LEGO Train Depot (Hosted by NGLTC)

[DaveBey]

Does anyone know what happened to the LEGO Train Depot? I receive a 404 Error for the link I posted. The North Georgia LEGO Train Club appears to be in the process of a redesign but there doesn't appear to be much activity. There is/was some good information at the LEGO Train Depot, especially for the 9V era, and I'm curious if the information will be made available again.

Cheers from Claremore, Oklahoma USA!

Dave

[peterab]

The original hasn't been updated for a very long time. There is a new version that hosts the bitmaps though http://www.fa-meier.de/lego/traindepot/depot

[DaveBey]

Thank you for reminding me about the New LEGO Train Depot; I'd forgotten about it.

I really liked the sample layouts available on the original and the Track Designer progam was nice for designing some basic layouts. Hopefully it's all made available again!

Cheers from Claremore, Oklahoma USA!

Dave

Edited July 25, 2013 by DaveBey

[peterab]

Is it available via the way back machine internet archive thingy? Might be worth a shot. I doubt Track Designer would be backed up. I'm pretty sure there will be someone in the community that could fix you up with a copy though.

Edited July 25, 2013 by peterab

[DaveBey]

June 24, 2012 is the date to pick on the Internet Archive WayBack Machine. Surprisingly enough, the .zip for Track Designer is also available.

I actually copied the files from the Internet Archive locally so I have a copy of the entire site (under 10MB) so I wouldn't have to use the WayBack Machine.

I'm still curious if the site will eventually be more readily available again. (I'd throw it up on my domain but there are probably some copyright issues.)

On a side note, the Internet Archive WayBack Machine really makes you miss the old LEGO Trains site. It's a shame only bits and pieces of it are archived.

Cheers from Claremore, Oklahoma USA!

Dave

[Hey Joe]

June 24, 2012 is the date to pick on the Internet Archive WayBack Machine. Surprisingly enough, the .zip for Track Designer is also available.

I actually copied the files from the Internet Archive locally so I have a copy of the entire site (under 10MB) so I wouldn't have to use the WayBack Machine.

I'm still curious if the site will eventually be more readily available again. (I'd throw it up on my domain but there are probably some copyright issues.)

On a side note, the Internet Archive WayBack Machine really makes you miss the old LEGO Trains site. It's a shame only bits and pieces of it are archived.

Cheers from Claremore, Oklahoma USA!

Dave

Hey, that's a nice site! Is that Track Designer program still relevant for PF?

Thanks, Joe

[DaveBey]

Hey, that's a nice site! Is that Track Designer program still relevant for PF?

I'd say so as long as you don't plan to use flexible track segments for anything other than replacing standard straight and/or curved sections. If you're using flexible track in short, 'flexible' segments, the LEGO Train Track Planner or LEGO Digital Designer may be your best bet. Track Designer's also still relevant for the included layouts. There's no reason you couldn't build them with PF track or use them as inspiration for your own layout!

Cheers from Claremore, Oklahoma USA!

Dave

[Man with a hat]

Well, I think Bluebrick is the prgramme to go for if you want to design your track. I wouldn't recommend to use LDD for making a track layout.

The website is: http://bluebrick.lswproject.com/

There is also a discussion thread about it here: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=31141&hl=bluebrick&st=0

Hope that it will be useful.

[Hey Joe]

Hey, thanks guys!

Yes, Blue Brick looks useful. It's not perfect, but what is?

I'm trying to figure out how much Enlighten track (it's about US$ 2.50 a box) I need to buy while I'm still here in China to make a largish layout for a space of unknown dimensions. It's no easy task. You gotta get enough to squeeze in all your sets, and leave room for future expansion yet keep it reasonably-sized enough to stay under the wife's radar as much as possible!

Cheers, Joe

Edited July 27, 2013 by Hey Joe

[JopieK]

@Hey Joe: hope she isn't reading EB as well then ;)

[Hey Joe]

@Hey Joe: hope she isn't reading EB as well then ;)

She's ok, I wouldn't want to portray her as a battleaxe or anything. Occasionally she'll gripe a bit, but Lego is pretty spendy here.

Ordering thirty plus boxes of track (why do they put the curves in with the straights ) would raise red flags in just about any household though, wouldn't it? I'm working in stages; scored six boxes of switches a couple weeks ago, hope that's enough.

I can always play the "it's for our child" card if necessary, but I try to keep the big guns in reserve if possible!

Joe

[DaveBey]

I'm trying to figure out how much Enlighten track (it's about US$ 2.50 a box) I need to buy while I'm still here in China to make a largish layout for a space of unknown dimensions.

To give you an idea, the largest 9V layout from LEGO (Freight Runner Loop on Train Depot site) used approximately 60 each of curved and straight rails. The LEGO layout at LEGO World 2013 used approximately 285 straight rails and 80 curved rails. Get more track than you think you need! I believe the Enlighten track is packaged similar to 7896: Straight and Curved Rails so I'd recommend purchasing 10-15 plus an additional 5 packages of switching tracks. If you're considering a static rail siding display for your trains, you may consider additional switching track.

Both Track Designer and BlueBrick give you the area of a layout so you may want to spend some time designing layouts beforehand to see how large an area is used.

Cheers from Claremore, Oklahoma USA!

Dave

[Hey Joe]

Ok thanks again. I think I'll try to sketch something out and post it in a seperate thread and get some feedback hopefully.

Cheers, Joe

[JopieK]

@Joe, I completely understand, my wife is also at least a bit into LEGO so that makes it easier now and then ;) I actually purchased the straight tracks in Germany (12€ or so per box straight / flex), a colleague of mine was kind enough to receive the package and bring the box to work, in Holland they cost about 20€ per box, but in Germany I could find it very cheap in a store that only delivers to Germany, and my colleague happens to live there ;)

@DaveBey: we could of course try to resurrect the initiative, part of it is already here in the train fora!

[DaveBey]

I'm still curious if the site will eventually be more readily available again. (I'd throw it up on my domain but there are probably some copyright issues.)

I finally uploaded the LEGO Train Depot site to my domain: The LEGO Train Depot.

Cheers from Claremore, OK USA!

Dave

[JopieK]

Thanks for the update Dave!!!

[suenkachun]

I found another version of the Website: http://members.home....depot/index.htm, but some of the images, pages and links are missing, so thank you for uploading the site!

On the other hand, compared to Blue Bricks, many of the newer Tracks and related Elements are not yet in Track Designer. The most useful ones would be some of the newer Train Stations, the Trains and the Train Wash. Even so, I still prefer Track Designer. In Blue Bricks, you can print out your layout in a suitable size easily and even export the file as an image. However, the quality of the image is quite low, and you need to zoom close-up in the programme for a clear quality of your layout. I tried to open a Track Designer file in Blue Bricks and the quality was quite bad, with things not properly aligned and shifted. Therefore, the printed versions may not look good either. For Track Designer, the image quality of the elements are very good, although the printing functions are a bit limited and you can't output any images.

After doing a bit of research, I discovered that you can actually have "User-defined pieces for extending the registry" in Track Designer. That way I can extend the colours of the 32x32 Base Plates and add more Elements into the Programme, such as those I mentioned above. Since the "Help File" of Track Designer is no longer working, can someone tell me how to add more Elements into Track Designer's Registry? Thank you for everyone's attention.

Edited January 24, 2015 by suenkachun

[suenkachun]

It's been a while since I last posted in this topic, but it's now a perfect time to post here again. I have continued to use Track Designer in the past few months, and recently I've discovered a small error in the programme, which can't be fixed now, of course, but users should be aware of it. The error is: at least three different elements can't be displayed properly. The first one is the Curved Airport Runway, which is named [unknown]. When you insert one of these, you can only see the outline of the element (a square with three curved lines) and "Unknown Element" written in red on top of the element. The other two are the "Join Left" and "Join Right" elements in the "Monorail" section. When you try to insert either one, an error message will appear the first time you do this, which says "Renderings of one or more pieces were not found in the registry. Load the correct registry or add the missing renderings.". The inserted piece(s) will only be represented by a blank square, but it seems that you can still connect other track pieces to the three ends of the element(s). Other than that, the Help File can't be opened any more, as it was written in the old Windows Help format. I tried downloading an update from the Microsoft Website but it still couldn't be opened. That's all I have for now.