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Electricsteam

Picking up the pieces. Pneumatic train 3 years later

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Hey guys! I'm back again trying to bring my train back from the dead after a major dark age!

 

If any of you guys have been here long enough to remember the several trains I've made over the years with a very unique drive mechanism of the Technic pneumatic pistons! 

This was suppose to be the last Pneumatic train I made in L-Gauge scale with proper details... It was suppose to be my magnus opus if you will. But now I've been out of the game for a long time but as far as I knew this was the only standard gauge train with pneumatics and the detail at the time.

Since it's been a long while here just sorta the basics on how it works.  

I have a very sturdy brick built frame holding in the pistons on either side and the 2 pneumatic switches. 

Using the L technic beam I can attach another beam to push the main driver wheels.   I do lose out on driving 2 of the blinds but it's worth it for the structural integrity.

All the pipes for moving the air around are nicely routed in hollow space along the boiler.

The whole drive mechanism creates a lot of force so its really important to make sure you have a VERY strong frame around the drive mechanism.

This is all with the older sets of pneumatic pistons and switched I know some new types have come out recently but I haven't seen them myself. 

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It's got a few problems as you can see...  

Missing quite a few parts and some pretty big structural integrity issues around the drive mechanism. 

I had a plan quite a few years ago to rebuild it into a mountain 4-8-4 with some thinner leading and trailing trucks designed by a fellow member whose name I forget to put more pressure on the drive wheels.

That and the train is just like.... short!  I don't know any other way to describe it it feels pretty short compared to trains from the sets!   I seem to make really short trains... If anyone remembers the Atomic Streamliner I made in LDD ages ago it pretty dang short as well. 

Here's the redone sketch in the new Stud.IO from bricklink.  I'm getting a lot of errors importing my old LDD files into it but the render is much nicer than the Bluerender i was using before.

As you can see the whole front end is redone with much more detail along with better detail along the sides and top of the boiler... I dunno about you but I much prefer cheese wedge boilers to the rounded slopes used on the Emerald Night, but then again I haven't had any experience with the plethora of new pieces that have come out in the last few years. I've been picking up sets here and there when they go on clearance but there is just an insane amount of pieces that came out recently that people have been asking for forever.  I will need to play with the new bricks in Stud.io  and maybe change up my original plan.

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That's about it! 

Thank you for reading my ramble! 

 

 

 

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I think I was still lurking when I first saw this challenging project, but I'm glad to see it's revived - I love the idea and the execution so far. I'll certainly be paying attention to your work!

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This is new to me but im very intruiged ... This seems like a great project ... I look forward to seeing this run.

Have you other air operated trains?

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42 minutes ago, Roadmonkeytj said:

This is new to me but im very intruiged ... This seems like a great project ... I look forward to seeing this run.

Have you other air operated trains?

That's one of the first ones I made back in 2013

This is the basis for my current train... I can't figure out why this runs so much smoother than it does currently...

 

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Good to see you back at it again!! :D There was a pneumatic locomotive posted a while back in the Technic forum that ran amazingly smoothly, you might want to look that up and see how he did his timing gear!

 

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2 hours ago, Daedalus304 said:

Good to see you back at it again!! :D There was a pneumatic locomotive posted a while back in the Technic forum that ran amazingly smoothly, you might want to look that up and see how he did his timing gear!

 

Got a link? 

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3 hours ago, Daedalus304 said:

Good to see you back at it again!! :D There was a pneumatic locomotive posted a while back in the Technic forum that ran amazingly smoothly, you might want to look that up and see how he did his timing gear!

 

 

1 hour ago, Roadmonkeytj said:

Got a link? 

 

I could really use a link I've been looking for quite a while through Eurobrick's own search bar.

 

I know a few years ago someone was making pneumatic trains with bit of jewelry wire support and more of a garden scale than a minifig scale.

 

They were quite large

 

Edit.  Is this what you were talking about?

 

 

Edited by Electricsteam

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