Mega Construx "Train Heist"

[fred67]

Well, my point was not to sell you all on the MB train, but to suggest that if TLG, or some intrepid third party developer, wanted to make a killing, they could probably do it by providing something we can use to have motors and wheel sets at a standard gauge (be it O or G).  That allows us to use more than a century of developments in model railroading; all the existing track, turnouts, speed regulators, couplers and decouplers, crossovers, DCC... IOW, make a motor, wheelsets, and maybe new couplers (three things) instead of five different radii of track, several variants of short track, left and right turnouts, a few different angles of crossovers, flex track, and all the other already existing things we can get from using a standard gauge.

Yes, guys, I get that G gauge, for example, is expensive track - but not as much as trying to get LEGO 9V track, and it's a lot more flexible, the curves and flex track already exist - and that's the important part: it's all there for the taking, it's not some "maybe," "someday" thing - it's already there, ubiquitous, you can buy as much as you want right now.

EDIT: I want to add that I have been looking, and I don't see where you can just get a generic G gauge motor, for example, that you could rig to attach LEGO to.  Building something like that is beyond me, and I have very little time to devote to it.

Edited January 21, 2019 by fred67

[Daedalus304]

Well, using the PF system (And even PF Train motors) we can build to G-gauge track already. Tenderlok does so beautifully and I've been starting to look into it a little, too, and it feels like a surprisingly natural fit. Instead of looking for a motor, I think all we really would need is a power pickup system, if you're not wanting to do battery powered. And I've seen people use Kadee Couplers with LEGO already, too, so while it's not officially "LEGO" sanctioned, I think that we probably already can use most of those things. Using existing G-Gauge electronics with the LEGO system might be more complicated, but with things like BuWizz, S-Brick, and especially now the PFx Brick that supports light and sound effects, I'm not really sure we need too much of the traditional Model Rail electronic equipment.

If you're going smaller down to O-Gauge, it gets more complicated to build with existing Lego parts (And the LEGO Train motor block, but not the rest of the PF motor suite, is out of the question), but we do have examples of that being possible such as that O-Gauge locomotive Zephyr just recently posted.

For me personally, I looked into going outside the box a few months ago and looked into what G-Gauge model railroaders were using for their controls and sound systems and batteries and generally what I found is that those options are incredibly expensive and also incredibly feature-rich... with features that I honestly don't much care about. I'm going to give the PFx brick and it's associated add-ons a try and see how that goes for features.

[treczoks]

On 1/18/2019 at 9:01 PM, Tenderlok said:

If you happen to be content with H0 scale, though, this might also be a solution...

At the bottom of the page you can find an interesting tidbit: "Warning USA ATTENTION: not for children under 15 years". So, what markets are they aiming at? The design is clearly aimed at kids, not teenagers. Or maybe it is actually aimed at and build for kids, but to dangerous for American kids for some reason?

Nonetheless, Märklin and others are basically on life support. Ten years ago, we were drafted to do "LEGO Fanwelt" in Cologne as an add-on to a thriving, long-established model railroad exhibition/fair. Last year, that part was basically dead - just a handful of old men on a mostly empty show floor. In 2016, I talked to a guy from a model train club showing their creations, and he told me that he was the "baby" of the club, despite being five years older than me. And I'm 50...

[monai]

2 hours ago, treczoks said:

At the bottom of the page you can find an interesting tidbit: "Warning USA ATTENTION: not for children under 15 years". So, what markets are they aiming at? The design is clearly aimed at kids, not teenagers. Or maybe it is actually aimed at and build for kids, but to dangerous for American kids for some reason?

If you observe better the flag about this warning is empty, the selected warning is that for 3 years old, anyway I agree about railway model world but this was always true, it's an expensive hobby if you do it with an high degree of realism, the marklin aren't exactly "toy" trains.

[Laura Beinbrech]

After seeing some of Tenderlok's creations & that the G-scale track is about 1-stud wider than LEGO standard gauge, I have considered prossibly using G-scale track (and possibly adapting G-scale motors) to stand in for approximately 5' broad gauges, like Russian Gauge or Pennsylvania Trolley Gauge (which is still used in a number of streetcar/light rail lines in the US).  I haven't really done anything with those ideas, due to being focused on my standard & narrow-gauge projects for the foreseeable future.

 

[hotdogonthebbq]

On 1/18/2019 at 12:47 PM, Digger of Bricks said:

I really do envy that ProBuilder line of theirs, as I strongly think Lego should be responding to it with a new subtheme of Creator that would sit in between the Three-In One and Expert lines in age range. 

I have to admit that for the longest time I would only get LEGO sets but the new MEGA Construx sets are challenging my brand loyalty pretty hard these days! I got a Free MEGA Construx Pokémon Meowth set as part of a promotion back in 2018 and I was actually impressed with the quality being up to par and possibly even a bit beyond LEGO in some ways, the problem is that MEGA Construx sets can cost twice what I'd pay for a LEGO set of the same size so it makes them a hard sell for me in that regard! I still am a LEGO loyalist but I do have to give some serious validity to MEGA Construx for what they've become now.