ColletArrow

Now there's some impressive work - I don't think I've ever seen a fully-motorised LEGO road-railer before*! And you've achieved some really tricky shaping with the bodyshell - it looks as bizarre as the prototype! *As a side-note, it's great to see what people are doing with these Circuit Cubes, I definitely need to get myself some when I'm next reunited with my real bricks...

Very strange, all I see is a .jpg file name... anyway. Your tower-on-wheels is certainly coming together nicely; unless you'd pointed out the subtle colour variation I don't think I'd have noticed it. I like the inclusion of the 4-juniors figure - at the risk of revealing my age, that one came with the first LEGO set I owned ! And is that the yellow of an LED I spy behind the headlamps...?

An excellent model of a unique little loco, and a fine addition to your ever-expanding collection! Unfortunately you're latest photo just shows up as this for me Just the latest one, the rest of them are fine...

This is a fantastic thread! First of all we get yet another incredibly detailed, accurate yet 'simple' model of an unusual prototype from @Paperinik77pk , but then @HoMa turns it up a notch with the real build and some beautifully atmospheric shots! Excellent work both, I've really enjoyed reading!

This is a fantastic little model with a wealth of detail, and the custom rods really make it pop! Of the two, despite my British Rail biases, I would agree that the NS yellow-grey version is the more visually interesting; it also means the details you've captured stand out much more. But I was never a fan of the plain black or green BR shunters in the first place, I much prefer the wasp-stripe liveries . Finally, the age-old question: do you intend to build these in real bricks any time soon? Don't worry if not, I've built far more digital MOCs than real ones

An excellent build, detailed with all the reinforcements and bars, yet so clean! Now you just to build a few more to link them up in a chain... bet that would get expensive quickly!

So many beautiful, impressive and well-detailed trains on display here, and presented really well. The scenic work is just as impressive, and it really shows what can be achieved with the recent track offerings. I fully agree with @zephyr1934, it's difficult to choose a favourite...

Afternoon all! I hope you'll bear with me here; rather than struggling with getting this model to be presentable and invetably sidelining it, I've decided to start a WIP topic to bounce some ideas around and hopefully get it tidied up. The loco in question is a fairly humble 1930s Great Western Railway 0-6-0 freight locomotive; even the Wikipedia article doesn't have much to say about them, other than they were mainly built as replacements for the ealier 1880s "Dean Goods" and they were . I don't know what it is about this loco, but I quite enjoy the class - no fuss with pony trucks or outside valvegear, just simple GWR elegance that gets the job done. Also they may or may not be the namesake of half of my username here, so it was high time I built one! (Photo sourced from Flickr) The MOC in question was intended as a fairly quick one, mostly envisaged as a modification of my LMS Ivatt 2MT. My plan was to crop the front off, add running boards, adjust the firebox and rebuild the tender, and boom "new" MOC. So far this is what I've got (still with plenty of holes): (Yes I need to get rid of those "46447" stickers, they're completely out of place here). Motive power is as per the Ivatt 2MT - a rechargeable 9V cell in the tender, which also houses the IR receiver (yet to be properly concealed) and the train motor, meaning the loco itself is entirely cosmetic. In isolation, it doesn't look too bad. However, comparing against a OO scale model, it's apparent some things are not quite right here. My main two concerns are that the wheelbase is too short, and the running boards (and thus bufferbeam) are too high; together, these factors throw a lot of the proportions outm making the loco look shorter and taller than it should. However, I'm reluctant to increase the wheelbase since it already sometimes catches on the guardrail on standard points, and I can't really drop the running boards and thus boiler since the wheels are in the way. This also results in the bufferbeam being far too high compared to other rolling stock. So that's where I am, and here's where I ask for advice. What do you think about the wheelbase and running boards? Is there anything else I've overlooked that could improve matters? All comments and critiscisms are welcome!

Cheers fellas! @CMF-1138 - I could lower the cab roof, but then I wouldn't be able to fit a figure in it! As it is there's no headroom for hair, so the poor fireman's bald... @zephyr1934 - thanks for your excellent tips! I've managed to implement the wedgeplate option, see below. This morning a small parcel arrived (good work Royal Mail, only dispatched yesterday morning!), containing LEGO goodies. After a short building session, the loco was finally fully kitted out! Black smokebox, cab windows and steps, half-splashers, and all topped off with a gold safety valve bonnet and traditional GWR copper-capped chimney! The tender is a little more polished now too, with the siderails extended further backwards and the "coal" piled up a little more around the receiver. I won't show you the inside, it's just the traditional compressed jumble of PF cables! And one of those cables goes to the loco... She's got a headlamp! Just one; this is the headlamp code for "Through Mineral or Empty Wagon Train"; I need to swap it to the other side at some point to read "Pick-up or Branch Freight". But since I'm only using one of the pair of PF LEDs, the other's in the firebox! A feature retained from the LMS Ivatt 2MT, only with the open-ended cab of this loco you can actually see it! And whilst we're looking at the cab, here's what I've done with the floor: 2x3 wedgeplates on the tender, and 2x2 wedgeplates on the cab. By shear fluke they fit past eachother perfectly on R40s! They come closest on reverse curves, but still no (or at least no noticeable) clashing! And finally, the side-by-side: I'm sure there's still room for improvement; I could entirely rebuld the boiler as a true circle for one, but I'm happy enough with her for now. The only thing I should have done is taken some photos with wagons; that will have to wait for tomorrow. Maybe I'll even put a video together, although I should probably recharge the batteries first... Thanks to everyone who's contributed in this thread; I don't think I would have put nearly as much effort, or be as happy with the final product, if I hadn't got the feedback and tips you all provided.

Cheers @Feuer Zug and @Hod Carrier - I'm glad you're enjoying this! I feel I'm going pretty quickly here too, but normally I sit and ponder a model for a few days between rebuilds - wheras by sharing my progress here, I can let others do the pondering for me, and just focus on the building! As for "square" models - as I'm sure you've found from building them modern diesels are anything but square, there's all sorts of sneaky curves and you capture them masterfully. For my attempt at a GWR boiler I'm aware there are far better solutions out there, but I'm sticking to what I know and parts I have to hand. That said I have now added a truly round smokebox, which helps to deceive things a little and even suggests a slight taper. I could raise another section of the boiler, but I feel 1 plate would be too much and I don't have the stomach to try half-plate offsets! Finally, @Phil B's comments about wheel spacing. The OO model, which may or may not be totally accurate, has axle centre-centres of 30mm at the front and 34mm at the back - roughly a 13% increase. I've extended my front spacing to 7 studs, so technically I should increase the rear to 7.9333, or 8, studs - but I haven't. Partially because I only thought about calculating this after I'd rebuilt everything, and partially because with a total wheelbase of 13 studs she's already sticky in R40 curves - and a total of 14 wouldn't line up with technic liftarms nicely either. So, with the above all in mind, here's how she looks now. I've filled in some gaps using a handful of off-colour parts, to get a feel for things before I place my Bricklink order this evening. I've only just spotted that the central splashers are a stud too far forwards in all these photos - oops! Luckily that's an incredibly easy fix. The rear view is where the GWR open tender beats the Ivatt 2MT's enclosed cab - I can actually see the boiler backhead! And thus the illuminated firebox I've retained from the old model, keep your eyes peeled for that one when I get around to taking photos after dark. Finally, the comparison shot: Well I think that's yet another improvement, and I'm at a stage where I'm happy to order the missing parts now. I think I just need to add details under the running board and some polishing on the tender and we're good to go. As usual though, further thoughts and comments are always welcome!

Thanks for the further tips, @CMF-1138 - I too was thinking about using the plane windows, I just don't have any in black yet. Not to worry, I've started putting together a small bricklink order, so I should have some soon! Today was quite a productive day in the end. Over lunch (benefits of working from home!) I started roughing out the running board modification, using headlight bricks and sideways 1x1s between each wheel to support the 1x8 tiles. I also cropped off the front of the cab and shunted the boiler back a stud as suggested. This evening I had another stab, and managed to polish it a bit further - the bufferbeam now sits just below the running board as it should; the boards themselves now extend all the way under the cab. There's also a stud less overhang at the front, and I managed to fill in a few holes here and there. My Bricklink shopping list so far includes some round parts for the smokebox, and some more gold parts for the safety valves and chimney, as well as the cab windows and 1x2 curved slopes for the half-splashers in front of the cab. The next area I've been playing with is the cab/tender interface, especially the steps. I tried adding a set of 2-stud long steps under the cab and vertical handrail, which reduced the gap but hindered negotiation of R40 curves. Reverse curves also pose a restriction here, although they are currently possible. In fact, a brief playing testing session revealed running to be generally superior to the Ivatt 2MT, likely due to the lack of pony truck and less complicated (thus less friction-y) connecting rods, so that's a bonus. Finally, the comparison with the OO version. In my opinion she's better than she was, but there's still room for improvement. Once again, any thoughts are welcome! EDIT: So I've just been looking at my old Pannier again, and I noticed that had a 13-stud wheelbase; moreover it doesn't do as badly through points as I was expecting, so maybe I could lengthen it by a few studs after all... what do you think?

Thanks all for your input, I really appreciate it! I'm glad it wasn't just me then! @jus1973 - I'm not sure I can really adjust the tender much, even with the compact 9V battery it's still pretty cramped in there. But I will look into reducing the gap if possible, it is quite excessive. I probably will invest in some round bricks too - I seem to be incredibly stingy when it comes to buying parts, but I should really just grab a handful of these since it would make such a difference. @jus1973 and @LEGO Train 12 Volts - SNOTed sides is exactly what I need to do, thanks for spelling it out for me! Thinking about it I've even done it before myself on my GWR Pannier, not sure how I forgot about that one... @zephyr1934 - absolutely the dome can move backwards. Also to be pedantic it's actually a safety valve bonnet; the sandboxes on British engines are most often right next to the sanders themselves, something I should probably add to this model too. Finally, @CMF-1138 - some excellent ideas. I've been wondering about the wheelbase too, but it'd probably be defeated by the curves; I could try F-F-B, but I might just accept the shorter-than-it-should-be as a compromise. However I'll definitely look into shortening the cab - I hadn't even considered that it was off, but you're right. It will make the front-facing windows more difficult to include, but you can hardly see them anyway! Thanks again to everyone who's helped so far. I'll see what I can build tomorrow, but in the meantime comments are still welcome!

Well isn't this just a beautiful clean yet detailed shunter! I appreciate the amount of SNOT-work used to achieve the completely stud-less bonnet, and your stickers and lights are the perfect finishing touches. Excellent work!

Of the various options you've considered I think the "2x1 45 degree slope" actually looks the best, since the slope tricks the eye into thinking the curve carries on from the actual curve tiles. The cheese-slope option has now been demoted to second place in my mind That said, I'm prepared to completely change my mind when you share the mock-ups! Looking forward to seeing some real bricks in this thread.

As soon as I saw the thread title I thought you'd be responsible Overall I think you've hit the shaping and livery pretty spot on. The cab front looks quite tidy, including the tricky fairing shapes around the coupler and the underside corners. My first thought RE "Toblerones" would be a line of 1x2 cheeseslopes |\ - but that wouldn't integrate nicely with the quite pronounced curve of the real thing's bodysides, so I'm not so sure. The other thing I've noticed is your fantastic livery work somewhat disguises the cab door - if it could be set back a tiny amount it might help, but I would expect the cab is a bit full of SNoT to get it to work?

I agree with both of the above comments! You've made some fantastic modifications to an already highly-functional set, and I too would love to see a cable-routing diagram for that bucket. Everything seems to work so well, excellent work!

Excellent! I think the level of detail is just right for this size of model - plenty of interesting things to look at, but not too much or anything out of scale. The passenger wagon looks forms a good match too. Well done!

This loco has some really nice shaping, and crisp decals as usual. It really showcases the level of detail that can be achieved in 8W, fantastic work!

I really like what you're doing here - it's not often we see a long-wheelbase 0-4-0 shunter in LEGO, but I enjoy the mid-size feel of this loco. It certainly has plenty of colour and character to boot. It's not crucial to have the entire IR receiver exposed, but the more there is the better your signal reception will be. I got away just fine with only half exposed on my 7760-ish shunter, and I expect your open-window cab design will allow for good line of sight from wherever. As long as you point the controller at the train it will probably work fine. As for gears, if they're out of line there's a much higher change of them slipping under high loads. I would heavily recommend using LEGO's various gearbox frame pieces wherever possible - they virtually eliminate the potential for slippage, resulting in better traction. But however you proceed, I'm looking forward to seeing this project completed, it should be a cracking little loco!

I have no words - she's a stunning display piece. Fantastic work! Right, I'm off to Stud.io and Bricklink to design, order and build my own, because frankly I need this on my desk...

I fully agree with @UltraViolet's words - the mechanism is so beautifully complex, and just works flawlessly. Very enjoyable to watch everything moving in perfect synchronisation. Fantastic work!

A tidy, smart build packed with efficient and smooth functions - what's not to like? Other than a rather stubby counterweight, I really enjoy how this model looks and works - and has reminded me I need to have a go at building a mini crane myself one day. Excellent work!

This set does look very interesting, doesn't it. I'm already thinking of uses - powered hi-rail vehicles, a Ruston 48DS shunter, and generally much less intrusive power in basically any small loco... It's probably not worth me buying a set until I'm near my bricks again for a decent amount of time, so probably over summer - but for such a useful product at such a reasonable price I don't think I can pass these by. Out of interest, if anyone in the UK has bought them yet, what was shipping/customs like? @Asper, that mini V-52 is a perfect use for these!

That windscreen does match the LEGO part very well doesn't it, even though the angle isn't quite the same. The integration with the cheese-slope nose looks very neat, and I love the colour scheme and corrugated sides. The bufferbeam and roof detail is all superb too, it disguises just how "boxy" the loco is. Excellent work!

A perfect minification, it retains all the character and features of the original, but with some nifty stuff to compress it down. Neat work, and a very unusual layout too!