tblightning

If you look behind the front bumper you can see the base end of a small linear actuator which I presume is used to work the stabilizers.

So I think the key to this competition is imagination. It was referenced that 'fantasy' entries would be considered given the plausibility of the back story. So think of it like this: Find a problem anywhere in the Railroading world, and then come up with a solution for that problem and demonstrate it in Lego. For example, Back in the early 1900's there was a fierce battle based around power and tractive effort in the US, and it led to the Triplex Locomotive, something that was almost beyond belief at the time, but ultimately it was a monumental failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triplex_(locomotive). The point is, the engineers (that's you guys, I can't afford to compete in this one) can find a problem to solve and come up with something completely original, complete fantasy, but is plausible to have potentially existed, because that's how railroads used to do things. They'd come up with an idea, and if it passed the "Wow that's nuts but it sounds cool and cooooould possibly work" stage, they built it (See: all the crazy stuff the Pennsy did, e.g. T1 Duplex, the S1, the S2, etc.) Just look at the Union Pacifics Gas Turbine Engines: Three massive units making up one engine all based around a jet turbine that was a completely bonkers idea, and kind of worked, but it's all about thinking outside the box https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_turbine-electric_locomotive. Here's an example of what I'm talking about: 2017 was a horrendous year for Forest Fires in Florida. <Everything that follows is completely made up>. The CSX was greatly concerned by this and needed to make sure that the route of it's famous Juice Train (Tropicana) remained open no matter what. So the Tampa shops got to work and a 5 car articulated gondola train car (5 cars permanently coupled, plenty of studs there) along with a 3 car articulated tanker was built to go ahead of every juice train and make sure the Right of Way (RoW) was fire free. The train of 8 cars (5&3 semi-permanently coupled) was pushed down the tracks while the gondolas had custom drop out sides that would open to both dump water on the RoW and also spray the trees running along the track in high risk areas. The lego model could have operating trap doors to let the 'water' out at intervals, power function hoses that make them move back and forth through 90 degrees to make it look like they're spraying back and forth, etc. It's a completely plausible idea. It's also complete bonkers: can you imagine building an 5 car articulated gondola set that semi-permanently coupled to a 3 car articulated tank car set? I would imagine it would be that hard to build either, especially with two recent runs of City "Fire" sets. Heck, one of the gondolas could have a bucket lift with a hose and a firefighter to spray things that are high up. Oh, and because everything is articulated you could run on single power functions main driveline through all five cars and each car that uses power functions has it's own gear box to activate it's feature. Maybe change the idea of 5 semi permed to 3 to 5 semi permed to a boxcar that houses the power functions aspects. Heck, you could smash and engine and a gondola together and then it's a 5 car articulated fire-fighting train with it's own engine-think something like the short lived AeroTrain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerotrain_(GM). I would give anything to compete in this contest. Unfortunately I have neither the money or the software know-how. And that idea is up for grabs. Would love to be consulted on the concept though :D

Well, I always try to find a silver lining to every cloud: it just got you a view, a like and a subscriber, so at least it wasn't completely in vain ;)

Kudos on an excellent piece of work. My three favorite things: The rear wing, its shape is excellent The full floorpan, just brilliant The rake! This blew my mind, so easily overlooked and you nailed it :D Only thing I'd do some work on is the front wing. Agreed, getting that delta shape is going to take some doing, but I think you could use some smaller panels to create some more of the aero-elements. Oh, and to heck with the shark fin, Ross is going to get those things banned anyway :p