The_Cook

Remember that it's not TLG but the television production company Endemol Shine North. My suspicion would be that nobody on the production team has the time, knowledge and/or money to put together a lego RC chassis so the most expedient option is to take an off-the-shelf RC package, rip of whatever top-shell it had and super-glue some lego bricks to it. There would also be robustness benefits if indeed they are smashing them together. TV for the masses likes explosions and crashes more than intricate NPU. Occams razor: the simplest answer is usually right.

Don’t rails come in bundles of 4? So, not just another rail but the whole bundle!

Rather than use a shifter to lock the outer ring most real-life planetary gearboxes that I've encountered (https://www.rm1872.org.uk/GB32_Gearbox.html) use a brake band pulling tight against the outer ring to lock it, this overcomes the problem of having to slide the shifter into a moving gear. How that could be replicated in ABS, not quite sure, possibly by using one of the gears with larger teeth, eg. splat gear, and engaging a pin to stop the rotation.

I certainly recall someone posting an image of a bag-o-goats, but it was such a long time ago I can't remember who. Whilst that doesn't help your search immediately it does imply that your search isn't in vain, others have recollection of something similar and that there was a record of it somewhere.

I seem to recall, possibly from the Daniel Konstanski book, that these sort of accessory packs are created from the same injection mold in a single shot and then drop straight into the bagging machinery. Therefore production costs will be related to mold complexity and volume of plastic utilised. That doesn't make it more likely to get the IP locked parts you desire but it does mean that if they were available they'd be priced similarly to the aforementioned accessory packs.

For a 6 year old big train beats accuracy hands down

LDD file at the link below. I don't know how long the link will remain active so if you're reading this in the far future and it's failing then try PMing me and I'll re-upload. The LDD file is presented as-is, all of the variants of the carriages are present along with the various experiments for windows, seating, alternative table arrangements, etc... I can't make any guarantees that the LDD file is exactly what was built as sometimes brick substitutions need to be made last minute when you realise that the stock you thought you had isn't what you've actually got or a build technique that works in the digital realm doesn't work in the physical world because physics. Enjoy: LDD File

I need to find a new file sharing site after the demise of MocPages. Once I've done that I can post the LDD files.

I somehow got it into my head that I would quite like a rake of BR Mk I Crimson Lake and Cream carriages, the colour scheme being more colloquially know as Blood and Custard. These were intended for play, 6yr old play, on my sons Lego train set so needed to be designed with fairly rough handling in mind. The design criteria of it being playable and compatible with the existing Lego playsets meant that I was looking at a 6 wide carriage, so the carriages from 10194 Emerald Knight seemed a fairly good starting point and whilst Emerald Knight isn't a direct reproduction of a known locomotive, it and the carriages are definitely inspired by British Steam designs from the first half of the 20th Century such as the Gresley designed Pacific locomotive 60103 Flying Scotsman. Initially it started out as a simple recolour of the 10194 carriages, the lower Reddish Brown half became Dark Red, the upper half windows remained Tan, dark brown lining either side of the red lower half. Off to my brick drawers and Bricklink to source the pieces... Except a rake of carriages running up one of the North/South UK mainlines would normally include a Bar, a Kitchen and a Brake Van. Searching Eurobricks for inspiration I was drawn to the Pullman cars of Heppeng and Redimus and they have been an influence on my final designs. The challenge with any interior is fitting it into the 4 wide gap. It is just possible to get the bar squeezed in and to get a Barman serving and a customer standing in the available space. I replaced the back wall of the carriage with solid panels and some 1x3x2 windows as was customary with the Mk1 carriages. However, since the bar only takes up half the carriage something was needed for the remaining half. According to the drawings I found of actual BR Mk I Bar carriages there would have been banquet seating curving round at the carriage ends, which wouldn't be achievable in the 4wide space, so the compromise was to just add a dining table in instead. Which leads to the design of dining tables. I wasn't that happy with the bulky table from 10194 and the strange raised platform it sat on. With the benefit of hindsight I now realise that the platform is to clear the protruding pin from the bogies. I decided I would rather have a full floor so the carriage walls were dismantled down the base, the dark brown 1xX plates are replaced with Dark Brown 2x6 and 2x4 that can support a Dark Blue floor internally. Raising the floor causes a problem in that the minifigures at the bar can't fit beneath the carriage roof if their hairstyle is any larger that the historic 1980's bowl cut. Roof rengineering required, the large curved slopes are replaced with smaller slopes that incorporate a step, this allows slight thinner supporting plates to sit just that little higher. A rim of 1x6 plates provides strength around the edges. The tables themselves turned out not to be as simple as expected. I knew that I didn't want the simplistic tile on a round 2x2, I was after something more refined Ideally with a table lamp. Dark Red Fez's make the ideal lampshades, they get sat atop a transparent round plate and centered on a jumper plate. I wantted to use an inverted 1x3 slope to support the table, but in order to get the legs underneath the tabletop everything needed to be raised by a plate. Various methods were tried, eventually I settled on using a jumper plate to anchor a 2x2 tile and in a number of places that was substituted for jumper plates or modified tiles with studs so that items could be attached to the tables. The tables are actually one concession against playability, in order to get minifigs in and out the tables need to be removed because the minifig legs sit under the table. Not so much of a problem for an AFOL, but to a 6year old it just means the tables get abandonned trackside as getting them back in after putting in the minifigures is fiddly. The seats are on a 6stud repetition. This doesn't neatly fit with the 4 wide windows, whilst the middle table can be aligned with a window those either side align against the pillar between the windows which in turn means that the Lampshades don't fit. Since the nice 4 wide train windows in Tan were only produced for Emerald Night and now fetch astronomical prices on Bricklink a change was in order. I protoyped numerous different variants in LDD, trying 4x3 windows, altering the spacing on the seats, 3x3 windows, 3x3 windows with a 1x1 column in between, even attempting sideways built windows to introduce a transom but that was quickly dismissed and offseting everything by half a stud. In the end 4 wide windows were substituted with 3 wide windows which allows the tables to align with a window rather than a pillar. This required a change to the pillars near the doors which had to become 2 wide and at the same time I susbtituted the inverted slopes for a more robust 1x6 raised arch. The seat positioning gave enough of a gap at one end of the carriange to introduce a 2x3 set of drawers, a working lamp and space for cups and other items. Small 1x2 curved slopes nestle neatly into the arch to give a seamless finish. The challenge for the Kitchen Carriage was to squeezing everything in the kitchen into just 3 studs of space. Even with the constraints the kitchen contains a sink, a cooker, cupboards, implements, serving counter and there is still space for a chef. The remaining half of the carriage gained one and a half tables. The Brake Van was more problematic. The carriages are only 5 bricks high, all of the modern doors tend to be a based around 6 bricks high. I did contemplate trying to brick build the doors but none of the hinge mechanisms were going to work with doors a full brick thick. Scouring Bricklink I found some appropriate doors from 2007 and the Spongebob Squarepants theme, <a href="https://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=73436c04&in=S">Door 1 x 4 x 5 Left with Reddish Brown Glass</a>, one and only one Bricklink store in the UK had a pair that was quickly acquired! Even with the shorter doors securing them still posed a problem, they couldn't correct directly to the roof because the roof is removable and as soon as it is removed the doors are no longer secured. The fix was to run a layer of grey tiles across the top of the doors to secure them and rebuild the roof to have a small lip to accomodate the raised tiles. I experimented quite a bit with the protruding periscopes that allow the guard to look up the length of the train without having to stick their head out of the window. Eventually I settled on 1x2x2/3 slopes in Dark Red either side of a Trans-Clear Plate with Dark Red Tile on Top. Then it was the turn of the doors. They had originally been built with a Tan upper and Dark Red lower but the lack of the Dark Brown banding following through into the doors started to annoy me so they needed to be changed as well. the ideal would have been to use a plate with vertical clip in Dark Brown but since that part doesn't exist in that colour and I don't have the luxury of owning the moulding machines I ended up using a V-clip in Dark Red sandwiched between two 1x3 plates. I could have just shifted the 1x1 brick with bar handle down below the Dark Brown plate but it would have been unsupported at the bottom and given the play that the doors get I wasn't happy with such a fragile solution hence the use of plates with v-clips. The full rake of 6 coaches comprises of: first, bar, first, kitchen, first, brake. That seems to be the maximum that the locomotives I currently have can handle at reasonable speeds and without wheelslip. I'm experimenting with using the <a href="https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=73090b">Brick, Modified 2 x 6 x 2 Weight</a> to add weight to locomotives to improve traction. Fresh batteries also help, as well as persuading my 6yr old son that if he wants to learn to drive a real train he need to learn to accelerate <i>slowly</i>. What it's missing is some 2nd class carriages... I have some more 6x28 bases on order, I've should have enough bricks. Prototyped in LDD, I remove the table, move the seats closer together and the carriage now fits 8 seats. The seats don't line up with the 3x3 windows so they come out in favour of the old 4x3 windows that I'd decided against on the first class carriages earlier. Some columns allow to align the windows with the seats. I experiment with putting an arch across part way through the carriage, an attempt at a semi-open as it were. However I realise upon placing minifigs into the carriage that their heads are going to clash with the arch so I remove it in favour of a discrete light fitting. Then I have second thoughts, I remove the dark blue floor and lower the chairs by a plate so that the minifigs fit beneath the arch. Experimentation occurs with the tables, I start with black 1x1 bricks topped with a white tile, a smaller version of the tables from the first class carriages but it feels a little too classy for second class so I eventually opt for using dark brown plates jutting out of the carriage side. I feel the simpler look looks better. If the rake of the carriages is rebuilt to be first, kitchen, first, first, bar, second,second, brake then the passenger section of the brake and potentially the bar could do with being rebuilt to 2nd class standards. In order to squeeze 4 seats into the brake carriage it would be necessary to move the luggage compartment doors back by a stud which requires some rethinking about the periscope attachment. It's Not an impossible task, but I'm fairly certain that it'll be another brick order to get the relevant SNOT bricks. What it needs now is a either a decent 4-6-2 pulling it or a Class 55... In the absence of those I'm left with the Green Locomotive from 60198. With a rake of 8 carriages behind it, it struggles. Accelerate too fast and there's a lot of wheel-slip. So the Green Locomotive needs modification. I try adding weight in terms of the old weight bricks from the lego boats, some improvement. Next attempt is to use a second motor bogie, I need to use PyBricks to invert the outputs of the hub and to bind the remote so that one control controls both outputs, the control logic is validated on a short 5 segment test track and works as expected. It needs a proper loop of track to be able to get the full 8 coach train set up behind it. Then I realise that none of my stations have platforms nearly long enough for a consist of 8 carriages... A massive station rebuilding program is required!

The Lego connection protocol seems to be able to choose a different colour for the different pairings. I have no inisght into whether that is done by assessing what is already paired nearby, or whether it's just some form of hashing on the identifier of the underlying bluetooth channel to generate a number from that can be mapped to a colour. Obviously, if there are enough hubs present then at some point the colors will have to be reused. I'll see if @Pybricks has anything to add, then I might just have to take the path of least resistance and hard-code the colours. Easy enough to set green for the green train, yellow for the yellow train.

I understand that I can just set it, but the whole point about asking if the remote LED colour is readable is that the connection process chooses a colour to display on both the remote and the hub so that small children can see which remote is paired to which hub. I want to replicate that original default behaviour, for the benefit of a small child that is used to the colours matching. To do that I need to know which colour the remote and hub have negotiated for each other and is displayed on the remote, then I can set the hub accordingly. I could just create a different python program for each hub in each train with a unique colour set to both remote and hub in each one. It would work but it's a brute force solution rather than the elegance of using information from the existing pairing code that is already present in both remote and hub.

No, I haven't chosen the color for the remote, the remote has chosen a colour, perhaps based on whatever Bluetooth channel the remote and hub have negotiated for each other. That's why I'm interested in whether the current state of LED in the remote can be read, so that I can set the hub to the same value. I had a quick dig around the git-hub source but whilst I can see the Python that provides the forward facing interface for the various hubs, remotes and motors, I could immediately see any code to link the interface to whatever's going on underneath. Again, I'll fully admit that I was poking around and might not have poked into the right files or might not have realised that a certain bit of syntax links back to underlying code already existing in the various devices.

I get that bit. There will always be the "double click" to start the hub and then start the python program to then pair with the remote. On a default Lego firmware once the pairing has occured the Hub and Remote both show the same color of LED. Pybricks defaults to Blue initially, Green once running, but the LED is changeable so if I can get the colour that the remote has chosen then I can set the LED on the hub to that colour but I don't know if it's possible to interrogate the remote to find out which colour it's chosen and displaying.

Does anyone know if it's possible to replicate the LED colour matching that happens when a standard Lego Remote and City Hub pair together? I can't see anything obvious in the documentation that describes how to get the color from the Remote so that I could set the LED on the Hub accordingly. Python isn't my coding language of choice, so apologies if I'm missing something inherent in the language such as "remote.light" simply being the accessor to get at the color information. Reason being is that I've rebuilt the Green Loco from 60198 to contain 2 motors and I therefore need PyBricks to invert Port B so that all the wheels turn in the right direction. I want it to behave as close to the standard Lego mechanisms as possible for the benefit of my 7year old son. He looks to the LEDs on the remote and the hub to see which are pair together hence wanting the colors to match.

The goat will be done Friends style... I'll never forget the buzz around Elves and everyone wanting it to be Middle Earth Minifigures and I joked at the time that it would be Friends... ...it was a good theme but not the Eleven minifigures that the historic forums desired.