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If two tracks are near each other, I connect them with plates. If a track is by itself, I sometimes use scotch tape to hold it in place. Especially when the track is right on the edge of the table then I make sure it doesn't shift to prevent trains from falling on the garage floor.

Among the usual favorites from years ago (8880, 8868, 8480), the 8868 is the cheapest to buy. I've seen quite a few 8868's sold on eBay below $100 (I bought one after reading Blakbird's technicopedia). Motorized pneumatics, with 4 pneumatic functions (turning, lifting arm, bending arm, and grabbing) which can be operated simultaneously. The sound that the motor/compressor makes is pretty neat too.

Did you treat the wheel holders with a Stanley knife (see "The long haul" in railbricks #2). The wheels rub against the wheel holders, and you have to make a small cut in the wheel holder to prevent this rubbing. Without those cuts, I could not pull my Santa Fe train with one 9V motor. But with the cuts, it's a fairly easy load (it's 4 cars, i.e. an engine plus 3 cars).

It looks really good!

That's a pro, not a con.

#1 8043 is my favorite. So far I've only built the B model (I'm waiting on lego's service pack before building the main model). #2 8868 #3 855 (nostalgia makes me rank sets from that time period very highly, like 853, 851, 8860).

If you have the new passenger train or cargo train, the battery box in there will also fit in the Emerald Night because it's the same size.

That sounds like a challenge... Any takers?

What happens in this setup when the train is placed on the track facing the wrong direction, so that the LiPO battery received -12 volt instead of +12? Is there some protection built in, or is it RIP?

Bad idea for two reasons: (1) you can make an electrical short-cut, and (2) you don't want more current going through your M-motor because that'll shorten its lifetime. You're much better off with one of the other solutions posted in the 8043 threads, such as wait for lego's improved LA's, or use an XL motor, or help the motor by adding a rubber band.

Looks really neat. Did you get the bricks from bricklink, or did you use lego.com like for the locomotive? It's pretty neat that it comes in a box with your design printed on it.

That would have made it incompatible with all the other lego trains. Once you make one train on your layout 8 wide, then you'll have to do the same for all the other trains because those won't look anymore in comparison.

Those two are priced to make sure that they won't sell. I think the best thing to do is to wait until someone lists it on eBay with a low opening price and no reserve price (the problem is that there are not many owners left that don't know that this is a high-priced item...). The remote controlled crossing 7866 is really cool though, especially the lights. I've been thinking to make a remote-controlled crossing with a 9V micromotor and the remote-controlled lego power functions. The point is not so much to save the money it would cost to buy 7866, the main point of doing it this way is to make the layout easier to set up with 1 less thing that needs to be connected with a long wire. The problem is that this MOC wouldn't have the really neat lights that the 7866 set has.

The addition of rubber bands to ease the load on the LA's is also a very good idea that makes a big difference in heavy duty application of LA's. You might not need those rubber bands anymore when we receive the new LA's next month, but we won't know until then.

The M motor will run too fast and have insufficient torque (unless you manage to change the gearing), for the Emerald Night you should use the XL motor.

The voltage drop over a long track is quite small though. The loop in my layout was about 160 track pieces long, so if you're on the other side, you're 80 track lengths away from the power supply (note: there are two paths for the electricity so 80 length would correspond to 40 if the track were not a loop). This added (very imprecise measurement) between 1-2 Ohm, a small number compared to the 10 Ohm I already got from the transformer. Typically there were two or three trains running on the same loop. Most trains have 1 motor, only the 12 feet long cargo train has two motors. When that train stops, the voltage on the track goes up by 5 Volt, so you have to pay attention to the controller to make sure that the still-moving train doesn't go too fast. Note that on this large track you have to be careful that every track piece makes a good electrical connection. With one bad connection, the distance between the train and the power supply can go up from 80 to 160 track pieces, and since the current now goes in only one way, you can't divide that number by 2. That means that the total resistance can go up a factor 4 which means a significant slow-down on some parts of the track. To make sure to have a good connection, check that the middle rail have friction on both sides when you slide it into the next middle rail. If not, use a tool to make a gentle squeeze on the female connector side. In any case, the loop would have to be much longer than 160 track pieces before it would become necessary to supply power to more than one spot on the track. And, even if that would be necessary, the power could still come from one and the same controller, right? One controller can deliver about 1 amp, enough for 4 motors, and I typically have 2-3 motors running on the loop.

I built the B model. The B model has the best playability of any technic model ever sold by lego. I don't know any other technic set that is so much fun to play with (yes, I do have a 8868, and, I agree that the B model is not a winner when it comes to looks or interesting technics). Still, the main model is of course much more spectacular, both in looks and in interesting technics. But, I'm going to wait with building the main model until I receive the updated linear actuators from Lego. In the build I'll include improvements learned from other threads on Eurobricks.

The 7866 12V Remote Controlled Road Crossing is my most wanted 12V set. It would be awesome to have this at our local trainshow. The only problem is that all my remote-controlled switches are blue 12V, which means I have to use the blue 12V transformer, but all remote controlled items from the gray 12V area (including the road crossing) connect only to the gray 12V transformer. I have a question on the gray 12V transformer, is its voltage regulated? Or, does the voltage drop when you draw more amps? The blue transformer acts as though it has an internal resistance of about 10 Ohm, which means that if you pull an additional 250 mAmps (i.e. if you let a second train run) then the voltage on the track drops by about 2.5 Volts (the problem with that is when the second train stops, then the one that's still going gets 2.5 additional volts, and may run faster than desired). Another consequence of a non-regulated power supply is that when one train goes through a curve, then the voltage on the track becomes lower, and so both trains slow down.

By the way, do you have two 3-car trains connected into one train (if so, how did you connect them?) or did you rebuild two end-cars to make them look like middle-cars?

Your layout, does it have more curves than straights? If it has more curves, I'd try to put two motors in the engine. The amount of force it takes to go through say a 180-degree curve is easily double of what it takes to go over straights. In the replacement part form, the maximum number of straights I can get that way is 8. If I try more then it says: "Quantity for the selected part exceeds the quantity in this set" If I can only get 8 straight RC tracks, then I'd save only a few dollars at the most, not really worth the effort (my layout at the local train show used 200 straight 12V and 300 straight 9V track, so 8 pieces more isn't going to make a big difference).

Wait, you were the one that wrote that if you have the RC wheels with the clear traction bands, then you get much more traction! Anyhow, putting one PF train motor in the front, and one in the back of the train, that causes problems when they are on different speed-settings, and it's hard to see how you can avoid this problem if the two PF motors are not electrically connected. It would be easier to put both motors in the same car, and connect both to the same power supply, that way they'll always get the same voltage. That way you'll also have a spare battery box and PF receiver, surely those will be useful for something else. Trains will always slow down in curves because a DC motor always slows down a little bit when you put an additional load on it (while keeping voltage the same). If your layout is lots of curves, you may want 2 motors to ease the load. If you have a lot of straights, it'll probably run just fine on one motor. Right. The dollar value of the curved track is essentially zero. By the time you buy enough straight track for a reasonable layout (annoyingly you can't buy straights without buying an equal number of curves) you'll have lots of curved track that you'll never use. I sold 32 curved track on eBay, but the only way to get more than essentially zero dollars for it, is to also include some useful stuff (I added some straights and switch track to the listing to get a price that's worth the effort). I still have more curved track that I want to get rid off though. At the moment, straight 9V track is very expensive, but RC track is not cheap either. Curves (both for RC and 9V) have a value very close to $0, but for each 8 straights RC you can't really avoid spending $16.

The 3-in-1 creator sets are also better gifts, especially when the models are very different. I got my son the transport ferry 4997 for his 7'th birthday, got it just before it sold out. First he decided to build the hovercraft, played with it for weeks, then he built the airplane. He has played with the airplane for a long time now, and still plays with it every week. This 4997 has already seen tons of playtime and he has yet to build the main model. Money well spent. The point is that you might really like the thing you see on the box (I think the ferry is awesome) but the person you give it too might have different ideas, so for gifts, a 3-in-1 creator set is sure to be a success. He got the ferris wheel for Xmas, and here too, he wanted to build first the alternative models before building the main model. You never know in advance which model they'll like best.

The problem starts when you run out of display space. With the creator sets, you have the advantage that to build the next model, you have to take apart the model that you have, which frees up space. I sold my 5590 for $90 on BL because I had no room for it, and it was too nice of a set to take it apart to use the pieces.

You don't need a second motor if you improve traction (see one of the other threads here on how to do that).

The average bricklink sales price over the last 6 months was $115. You have to be a bit careful with numbers like that because bricklink doesn't tell us if those were complete or incomplete sets. In comparison, the lowest price currently available on BL is $255, more than twice the recent average, priced to make sure it won't sell (then again, it costs nothing to list something on BL). The price on eBay can vary drastically, buying something like this at a good price requires a lot of patience.