Mike Walsh

The pictures of my 6 Car Airport shuttle were taken at a NCLUG meeting one afternoon when we quickly put together a spiral layout. A number of new people had never seen the monorail so we had a request to set it up and what you see was the result of a quick 15 minute build. The monorail spirals were a prominent feature in early NCLTC layouts (circa 2000, 2001). It was Cary Clark's idea and he had enough monorail track to go around our entire layout. The distance between each curve section was the same and was based on the 6168a Support 2 x 2 x 11 Solid Pillar. To account for the incline he used a 2x4 brick with axel pins attached with 1x2 Technic bricks so it would pivot. You can see it in the top of the picture below. Here is an overhead picture where you can see the double set of spirals right near other. We didn't always do this, sometimes they were spaced on opposite ends of the layout. If anyone wants to build a multi-car monorail, I actually put together a set of instructions a couple years ago. They're not perfect, the aspect ratio when the whole thing is put together doesn't lend itself well to a single page but the individual cars work fine.

I think it would be great too, particularly in a different color (e.g. dark red, dark blue, medium blue, etc.). Unfortunately I don't think it will ever happen again. Part of what drove the Hobby Train project to actually happen was that Jake McKee, the LEGO Community Liaison at the time, was a big train enthusiast. He really provided a ton of air cover and continued to nudge the project along when it stalled. While it was an interesting project to work on, it was frustrating too, particularly when it came to color and element choice. The last thing we really wanted to put together was a red train. But it turned out that red was the only color we could get a reasonable amount of the parts train builders would want. So red became the primary color. Initially we only had access to either left OR right doors but not both. We told LEGO they were basically useless if we couldn't get both left AND right doors. In the end, I think the matching door was the only part specifically molded for the Hobby Train. Everything else came from existing inventory LEGO Had in stock. I'd really like to see LEGO release add-on cars, particularly passenger cars for trains like the Emerald Night or freight cars. I don't think they will but I'd like to see it happen. Customers shouldn't have to re-buy all of the train infrastructure to make their trains longer. Until LEGO figures that out I think they'll have a lot of one time customers. At least sets like the Maersk Engine and Emerald Night didn't require purchasing the track, controller, motors, and other stuff I already have plenty of. Mike

For whatever reason LEGO doesn't think individual sets will sell sufficiently well. I don't understand this, it works very well for companies like Brio, Play Mobile, and Thomas the Tank Engine. Before working on the Hobby Train project there was a predecessor effort called "Signal". We were asked to provide feedback on the train product line. Unfortunately the decision to EOL the 9v train line had largely been made by the time we got involved so we had very little influence on the decision but our efforts did lead to the Hobby Train project. If you're curious, you can read the White Paper I wrote back in December of 2004 which specifically covers the lack of rolling stock and why I felt it was limiting the success of the train line. You can find the blog post I wrote about publishing the paper here and the actual paper itself here. Mike

No idea what the maximum capacity of the Monorail motor is but it has quite a bit of torque. I have no doubt that it can push/pull and 8 car monorail train. Mine has run for many hours over the years at various NCLTC train shows. I have 3-4 more motors but I am still using the one which came with my 6399 set. If you are interested in building a multi-car Airport Shuttle, I actually put together instructions for mine although I never got them to a state I was completely happy with them. I also posted some more details about my Shuttle on my LEGO Blog. Mike

I love the Airport Shuttle but the standard two car configuration is too short! I've modified mine to be six cars long and I have two more wagon plates so I can make eight cars long one of these days.

MLCAD support scroll bars. They aren't turned on by default but if you want them, you can turn them on with a simple menu pick. And I do. Once you turn them on, MLCAD even remembers that you like them on so they stay on from session to session until you turn them off. BlueBrick is your application and you are free to implement or not implement whatever features you want. That said, just because you don't like using scroll bars doesn't mean they aren't a valid usage model. I've worked in the CAD business for 20 years and none, as in zero, of the tools we sell, don't support scroll bars. Just about all of them support pan and zoom in one form or another as well. I'd rather you tell me you aren't going to implement scroll bars because you don't like them than tell me I am wrong because I prefer a different usage paradigm than you do. My $0.02, YMMV. Mike

Will we see scroll bars? IMHO they are the biggest missing feature you have right now. Mike

Yes the box has the tab so it can be closed securely. I really like this feature. Mike

6 people were asked to review the set. You can see the list of reviewers and some other details in this ILTCO article: http://www.iltco.org/library/articleShow.php?articleid=57 Mike

I am curious to why you feel it "sucks"? 10020 had 436 elements and cost $40. It did not include a motor. 10133 had 407 elements and cost $40. It did not include a motor. 10170 had 366 elements and cost $40. It did not include a motor. 10183 has slightly more than 2.5x the parts of 10020, 10133 or 10070 (which was not a locomotive) and costs 2.5x more. Seems to me the price point and content is pretty consistent with the last three LEGO Train releases (not counting the RC trains). In fact, there are enough train components in 10183 to fully outfit 3 wagon plates with wheels, buffers, and bogies and you get a bunch of airplane windows with glass, train windows with glass, 4 sliding box car doors, and 2 pair of red train doors. So the train specific content of this compare very favorably previous sets. Mike

Here is a picture of the inventory: http://www.iltco.org/gallery/view_photo.ph...=10183_Elements I can confirm the set does not include a 9v Train motor. Mike

ILTCO has received some images of the new 10183 LEGO Hobby Train. http://www.iltco.org/gallery/view_album.ph...bumName=album47 If you are not familiar with the LEGO Hobby Train (aka UTB), you can read some background information in this thread: http://news.lugnet.com/trains/?n=28050&t=f&v=a The first public announcement of the 10183 LEGO Hobby Train appears on Page 17 of Brick Journal #6. Excerpted from Brick Journal: 1. The trains have been designed by 10 Hobby Train enthusiasts from around the world 2. The box contains 1080 elements and the age mark is 16+ 3. It is an advanced building set 4. 30 building instructions will be available for this set for 30 different inspirational train models (one set of instructions will be printed and included in the box and the 29 other instructions will be available online). They can build an indefinite number of trains with the amount of bricks available in the box 5. The retail price is 99.99 USD 6. The launch date is March 19, and you

I can't elaborate too much at this point, maybe in about a month or so I hope be able to say more. I probably won't ever be able to tell the whole story but the process which evolved into the UTB effort actually started in late 2004. The Ambassador Program was announced in early 2005. While there is some overlap, particularly on the LEGO side and the Ambassadors were privy to the UTB effort, the team which came together to develop the UTB set had nothing to do with LEGO Ambassador Program. Mike

It may be a nit but I thought it worth pointing out - this development of the 10183 Ultimate Train Builder set was not a result of the Ambassador program. Mike