greenmtvince

Yes, you're all about having folks appreciate the details of the running gear, aren't you?

That Geep looks great! I'm excited to see another New England train AFOL building in 8-wide. Sorry I couldn't see your display at Brickfair in person. The 4-day format and Mothers' Day weekend were really killers for me. I agree with Barduk's suggestion to try Dark Green if you can. I think you'll find all the parts you need. I'm torn on a Dark Red build, the GP7s were certainly delivered in that scheme in the early 50s, but it looks so much like the pre McGinnis (Bluebird) B&M. Hunter Green and Harvest Yellow says Maine like a Bob Marley (the comedian) show. If you're looking to build out your fleet of rolling stock, PennLUG has a nice dark green MEC 40' PS-1 boxcar on their layout. I can dig up some pictures if you'd like. I can also share my B&M 40' Blue with black panel PS-1 boxcar with you (I used their design but with the Bluebird colors.) It would be right at home with any MEC GP7s and the parts are easy to source.

Here's my go at the two axle pony trucks for my Central Vermont class U-1-a Mountain. The cylinders are a plate less in length and and half a stud farther back than I'd like, but everything clears everything else in the tight radius curves. The truck frame is unfinished but the bricks indicate the max clearances allowed. The final version probably won't look all that different. Maybe this will help you out. You probably have more wiggle room since your prototype doesn't have the external frame. Edit, the bottom of the frame looks low in the photos but it clears the tops of the rails by at least half a plate.

I just added mine to help push us past $20,000.

Looks great! It makes me want my own turntable and roundhouse. Thanks for sharing! Great BR Class 08 by the way.

Hmm, others bring up some pretty good points as well. Is it possible to settle this by letting people vote with their dollars? I know you did a kickstarter for the street signs. Couldn't you do the same for multiple versions of this product and reduce your risk and some of the guesswork?

As much as I have no need for 9V and don't want to pay the legacy baggage tax, I have to agree with this. By the same token, larger radius curves (which are the domain of clubs and folks with generous space) will exclude the casual train/home layout market. If you consider that there’re many AFOLs in North America that build to the 4x8’ sheet of plywood, R72 is the largest size they can use. While at the same time I’m sure clubs and hardcore train users would still buy the smaller radius, because it’s better than what we have (and would probably look good in a curve-straight-curve configuration too.) Die-hard train fans are a limited market and what happens when we have our fill of curved track? I’d really consider that casual train user market: the town user that just happens to have some trains. They’re the visitors that stop by the altBricks table drawn in by those vibrant colors of the fall leaves or the cherry blossoms hoping to snag some for their home layout. What’s the largest size curve do you think you can pitch to that person and make a sale? Final thought to appeal to your business sense. I know you are leaning towards R88 because it’s the same as a banquet table width, but consider this: if I have a regulation ping pong table that I use for a layout (5x9’) or my display is only as wide as two of these banquet tables pushed together (also 5',) I can only build one loop of R88 track. In the same space, I can build two loops of R72 track. That’s twice the sales, which recoups your initial investment that much faster.

Great job to you and everyone that contributed! I was wondering how LegoSteve did the wood siding on his old time coach. Very cool to see it as the build instructions for this issue.

Great work, Dan. Makes me wonder if Plastruct couldn't just offer a custom extrusion that was exactly what we needed.

Ahhh! The Kragle! Did you happen to try 2x8 plates and removing the studs in this process like the old metal flex-track technique? I feel like you might be able to place a 2x4 and 2x 2x1 plates or bricks in there temprorarily (maybe you still need a styrene spacer) to help line up the rails and eliminate the need for a track gauge. It also might lend itself better to traditional ballast techniques. I may have to play with this. Also thanks for introducing us to those I beams. You saved me from hacking up old 4.5v/12v rails to make switch tracks in a street.

I think instead of the train mold piece you should stick with the blue and use a classic yellow canopy or window parts.

This is full of win. I'm looking forward to having some wide radius curves.

I would offer that it may be a compromise any way you go. The 3 studs presumes you measure to the edge of the flanges. If you measure to the edge of the tread as most railroads do (or some reference line on the tread,) at 2 studs, 8-wide is spot on for 33" diameter wheels or just slightly small for 36" diameter wheels. 10 wide does get the track gauge spot on. The other trade-off to consider is how tall are your minifigs vs how wide. At 8-wide, a minifig is about 6' tall. At 10-wide a minifig is only 4'10." When you consider widths and the average person is a 1.5 feet wide at the shoulders, Minifigs are still broad regardless of the scale. And while 6 wide might not be scaled to any stock LEGO components, you can certainly fit more train into a smaller space, which for many is more fun than a scale model.

I build to 8 studs is roughly 10 feet. Thus most North American equipment is 8 studs wide and my British Railways Class 08 at 8'6" is 7 wide. I owe my paradigm shift largely to Tony's Unifying Theory of LEGO. Everything just becomes perfectly proportioned when you do it that way.

Great to see that someone else likes shelf switching layouts. I'm looking forward to seeing this in brick.

Looks great! I remember seeing one of the B1s when I was at the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum last summer.

So I'm thinking of trading my 4 year old Asus Republic of Gamers laptop in for a shiny new tablet. I'm sticking with a windows platform for office integration and to continue using some of my legacy statistical software packages (STATA 11 & SPSS.) I'm not a gamer anymore so the only graphics heavy application I'd use would be LDD. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for tablets running windows 8 pro that also handled LDD reasonably well.Edit: Strongly considering the Surface Pro since the price is way down following the release of the surface pro 2.

No, just what was in that thread. After I got back from Afghanistan that switching layout languished in a foot locker for some time until recently where it's being used for parts for a new 8-wide switching layout.The GE 44 Tonner I'm working on uses a similar configuration for motor and transmission. However, both trucks are powered for maximum traction and I use a 5:1 gear ratio to get really fine low speed control and plenty of torque at the wheels to push around heavy 8-wide boxcars. and it is taking shape in the brick form. Runs beautifully. Even though it's an 8 wide model, to build it to scale, it only has a 4-wide hood, so I imagine the techniques here are also applicable to other 6-wide trains. It runs really nice. A few mods that I use: Kadee #806 couplers for hands free switching Thick, soft, o-rings instead of the stock ones around the wheels 9V Battery (though if one forgoes a powered truck, you can use a 9V battery box) IR reciever guts stripped out of the casing (Don't need to, but I had the leftover one from the ALCO S4 )and while not really a mod, I use a train weight. Here's the prototype: http://www.rrpicture....aspx?id=172196

Do two 5L technic half beams along the sides, join them with these parts http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=32034 and 2L technic half beams. Place 1x1 technic bricks at the center of each axle, put a 1x1 round or square plate on top of each and then lay a 2x6 technic plate across the top. I'll post a pic when I can get to my LDD tomorrow.

I totally cheated. I put them in a jig on an end mill so I'd have a precision hole on each one. My rationalization was that modding the small wheels would be no different than using a Big Ben Bricks driver. I don't have pics of the completed porter up but I also have to cut down two technic pins to get half lengths on both sides for one set of wheels. If you're concerned about purity over appearance, try the technic crankshaft piece to get that half stud offset off the axle. Tony Sava uses them in his GE 45 tonner model. I think that part is referenced in the thread with the Porter locomotive.

I actually find the m motor to be too high rpm too low torque and prefer to gear it for slower operation. but I model 8-wide North American freight on shunting/switching layouts, so being able to push around heavy cars at slow speeds is what I need. the m motor is great for 6 wide because you can fit if into some small spaces using 3-brick tall panels. I built an ALCO S4 using this technique with a 5:3 gear ratio shown below.

This is my solution to a narrow gauge steam locomotive: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=53584entry957919 Not sure if that helps or not. I imagine to get the center driver you'd leave space between the beam and wheels and use technic pins half a beam too long so that that axle could still float while being driven.

@UrbanErwin: My apologies, I was trying to make a joke that might be lost on non-Americans. Texans, quite often rightfully so, proclaim everything is bigger in Texas. States like Vermont where I'm from are more mountainous and we generally regard southern states like Texas as flat even though Mount Guadalupe in Texas almost twice as tall as Mount Mansfield in Vermont. I was just using your remark to poke fun at the stereotypes.

@UrbanErwin: There's no mountains in Texas. :P @Tony: The layout looks great. It's really an inspiration for the amount of detail and operations one can fit into a small space. Makes it feel like a good looking layout is attainable by anyone, not just big clubs. I'll have to disagree with Lazarus that the trains are too big, but the tight radius of Lego curves doesn't help out those long steamers.

That's a stub switch alright. The rails leading up to the point "bend" not the split after. Very common on the 2 foot gauge railways in Maine in the early 1900s.