raised

Pretty decent review including a short showing of the underside off the train. Seems that the wheels would be easily convertable to L-gauge, but currently they indeed seem to be gauged at G-gauge just as the MB website says. I must say it's really nice to see that MB finally goes into trains; after all that Chinese stuff it's a relief to see some high quality trains from a Clone Brand.

@XGBC Sounds promising, do keep us updated on the progress! Speaking about electric narrow gauge... Did you have a look at Beck's entry for OcTRAINber? Or Aishi Valkoinen's narrow gauge Stadler GTW, even though that one does have the more recent diamond pantographs; I do know there was also a german builder who once build an amazing narrow gauge electric, but unfortunately I forgot his name and the name of the creation he build... He even made totally tailor-made tracks etc... /edit: It was the user Space2310. He build an Enoden 1000. Unfortunately he has deleted his flickr account and his picutres. A shame, because he had some great techniques and ideas! Best I could find is this old Pinterest link...

GIYF and Search on EB Also, because most of the pantographs use Rigid Hose 3mm with some form of minfig hands / hooks or bar holders with clip, you can model them in almost any colour you want.

Sad to hear. You guys had some great models both available and in the pipeline. Maybe pricing wasn't always 'right' in the opinion of some, but hey, that's what the free market is all about (even more if you know that the GP-9 by Lionel in O-scale is also USD 549,- !). I understand that we used to be a hobby where everything was for free and instructions could be downloaded without paying a penny, but the hobby is going more and more professional, and part of that is asking money for your own creations. The way how I saw it, is that you guys saw a hole in the market, and IHBC had been (succesfully, I hope!) trying to fill that hole. In economies like ours, that's nothing more than fair, I'd say. But then again, having a small background in the Model Railroaders scene, I never understood the whole 'giving away for free' scheme that our hobby had. I mean, yes, I also tend to post building techniques every now and then, but I only do that to get people inspired to build their own stuff. If they want to build my creations, than it wouldn't be more than fair that people would also pay for that design. (My standard reaction lately is thus "Yes, I build with my own Legos as a hobby, but no, that doesn't mean I should be giving away everything for free!") On the other hand, I know that in the US the hobby is more club-based than in Europe, where a lot of the hobby is far more individual, and with loads of ad-hoc groups of friends, or just one guy who goes to a show on his own. My own LUG (lowlug) for example is a very loosly based LUG with almost no obligations as member (ok ok we have some, but it's very loosely organized, trust me). If however your club is more rigid, I can understand that some negative feelings from fellow clubmembers towards your business can really destroy your fun in the hobby. In that case, it's sometimes a smart move to indeed choose friends over of business, definately when building with Legos is/was a hobby to begin with. Anyways, I hope you guys will find a way to have fun in the hobby again, in the end, that's indeed the most important part of sticking those plastic bricks on top of each other!

Dear everyone, we hope you all have a great start of your autumn! With September drawing to a close, and October quickly approaching, the time has come to announce our latest installment of our OcTRAINber build competition! This year, the challenge is… The Foreign Challenge! The goal of the foreign challenge is to promote outside-the-box thinking and change up people’s build lists. In general, most builders tend to stick with what they know, which is often what is local to them. As such, not as many people break that mold and build something that is not local to them. Hopefully all participants can appreciate building something out of their comfort zone! BMR is certainly excited about this challenge, and we hope to see many rise to the occasion. Rules: “Foreign” is defined as: Any locomotive, rolling stock, structure, or other railroad-related item that was NOT designed OR used in the native country of the builder. So, being from the Unites States, I could not enter legitimately with a United States locomotive such as a Santa Fe F7. I’m sure you get the point. Entries must be original models. No stealing. We are making no rules for the scale you choose to model in. We are welcoming models of 6, 7, and 8 studs, and anything in between or beyond. However, we appreciate detail and accuracy. Reasonably sized models are usually better for that, but we don’t knock anything or anyone with serious skill. NEW BUILDS ONLY. We are willing to accept anything unpublished or anything that was not published before September 1st 2018 as new. We want to inspire and promote a challenging build, entering an old model doesn’t quite work in that regard. Entries MUST be made on our Flickr group in the appropriate thread: real-life entries in the real-life thread, and digital entries in the digital thread. This is the ONLY place we will be looking for entries, nowhere else. Sending photos to us on social media or showing us in person do not count as entries. We will be accepting entries from Midnight on October 1st to midnight on November 1st. There is possibility of a grace period to ensure those that need that one final Bricklink order have a fair chance. Entries and Prizes We are allowing digital entries and real life builds, but everyone is limited to one entry only to keep things fair. We will have three prizes available: Top staff pick of the real-life entries Runner up real-life entry Top staff pick of the digital entries We want to focus on and inspire some real building here, so this explains why more prizes are available for the real-life entries. Prizes will be revealed in an upcoming article on BMR. Different from the previous year, we want to encourage you to show off your WIPs this year as well, to make OcTRAINber really a month that is all about trains within the Lego community. Therefore, extra credit will be given to the best WIP stories and/or pictures during the event. Specific information about WIP points will be mentioned in an upcoming article on BMR. We will pick the winners after we have announced the official close of the competition and have stopped accepting new entries, which will be some time after November 1. Once the judges have come to a sound conclusion regarding the winners, we will post one final article announcing them, and then we will be in contact with those winners regarding their prizes. Judges will also be announced in an upcoming article on BMR. Thanks for reading, and now it’s time for some building! Again, we will only accept entries after midnight on October 1. Until then, start planning! We are seriously looking forward to this competition, especially after how much fun last year was. If there are any questions, please feel free to ask us; we are more than happy to provide clarification. Happy building from the Staff of Brick Model Railroader! BTW: For more information and extras it's always wise to check out both Brickmodelrailroader.com, our Flickr and our Facebook, but we will ofcourse try our best to also answer your questions here on the famous Train Tech forums!

^ What @Glenn Holland said. We are currently finishing up the results, hopefully we will be able to post them sometime this weekend! Thanks again for all the patience, I have to admit all the waiting doesn't deserve a beauty prize, as they say in the Netherlands...

@sed6 I have send you a PM.

Aaaand it's a wrap! Well, it's been a wrap already for like 7 days, but due to some business from our side we weren't able to post that message here ;) Anyways, thanks all for entering, I will follow up with a post on BMR very soon!

Update: We have decided to extend the deadline untill the end of Sunday November 4th. Hope this will be enough for all to finish your builds!

October 28, that means OcTRAINber is has to start the Last Mile Module quite soon! To indeed keep things fair (definately with all these prizes) we have decided to stick with this rule and limit to one entry. This means that we would like to ask all contestants that entered more than one entry to decide which is their ‘official’ entry. Feel free to do this in the respective entry threads at the BMR Flickr Page. BTW I forgot to answer the following question: So as long as it's no ridiculous modding like cutting windscreens or changing bricks in such a way that could have also solved by creative building, you should be fine.

Good news everybody, we have unveiled some of the prizes you guys are contesting for. Hopefully these will serve as an extra motivation to keep on building :) To make stuff a bit more readable I have put them in Quotes, taken from the BMR website :) The first Grand Prize announcement: The second part of the Prizes Extravaganza: Third part of the Prizes Posts will be online later today!

Good news everybody! Today is October 1st, meaning that OcTRAINber 2018 has officially started! As we announced a bit over a week ago, this year BMR will again run the OcTRAINber contest. Just like last year we have chosen a subject that will hopefully get as many of our fellow trainheads out of their comfort zone and build some truly original and special models. So, let us officially introduce you to the contest and let’s get rolling! OcTRAINber First of all, the name. It’s called OcTRAINber, if somebody had not noticed yet. Why OcTRAINber? Well, because it’s a great intermediate month between SHIPtember and Novvember. Also, TRAINS. “The Foreign Challenge” Second of all, the subject of this years OcTRAINber. Why the Foreign Challenge? Well, because it tickles the mind and sparks creativity if you look abroad every now and then. Of course, it’s great to build the prototypes you see rolling around in your own country every day and which whom you most probably are very intimate with. However, since OcTRAINber is all about getting out of your comfort zone, looking abroad and building from new uncharted territory is a great way to do so. The Rules The Rules have already been announced by Glenn in the previous OcTRAINber post, but for completeness’ sake we have pasted them here again: “Foreign” is defined as: Any locomotive, rolling stock, structure, or other railroad-related item that was NOT designed or used in the native country of the builder. So, being from the Unites States, I (being Glenn) could not enter legitimately with a United States locomotive such as a Santa Fe F7. I’m sure you get the point. Entries must be original models. No stealing. We are making no rules for the scale you choose to model in. We are welcoming models of 6, 7, and 8 studs, and anything in between or beyond! However, we appreciate detail and accuracy. Reasonably sized models are usually better for that, but we don’t knock anything or anyone with serious skill. NEW BUILDS ONLY. We are willing to accept anything unpublished or anything that was not published before September 1st 2018 as new. We want to inspire and promote a challenging build, entering an old model doesn’t quite work in that regard. Third party parts BMR has always been positive towards third-party parts, as long as they have any way of added value to the hobby. So the rule of thumb is simple: Lego: Yes Third Party Parts: Yes Clones: No Points Points will be awarded in three categories: Credibility, WIP Story and the Foreign Factor. First of all, credibility of the prototype. This means we will be looking at how much the build represents the real life prototype. This means the quality of the build, but potential scale etc. If you are sending in a fantasy model, we will look at how credible the build is; would it fit in, does the backstory make sense? (Please note that this means an entry does need to be based in the Real Life in some way, so no fantasy universes like Star Wars etc) Second of all, the WIP story. This refers to both showing off your building process, but also to how and why you decided to model a certain prototype. The better the story and the more updates you give and the more elaborate your building story is, the better. (Also, feel free to cross-post these pictures in our WIP-thread while you are still building!) Third and last, the Foreign Factor. This is all about the building-out-of-your-comfort-zone part. The more exotic and the more foreign for you as a builder, the better it is. Are you (like me for example) normally a European stock builder, but have you now decided to model something US, even though you have zero experience in building this far abroad? Well, that obviously gives you more credit than modelling some Spanish stock if you are from Portugal for example, or building something Canadian if you are from the US. Same goes for the even more exotic places! The Judges This contest will have four judges. Why four? Well, because last year we also had four. However, different than least year, this year we will have a new guest judge from Europe who has some good experience in building truly foreign trains, but who also wrote the critically acclaimed “The Lego Trains Book“. The judges will therefore be, in no particular order: Holger Matthes Glenn Holland Cale Leiphart Gerbrand van den Eeckhout Timeline We will be accepting entries from Midnight on October 1st (being right now!) to midnight on November 1st (meaning October 31st, at 23:59 PDT). There is possibility of a grace period to ensure those that need that one final Bricklink order have a fair chance Entries Entries are to be send in ONLY via our own BMR Flickr! There are two discussions; one for the Real Life entries and one for the Digital entries. This is the ONLY place we will be looking for entries, nowhere else. Sending photos to us on social media or showing us in person do not count as entries. Next to that, please also add your pictures in the pool! Also, we have a special thread for WIP pictures, just to keep OcTRAINber going. However, do keep in mind that pictures in this thread don’t count as entries! The Prizes No contest without prizes! Just as last year we have some really nice prizes from several outlets. Which prizes specifically will be made public as soon as possible, so to keep the hype train running for a little bit longer! Spare Parts We here over at BMR are very, very excited about OcTRAINber 2018: The Foreign Challenge and we are looking forward to all those entries. We are really looking forward to see what the community has to offer in terms of creativity and we hope that all of you will be stimulated by this contest to finally build that one foreign prototype of a train / loco / wagon that you always wanted to build, but never did. Also, if there are any things that aren’t fully clear, you can always reach out to us by posting your message below. All aboard OcTRAINber!

I know about an Australian who once build it ;)

Great to see so many of you being enthousiastic about the second OcTRAINber challenge! We are looking forward to all of those entries and WIP pictures. Just to clarify some more questions: This is something that is always one of the major added values of building digital, which is one of the reasons why we have different categories for real life and digital builds. So yes, we are willing to accept this. Also, there were some questions on the BMR page which I'd like to answer here as well: Reimagation of a Lego set could work, but only if it connects with a prototype, like for example how the Maersk locomotive was reimagined by Ralph Savelsberg. Reimaging a set like 4564 would only work if you manage to combine it with a real life propotype like the MaK DE 6400. I hope you get the point! To answer your questions: 1. Unfortunately no, prototypes set in fictional universes aren’t allowed to be entered. As said: We are limiting entries to those based in reality. I.E., an entry should be a model of a prototype. The reason for this is, is that otherwise it would break the idea of the challenge being "out of your comfort zone." 2. You can add third party items like a PFx Brick or Big Ben Bricks wheels, but no direct Lego competitors (ie. Megablocks and other clones).

This exactly. Is it possible with WeDo at the moment?

Since the Dutch Railways decided to finally buy, instead of lease, their TRAXX AC2 loco's for the High Speed Line between Schiphol Airport and Belgium, I decided it was time for me as well to try to build this loco. It is far from finished, but I thought it might be interesting to keep you guys updated nevertheless. So, here are, chronological, the first four "steps" of building a TRAXX AC2! Building a TRAXX AC2, step 1 by raised, on Flickr The main thing I wanted, was to have the curved parts of the nose, which are so much iconic for this design, in flush. This instead of the gradually increasing cheese slopes, which are not in flush. Building a TRAXX AC2, step 2 by raised, on Flickr I did have to accept the fact that the windscreen itself will be made out of tiles, instead of transparent panels. Also, the windscreen will be a bit to big, since in fact its less than 3 plates high. Building a TRAXX AC2, step 2b (failed) by raised, on Flickr The nose looked horrible with those big gaps, so this idea was scrapped. This way however would have given me the chance to work with trans clear panels or bricks, and to better change the height of the windscreen. But yeah, those gaps... Hideous. Building a TRAXX AC2, step 3 by raised, on Flickr Almost unnoticable in the prototype, but a TRAXX has some side paneling, which stick out a little bit. I first tried 0.5 plate offset, but that looked like too much, so now it's 0.25 plate. (The doors on the other hand are 0.25 plate more inside that the rest of the body.) I even managed to hide all the electronics, better than with my previous loco, where I had to put the M motor vertical, instead of the horizontal line I was aiming for. I have to admit I'm not really liking the gap where the nose blends into the roof, but for now this is the best I could come up with at the moment. I hope when its finished, and when I finally find those 2 wide curved slopes in the right colour, it will look better. Trucks are ready as well, but not detailed, so I decided not to include them in the build yet. I'm thinking about using the 20 tooth gear, as shown in the picture, as the iconic brakes (or whatever they are) which are so visible in TRAXX loco's. Not sure yet however.

So, we are three and a half year further and I managed to actually re-build my AC2 partly! Traxx AC2 - A New Hope by raised, on Flickr

Great model, instantly recognizable, both the NS/SBB and the Ontario Northlander. Interestingto hear that you say you are not sure about the nose, because I think, knowing the prototype pretty well, that this design is spot-on! I know how difficult the noses of Dutch trains between the thirties and the seventies are to replicate in Legos, but you just nailed it.

It has been some time since I last visited here, but when I visit, I do like to bring something with me. Therefore, I present you my first -completely finished- build in over a year, a Dutch good carriage of the National Railways (NS), type "eanos". Around 1988 200 of them were build for NS, and they were used to haul all kind of goods, from beetroots to coal to wood, and what not. NS eanos #1 by raised, on Flickr NS eanos #2 by raised, on Flickr Nowadays everything on the tracks in the Netherlands is colored red, but back in the days, as you can see, there were still some refreshing ideas about coloring. (The red version IS on it's way though, I'm just waiting for some red 2x2 tiles to get it finished as well).

This actually would make sense, TLC did kind of the same with the introduction of the first RC trains which still were officially speaking part of the 9V system. If you look at it, trains are anyways the ideal testbed; it can be used for almost all ages, you anyways need to produce some sort of remote controlling system, its within system not technic so a broader age category of children are going to buy it, etc... Regarding the Bluetooth; I will be mostly interested how much customization will be possible (if any at all), just like with both Sbrick for different layouts etc, and PFx Brick for all the different speedsteps, automation and all those other cool gimmicks.

True, completely forgot about that. Might make my little scheme of import in the lowest taxed country also a bit more expensive...

I love your ideas to surpass import taxes to lower the prices. But, as Ludo already said, that ain't going to work. If it did, we in the EU would have been flooded with, for example, US-made products in the last 20 years. Instead, we have been seeing a flood of Asian-made products. Why? Because their products are cheaper to produce (lower costs of labour, lower costs of housing & utilities), thus cost less, which in turn means that import taxes and VAT are lower. The only other thing that could work, is producing locally, thus cirumpassing the import taxes. However, even in Europe most of the production is nowadays centered towards the Eastern EU countries due to lower labour, housing and utilities costs (for example, most of our cars are nowadays build in countries like Hungary and Slovakia, heck even TLC nowadays has their main factories in Hungary and Czech Republic...). Or production in China. However, that means that you will lose your direct influence on the quality, since for any quality control you will be dependent on Skype, samples send to you, or actually flying to the production locations. Even TLC themselves haven't solved this issue properly, as far as I recall the special pieces made in China for the Collectable Minifig Line still are to some degree inferior to the Billund-produced legos. Potentially, he could set up an import-export firm for Europe which imports the tracks for production costs, then selling them in Europe for profits, but this creates some very messy stuff which more looks like how multinationals work then a one-man-shop from a guy with some awesome ideas and great engineering skills. Conclusion: Only when Coaster is willing to relocate prodution (or starting a franchise with copies of the molds, but this means some EU citizen will need to invest in getting identical molds made), which I highly doubt he will be wanting to do (and which I can fully understand, see above), or when he is going to become a multinational like TLC themselves, we EU citizens will have to accept that we need to pay some extra taxes. The only options I see in the short run: Sending the tracks to a EU country with lower VAT and/or import taxes (even though we are an union, all our countries have our own VAT and import tax tarifs) and then transferring within the internal market without extra taxes (long live the internal market of the EU!) or just going on holidays to the US and buying your tracks locally. (Then again, I'm neither a production specialist, nor do I have any experience in these commercial schemes, so please all take them with a pinch of salt ;))

Regarding the PF stuff on the box: Both the conductor minifig and the PF picture have a faint "placeholder" stamped over them. That can mean that the whole graphic will be changed (which I kind of expect with the conductor) or that the thing only needs to be coloured (which I think is the case with the PF stuff) but it can obviously also mean that the whole design for the PF 2.0 stuff hasn't been formalized yet. Re. the design: Ah well, it looks fun. But since I don't build 6 wide anyways, I couldn't care less. Ofcourse, a Nez-Casses would be awesome, but that's mainly because they used to be the main workhorse in NL and thus I have always loved seeing them. But in the end, I'm mainly interested in the PF stuff!

Mostly EMU's for the passenger services and Traxx and/or Vectron for the ones that were in freight services.

Looks more like a bad re-skin of the 7938...