zephyr1934

Your builds look great! True of so many things (grin) they should have done that with the Eiffel Tower

Ah, design constraints to satisfy the consumer... (grin). I do like your brick built solutions and there might be a way to either fill the gap at the end of the rail or use the tiles to nudge the wheels over, but at some point it is pragmatic to just get to playing. If the 2 stud offset ever bothers you you can probably get fractional track lengths from TrixBrix or similar to bring it back into grid. The rule of thumb I've heard and live by is to have at least one straight segment between a curve and a switch to prevent trains from "picking the switch," i.e., derail. The curve right into the gap might give you a similar problem on the near side of the above photo. At any rate the design looks great

Looking amazing. Now you just need about 100 PFE reefers and you're all set

As others have said, trains are fine with a short gap, placing the rails one stud apart actually results in almost no gap because the connection point of the rails overlaps. If you are pegging to baseplates it could be a problem though... ... and this solution works well. I've made brickbuilt track for street running (see below) so you could use brickbuilt track and make the gap that way without getting out of grid

I wonder if the gray wheels will have the traction bands on them. Hopefully they will appear elsewhere, otherwise they will be crazy expensive being a UCS exclusive.

I've seen 3mm tubing used for angled supports like this if you can get it in the right color. Rubber bands or string could also work.

Just remember, you have to put all of the "Lego" logos on the studs facing the same way (seriously though, there was a builder in my club who practiced that technique)

Lego trains are surprisingly robust and often very forgiving (they were designed for kids after all), that means they are robust to some unusual circumstances. Best way to find out if something will work is to build it up and see what happens. I've never worked with the 12v system, but it probably shares a few aspects with the 9v system: the controller probably can power at most N motors, and the further the motors are from the power connection (as measured in # of track segments) the more power is lost to the resistance at each joint in the rails. The power distance can be improved with more power connections. The max number of motors is a limitation of the system. I THINK the system is safe to try just about anything reasonable, but if a train does not move or something else unexpected happens, shut off the power and diagnose the problem. Hope this helps

You nailed it. The subtle slopes and curves on that locomotive look impossible... and yet you made them possible.

Very cool work, I like the hidden pirate ship. From the herky jerky motion I assume there are magnets below thew train pulling it along??? Regardless, but one word sums this up: Impressive

I think the implication is that you could have the shed open or closed when you put it in the layout (being careful to put the track in accordingly) but that when it is in the layout it is static and the track will not change. Oh, and to link to your picture in the thread, literally just paste the url of the jpg in your message...

For small gaps like that, as long you are not rigidly holding the track in place with baseplates, often the track has enough flex that you can close those small gaps without any problems. Only way to know for sure is to test it though.

Most excellent @JHS_NL welcome aboard and looking forward to seeing you in the conversations

Very nice to see a long string of Santa Fe. Just one suggestion- swap the car numbers around, there really was a Santa Fe dome with the number 503 that is found on the sticker set

That's some crazy assembly you've got there, really nails the look of the prototype