Legoless

Sounds about right! Wish they'd run a promo like this in The Guardian...

That's commendably different. Henry wasn't quite so day-glo- more leaf green (LNER colours- as worn by the Flying Scotsman).

I'm listening to one of Nick Cave's albums 'Kicking against the Pricks' (which apparently is a biblical reference). Love Nick Cave- surely Australia's best export?

Very nice- having two similar houses, but done up in different colours with different detailing helps create a sense of neighbourhood. Nicely proportioned.

Looks a fair bit like a British Rail Class 08 that Carl Greatrix modelled - although that has the main body narrower than the cab so that the driver can see where he is going without sticking his head out of the window (and getting his head amputated by passing trains- that does tend to make a mess of the paintwork). Looks good though.

As Decale said. Great MOC though- the lighting gantries are very good. I used to be a lighting technician at a local venue. In actual fact you wouldn't see the colour of the overhead lights unless they were operating, as the colour (at least back in my day) was added in the form of 'lighting gel', a sheet of translucent plastic in front of the lamp, but for a MOC, adding coloured pieces works better- clever actually. As for being a two piece- well, that is concievable- The White Stripes are a two piece with Meg White on drums (if you can call that drumming), and Jack White on guitar (he can actually play). Given the Village People comments- perhaps this is a gay White Stripes tribute act? 'Meg White' does look a little butch, though.

I agree you've hit the bullseye on the hoist LT. Also like the magwheel- its details like this that really lifts the model- as with your other MOCs adding just the right amount of 'eye candy' means that the viewer believes in it- it would be all too easy to add too much stuff and clutter for the available space by trying to represent every concievable function of a MOC building and overwhelming the viewer- actually detracting from the realism. I wouldn't be inclined to add ramps to the hoist itself- as that type doesn't really need them as it supports the vehicle from the jacking points. You could add cheese grater pieces but I don't think it really needs it.

Erm, probably just about anything if it involves swimming in a frozen lake! You Finns are masochists! Great MOC though. Reminds me of the Finnish 'hottest sauna' competition (judging from the expression on the minifigs faces) where people go to boil themselves alive to prove some point or other- a bit lost on me since I regard a sauna as a place of stimulation and relaxation.

Love it! That could only be a Dutch townscape- and remarkably well realised. I like the window surrounds especially.

Could you cheat a little and have the uprights extent into the roof, hiding an axle running across the top out of view with wheels and string, or even pulleys with the winding mechanism elsewhere? That way the hoist can be raised both sides simultaneously, possibly with some simple mechanism to stop it at set points? Nothing very technical necessarily. But it would probably pay to weigh the lifting arms down a little for smooth operation (a vehicle should do it- you could always hide something inside- but do give it 50/50 weight distribution to stop the runners from binding from the load twisting). This dealership is really coming along- I was worried that it would be too small but you've managed to make it big enough I think to convey a sense of being a representative small town local Ford garage. And don't forget to include a couple of young (or not so young) utterly clueless grease monkeys. This is a Ford garage after all.

I agree with the others re-the wheel arrangement- but looks good otherwise. Wonder why TLG doesn't currently have an ambulance or hospital set? Lots of play value there. In my local area of the UK they don't seem to have made up their mind as to what kind of ambulances they want. First it was a Renault Master with an American-style body on the rear (wide coachbuilt body on a standard short-bonnet van chassis), then they went to Renault Master panel van conversions, and now we have full-sized American-style ambulances based on a Mercedes Sprinter chassis- all would make for good MOCs- as Ralph S shows with his excellent one (looks like an old style Mercedes T3 from the angle seen in the picture).

British shunters are all designed to enclose the driver and have larger windscreens (with wipers). That may be partly because some shunters actually travelled some distance- some very minor freight branchlines (eg china clay) were operated exclusively by shunters- so they had to be a bit more accomodating than this little Dutch one- despite the fact that the majority of shunters were built during the steam era- most have been scrapped by now as most freight trains operate as a unit rather than being constantly separated and joined as wagons are dropped off, etc, at various sidings along the route. There used to be a coal wholesalers across the yard from my school, so I often watched coal wagons being dropped off and shunted by a very ancient and virtually derelict diesel shunter (I think it was a Barclay's)- that practice was archaic by early 1980's standards and was soon to end. I don't think the coal hopper wagons were actually braked as the train always ran with a brake van (or 'caboose' in US-speak)at the rear- necessitating a fair amount of shunting manoevers to split and re-form the train. Had I spent more time on my lessons and less time watching trains (or otherwise daydreaming) I might have done much better in life!

Do we really need a Dr.Who Lego franchise? I am a Brit and not a fan of Dr Who (although probably because I don't actually watch television) but from what I have seen of recent Dr Who series having watched them at friends houses, the theme is probably very MOCable. I'd love to see a well-crafted MOC Dalek or Tardis- indeed the joy that many people get from that series is the way the BBC effectively made the props 'Blue Peter' fashion out of cardboard and sticky-back plastic. The original Dalek featured a toilet plunger! Be great to see similar ingenuity from young Lego fans improvising with whatever they have rather than getting everything out of one box- guess thats my biggest hangup about franchise sets. I don't think TLG needs to cover every base in terms of franchising all popular genres- Dr Who is indeed very popular in some countries and, as others have pointed out, unheard of in others, unlike Star Wars and PotC. I doubt it would sell well outside of the Anglophile world and perhaps The Netherlands where it is also very popular- I was once in a World of Warcraft guild founded by a Dutch woman called Heart of Tardis. That is, the guild was called Heart of Tardis and not the Dutch woman. Just thought I'd clear that up.

That is one cute little loco. One thing that bothers me about the design however is how poor the visibility would be looking down the length of the train- presumably these are driven with the driver's head stuck out of the side?

Sounds like a bad case of Crotch Rot. General Grievous probably ought to be given a few pointers on personal hygiene.

Thanks for the review LT. Well I guess what can be said for this set is that at least there are some useable pieces for making MOCs. The wings for example would be ideal for a 1950's car.

Hmmm, I really don't like this set- far too <insert that tiresome argument> and with pieces that are only of any use for the purpose of modelling that one car. I suppose given the small scale of the vehicle it may have been the only way to make an identifiable likeness to the cartoon character but I can't see many AFOLs buying it for parts.

Bottom line is that Lego is in an extremely competitive market. Lego needs to continually change its product range in order to stay relevent and to satisfy the demands of its principal vendors, eg Toys'r'Us, etc. New products interest and excite consumers (look at the reaction from AFOLs to new sets on this site) and enable Lego to develop new concepts (and useful parts, colours, etc). Once a child (the main demographic Lego targets) has collected all the sets in a collection there may be less incentive for that child (or parents) to buy more. I think TLG has been quite clever, actually, in maintaining its core themes over the years- for example Pirates, by introducing the PotC franchised sets. My problem with PotC is perhaps that the child will only see those sets in terms of trying to represent scenes from the film, wheras previous Pirate sets may have been more of a blank canvas for the child to use his own imagination as to the character of the pirates that he is playing with. Nevertheless, that is the reality of the modern toy industry- got to keep relevent to what the kids want. If TLG goes through a bad patch of 2-3 years it could be curtains (as it very nearly was a few years back). I think Lego is still designing inspiring sets that appeal to their target audience (and the sales prove this). The Creator line is especially good- it uses mostly basic components and encourages the child to 'brick build' much of the content- eg animals, barbeque, etc, much like we had to in the 1980's when there was nothing like the variety of components on offer (let alone the wonderful colour palette).

A clever little set designed to inspire creative use of relatively limited parts in the hands of younger modellers. There is nothing I dislike about this set- obviously AFOLs would like more of this or that, but this isn't an AFOL set- therefore I think it deserves top marks.

Amazing that anyone actually produced a shunter with 40hp or less- even given low gearing ratios and the high torque characteristics of a diesel engine, such a loco would probably be hard pressed to move more than one or two wagons on flat terrain- one presumes the model depicted is in the over 40hp category- no Post-War British shunter produced less than 150hp and I'd assume a similar output for this. Its a very nice model however of a rather odd-looking (to British eyes) prototype.

Jamie Berard- a living God. Bear in mind that I am somewhat inebriated as I write this- that said, given the quality of this piece, I feel it is unlikely that I would wish to eat my words.

My name is pretty self-explanitory- I don't actually own any Lego >gasp<. I've been hovering on this site for probably a year now and I couldn't bear not to be a part of it- so many interesting topics. I will, of course, invest in some Lego when finances allow but I'm not currently in work and in a bit of a financial pickle- which I hope will resolve itself soon. If/when I do start posting pics of my MOCs my name will be something of a misnomer- I should really have chosen a name more carefully! I would have chosen L'egoiste (pun on the French for 'selfish one- which I hope I'm not!) but someone here already has a version of that name and I didn't want to confuse people by adopting a similar monicker. I'm hoping in the near future to get my hands on my old childhood Lego if it hasn't been got rid of or passed on to grandchildren. Lots of blue 4.5v train track, some grey 12v too, as well as a couple of motors and other goodies. The newest Lego in that collection will be from the mid 1980's with much of it much older (charity shop finds and hand-me-downs from parent's friends who had outgrown it). And, I'm sorry to say, some particularly poor quality clone stuff which I bought for something like 99p per bag.

Weird how the power cars have one bogie and what looks like a sort of single-axle truck at the rear. The power cars are actually too long proportionately- odd, because often with HST sets the carriages are much shorter than scale. God only knows who made that set- Lego it ain't.

In the UK all the Lego shops, apart from the one in Cardiff, are centred around London (ok so one is in that beleaguered little outpost Milton Keynes but that is pretty much a London offshoot anyway). So even in the UK the majority of the country is not served by a nearby Lego shop. Nearest one to me is Cardiff. Of course, that means we in the UK are still very lucky compared to many other places including parts of the US. But Lego tend to centre their shops in the most wealthy area (so why not Switzerland me wonders)?

Some really nice parts to that set- like the patio doors and the barbeque. But-why oh why have roof tiles in bright primary red? I've never seen roofs in that colour- surely a dark red (as with the log cabin) or even dark blue would have been more suitable if not standard black?