someguy

I am looking to build a MOC and want to use drivers either equal in scale the PRR's T1 or larger in scale. I believe BBB XL drivers are still too small, so what is the next best option? Here are a few I was thinking of: 1) Contacting BBB and trying to get a custom set of deivers made. 2) Contacting the custom siderods guy and getting a custom,set of drivers made. 3) Purchasing Lionel T1 wheels and modifying a few bricks to use them. 1 and 2 will be pricey, but it will be closer to true lego. 3 will add weight, improve traction, and reduce derails at high speed, but will need to modify lego brick. Other suggestions welcome!

I heard a rumor, but that was all! Will look into it for sure. As to the couple grand for molds, no thanks lol. I do want quite large drive wheels though.

I am looking to build a MOC and want to use drivers either equal in scale the PRR's T1 or larger in scale. I believe BBB XL drivers are still too small, so what is the next best option? Here are a few I was thinking of: 1) Contacting BBB and trying to get a custom set of deivers made. 2) Contacting the custom siderods guy and getting a custom,set of drivers made. 3) Purchasing Lionel T1 wheels and modifying a few bricks to use them. 1 and 2 will be pricey, but it will be closer to true lego. 3 will add weight, improve traction, and reduce derails at high speed, but will need to modify lego brick. Other suggestions welcome!

So I have been doing some work in LDD on this. Even if I don't end up building it, it's a lot of fun. Here are two pics. http://imgur.com/a/v4iYh I made an engine module consisting of 4 PF XL motors. There will be 4 modules total. The A unit bogies turn from the bogie furthest inwards. A single universal joint connects the bogies. I was able to lower the unit by just resting the entire engine module on the bogies. The walls would be SNOT. The roof would be 2/4 plates thick. 2/3 plates taller than the big boy.

How can I power 16 large power function motors? I would NEED them all to be on the same IR reciever. No seperate circuits with seperate IR recievers. Would it be possible to open up an IR receiver and modify the components for the job? Could I even use a standard Lego battery box or would it drain too quickly? Edit: sorry meant 16 XL motors.

Indeed :) But, I want to use the other UP gas turbine engine for the lead engine.

I am looking at 20 powered axles or 40 powered wheels. http://imgur.com/TjJAkE1 Red lines (not boxes) indicate the end/start of a car/engine Red boxes around motors and axles indicate the motors driving those axles. This would be about 10 pieces of straight track long or about 50 inches long. I would use floating axles and lots of universal joints to get the power where I want.

I made a mistake in my OP. I meant 16 XL motors. As to the why. My friend and I were discussing the possibility of a UP Turbine engine. I got curious how big it would be so I layed out the wheels, if it were built. I realize I could put 2 XL motors in this and it would run great, but now I have seen the potential space inside the loco, I want to do it kind of as a challenge for myself. Plus then ill have an engine powered by 16 XL motors. Seems like non lego batteries and ir is the way to go here according to the above comments. I'll need to do someresearch b4 I order anything.

Cool layout, nice to see even the adults, who brought their kids, where having good time!

Thank you! I will post some pictures tomorrow of the tender. Finally have the look I want for the bogies under it.

THE M1 SHARKNOSE Design procedure and notes Last year I competed a Lego big boy steam locomotive from instructions I found online plus a few modifications I wanted. Now I want to build another engine, but not flat out copy someone elses design or even recreate a real train in Lego. I prefer steam engines mostly so that is what I decided to build. There are different things I like about different engines so I decided to list them and try to incorporate them into a single design. Design details to include: - articulated engine design - large cylinders - 2 axle leading and trailing trucks - shark nose from the shark nose diesel locomotive - sloped boiler from the PRR K4 - streamlined look - large 4 seat cab supported by trailing truck - the PRR T1 4-4 driving wheels arangement - that box on a tender someone can sit in when the engine is moving in reverse - large tender - special/rare/unique tender axle/wheel arrangement - possible sloped end of tender - larger than most engines, but smaller than the big boy engine - Big Bens Bricks extra large driving wheels - custom drive rods - Powerful, yet fast - all BBB driving wheels connected to motors - 4 large motors in boiler - V2 IR reciever in tender - 2 battery boxes in tender - not black because I want a brighter colorfull engine like the Mallard and other British engines (blue, green, orange, etc) but not a rainbow of colors either Now I know I said not copy other peoples designs, but there is an axle design that Nebraska uses and I think it is the best axle design ever created, so I am going to try and re-create that axle design. - Nebraskas awesome axle design Additionally I decided not to paint any real railroads name on the tender or name the engine after a real engine. The name also includes some of my favorite ways railroads named there locomotives. PRR (my favorite Railroad) typically used a letter and number to name a type of engine eg K4, T1 etc. This is simple and easy to say imo. My nick name is 'Moe' thus the "M," "1" for my first MOC design, and sharknose after the sharknose diesel. The M1 Sharknose! I also plan on (hopefully eventually) putting "Moe's Railroad" on the tender. My lucky number is 80, so this will be engine number 80. United States flags will be on either side towards the front 'waving' similar to Nickel Plate Roads flags. Still not yet sure what symbol with 80 will be on the front. (PRR's was the keystone symbol with engine number in the center.) So after this insane list of things I want to include I started working on a design in LDD. The first thing I wanted to do was get a good wheel arrangement down with the correct heights for the boiler to clear flanges. I designed an entire wheel set and realised it was too small. The engine would have been DWARFED by the big boy. I began work on a MK2 version, except I remembered to use BBB XL drivers (represented by backwards lego flanged drivers). The sets of driving wheels both rotate in the center to provide better turning and less overhang. I imported my big boy engine into my new train file so I could reference it for height, length, and width while building. I want my engine to be shorter, the same height, and 1 stud wider than the big boys boiler. Medium motors are place holders for the large motors I will install. The two drive wheel boggies are identical except for where the front and trailing boggies attach. The tender will be about the same size as the big boys tender. The tenders wheel arrangement features 2 seperate boggies with 2 sets of trucks. The wheels under the BBs tender work well except 5 axles are connected and 2 axles are connected making one set of axles cause a large amount of overhang on turns. I simply added a 8th axle and seperated the trucks in the center for better turning. This also meets my goal of having a unique wheel arrangement under the tender! I may change those black and grey turn tables to bogie plates so the boggies dont easily fall off when I pick it up. The 1x6 flat tiles will help the tender slide over the axles. Bumpers are placed on the engine and tender due to the coupler. The coupler is designed to rotate in 3 different places for tight turns when the trailing bogie needs more freedom to follow the driving wheels. Battery boxes will be wired for longer supply, not over supply of electricity. Last, the tender will feature a 'real' coal load (bunch of spare/random black and grey 1x1x1 parts); will hide a handle to lift out the coal to show the battery boxes and IR sensor. I would like to use the axle design (Nebraskas) from the trailing truck on the tender axles, but am not sure how to make it look good. Chains will be connected from the trailing bogie to the tender. Possible coal auger (universal joint?) I am currently trying to figure out how to get a good look for the front. The boiler would stick out and be so far above the leading truck I just don't know what to put there right now. I might just design from the cab forward and see what I have once I get to the front. Suggestions welcome. If you see anything blatantly wrong, please let me know, thanks!

AMAZING! These guys must work for Lego or something. Any chance you would show how you made these trucks for this engine? Looking for something similar for my next steam locomotive tender. I tried attaching chains before, but the boggie was wider than the tender itself! Link is in my signature if you are willing to share the bogie design.

Looking at this makes me want to build my engine shed again! The turntable is my favorite part though!

Have to appreciate how all those electrics are crammed into that little engine! How many cars can it pull?

I am going for a 'wooden' look. Could be cleaned up a bit and have less tiles there I suppose. Will give it a try!

Just 8 drivers. You probably saw the big boy in the background. I imported the big boy as a reference to make sure my next engine is the right scale. I'm trying to make this next engine look like it could produce (if it were ever real) a large amount of steam very easily and go super fast, so it needs to look some what stream lined and "fit."

Last year I got back into building with Lego and I decided to go from never building anything complex to building something extremely complex. In January 2014 I started researching how to build a Big Boy out of lego. Five months later, 3 LDD files, and A LOT of random train car designs I finally started ordering parts for the engine! Thankfully before Christmas I was able to complete the engine. However, it did not run......it spun the wheels quite well though! This engine is not my design however, I found the instructions online and changed some things that I thought made it look better. The tender is my own design, I did not like the tender in the instructions. I still want to get a shorter technic piece for the coupler from engine to tender and tubes that run along the top sides of the engine. Here are some pictures of my engine. Some may be a bit small. Here is an imgur link with full size pictures. http://imgur.com/a/5b5PF This is the inside of the boiler. It is just a bunch of technic 1x's and holds 4 PF M motors. The front wheels are quite close to the drivers and cylinder. I created a simple stand for the boiler so it would be easy to work on without it constantly rolling everywhere. A MOC I designed. Goes with the Alien Series 13 minifigure. The engine crew! Inside the Cab Some overall shots. The drive rods are only on 3 wheels each side because the front drive rod hits the rear cylinders and the rear drive rod is too wide to get past the rear cylinders. I plan on ordering custom steam rods which will resolve these problems. I also used some silicon on the gears which drys quickly and keeps the surface slick, making for much smoother running. Just a MOC fire station I am working on. Here's 10 pounds of bacon for reading my post!

Thanks for the info legoman666. I'll have to see about changing mine so it wont derail on slopes. That's exactly how I have my tenders axles set up, only difference is I use bogie plates instead of turn tables. With the axles set up that way the tender runs extremely smooth.

Agreed, it would still look good with the grey battery box. For the tender if you are having trouble finding a way to bend 4 axles (I think thats how many that tender has???) just link the first two and last two axles together then connect them together and to the tender by a pin in the center of the tender. ______pin_____ base of tender +(2-2) pin (2-2)+ axles/wheels

Update for MOC. Took a break for a while and now I am working on the cab and firebox. I am trying to give the windows and roof a wooden look. Still need to add an ashpan handle below the firebox and put in all the levers and gauges. Four minifigs easily sit in the cab. Plan on putting more handrails on so I can have 2 more hang out of the back doors waving. I should probably make the roof a darker brown than the window frames to make the roof look like it has soot from smoke on it. Also I think the firebox is too far forward.

This train is amazing! The details are awesome. I really like how you kept the vents see through. I think I detect a slight brag though, "im not much of a train builder" followed by an epic master piece haha.

Looked up this Bullfrog Snot stuff and it looks amazing! This will actually take some of my engines off the shelf! So many more options with this stuff! Thank you!!

After thinking about wheels slip for a while I realized the Big Ben Drivers I plan on using have no notch for an o-ring to give the engine traction. Does anyone know if BBB drivers can still hold an o-ring? I am not sure now if I should power this engine from the boiler anymore. Starting to think I should put 2 XL motors in the tender.

What happened was I added a train motor and I had to add the 2x4 piece and then I removed the train motor. But, yea I did leave it in there for that reason. I did not know there was a button on the remote for that lol! Thought it was for something else!

Instead of a PF switch to reverse polarity, try this 2x4 plate with contacts https://www.bricklin...=1&itemID=1333. Simply place both connectors on the plate such that 1 wire would face north and one faces south( just opposite directions). I did this for one of my engines so I could spin the control clockwise for forward instead of backwards.