionel and put them into Lego. Amazing work!

[icemorons]

Really nice work!!!   

 

[Daedalus304]

On 10/29/2018 at 12:28 PM, JasonL said:

Wow! It looks to be quite an improvement over the already fantastic original, and the smoke is a clever touch. Gonna have to revisit my own 4-8-4 now. :) How long does your battery last with 2 XL motors? Do you have any pictures of the motor assembly? I still struggle to build motors without the whole thing breaking. Again, great job! 

Okay, I've finally found the time to put this together:

This isn't exactly how it was done, but it's a decent enough approximation. The upper half directly on the frame with the motor has been how I've had the motors situated for several years now and it's never had a problem, so it's sturdy and reliable. 2926 has this set up for both trucks, so even though my tender is enormous it is quite full.

When it came time for Version 3, I felt like I still had more raw torque than I was using. In fact, thanks to the LEGO coupling magnets being a little weak, it was more torque than I could make use of. The 2900s were very quick engines, so I played around with trading some of the wasted strength for speed. This has worked pretty dang well so far.

One other thing to note is that the train wheels on the geared axles have aftermarket O-rings on them replacing the stock LEGO traction tires. These are necessary for this as they provide enough clearance for the bottom plates on the chassis, and the unpowered center wheels are lifted enough out of the rail that they won't bind in turns. 

12 hours ago, BurkusCircus said:

Absolutely stunning! As someone who has both Lionel and Lego, the smoke and lighting look fantastic, and take the best parts of Lionel and put them into Lego. Amazing work!

Thank you! I spent a lot of time watching reviews of Lionel and MTH O-gauge models and did my best to try to match what details I could. I think that's helped me a lot.

3 hours ago, icemorons said:

Really nice work!!!   

 

Thanks!

[Man with a hat]

Oh. WOW. This I amazing. All those intricate details. Amazing. And that gear design looks unbelievable.

A pity that it is not possible to achieve this keeping it purist LEGO but that doesn't make this design less impressive.

[ProvenceTristram]

33 minutes ago, Man with a hat said:

Oh. WOW. This I amazing. All those intricate details. Amazing. And that gear design looks unbelievable.

A pity that it is not possible to achieve this keeping it purist LEGO but that doesn't make this design less impressive.

When it comes to wheels and running gear, the fault is with Lego, not the builder. If we were provided the tools, we could definitely do without third party pieces. But the staggeringly small selection of official wheel and driver parts is almost insulting at this point, so people are doing their own thing. We want to build better models, even if they aren't 100% Lego.

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

2 hours ago, ProvenceTristram said:

When it comes to wheels and running gear, the fault is with Lego, not the builder. If we were provided the tools, we could definitely do without third party pieces. But the staggeringly small selection of official wheel and driver parts is almost insulting at this point, so people are doing their own thing. We want to build better models, even if they aren't 100% Lego.

I totally agree!