andythenorth

A few months ago I stopped reading + posting on Lego community sites. I dropped in here too see what's new with the Unimog. But this thread reminds me that the relationship of some fans with TLG is just too weird for me. Let down? Disappointed? It's just plastic for building toys with. It takes many sorts to make a world, but personally I wouldn't want my happiness to depend so much on the commercial choices of a Danish corporation. If I visit the train forum, it's overwhelmed by fanatics obsessed with "the wanton destruction by TLG of their investment in 9V". If I visit town, I'm knocked back by oddballs who are just distraught and simply can't even eat or drink because TLG "included the same minifig as last year's set, and it's not a new face, and OMG, it's not even back-printed, I can't believe TLG are so cheap, they've ruined my life". And in here, the last bastion of Eurobricks sanity, I run across people whining their disappointment about the largest and most complex Technic set ever produced.

He, maintenance trucks on the drop-center train base are nothing new Assuming this is a forthcoming set, the engine is appealing; more appealing is having battery boxes in different colours. The rail cars I could take or leave, although the green and white box wagon does match well to the City cargo truck from a couple of years back P9121395 by andythenorth, on Flickr

A topical and relevant post at Big Lorry Blog about mogs http://www.roadtransport.com/blogs/big-lorry-blog/2011/02/clearing-snow-in-thuringia-wit.html

I wasn't convinced by farm, but my kid got really excited by the pig pen + the lime green tractor in the toy shop. It's a nice set. The combine looked good but expensive. I tried to buy it on sale, but out of stock everywhere. I'd like to see a big (but not too big) articulated wheeled tractor, something like a case steiger...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_STX_Steiger I had the classic town riding stable as a kid and remember it was a good set that was built and rebuilt over and again.

Open it! MISB toy collectors are weird :D Toys are for playing with. Otherwise it's just a bunch of expensively-extracted hydrocarbons sitting in a pulped dead tree.

At a rough count of studs / tiles, the hood of the unit is ~36 studs long. That seems long. Then there are the steps + buffers. Anyone else tried counting studs? New baseplate? Brick-built arrangement for attaching running gear (plates with holes)?

Awesome. Has that 'must buy more than one' quality. /me starts putting spare pennies in a jar

Stupid monster differential, strong, but pointlessly large (uses some of these liftarms) http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=307645 The rubber parts are really useful for suspension, this connector part is useful: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3053955 http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=307640

It's a good argument, but in the UK retailers don't stock the track pack anyway. Availability is limited to a very small number of internet retailers.

Use 2 more turnouts + some straights to build a passing loop around the crossover It sounds dumb, but actually gives some interesting switching possibilities. I might post pics.

Exactly. While not every parent may know about bricklink (but increasingly many do), there are 3585 RC curves currently for sale on Bricklink. The lowest price is £0.17 sterling. The average price in quantity is £0.59. Lego may or may not pay attention to this maths, but right now, if they list individual curves at lego.com, they'll charge around minimum £0.70 (my guess) per piece, and here's what AFOLs will do: - buy their curves at Bricklink. - whine about how Lego prices are too high and Lego don't meet their needs. Curves will continue to be available in the secondary market for some time - even if it's just from people splitting Cargo Train / Passenger Train for parts. If there's demand, the price will climb. At that point Lego might find it worth while to sell them separately (assuming they pay any attention to price in secondary market at all). Having to buy flex to buy straights - well that's another issue

It would. I just setup a two track loop, which is more fun than a one track loop The crossovers would be very useful for connecting the two tracks, but because the two sides are not independently switchable, there's a lot of crashes.

Put plates down the middle - 2x10, 2x12 etc. It's still noisy, but it won't shift around. For long sections...proper straights I've figured out a pretty good large radius curve setup, using curves + short flex sections + plates to keep the flex in place. Needs a picture to explain it properly though

Lets imagine Lego took a 20-year view on plastic train track, and produced a small range of new track parts. Will they do this? I have no idea, but it's an interesting question. There are already plenty of threads here about flex, about how track is sold, and about 9V, so please leave those out Any new part would have to be: - something kids and parents would understand and want as a toy, not just an AFOL hobby item - possible to produce without expensive production techniques So what can you suggest that meets those goals? My suggestions: 1. a 'Y' point. This would be fun for connecting multiple loops, making switchyards etc. It doesn't need left hand / right hand versions, so only one mould needed. 2. larger curve radius - to make two track loops easier. I've made larger curves by inserting flex between curve pieces, but it's not a great solution. Scalextric car racing has multiple curve radii. I guess this is unlikely though - probably flex is TLG's solution to this. 3. crossing piece. Figure-of-8 layouts are fun. TLG already have the basic design for this from the 9V system.

I'm 90% certain I'm going to sell the coach. I have enough expensive Bricklink projects already

Compared to ordinary straights and curves? More plastic, more assembly, more quality checking, more cost...

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=87058 http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=2972

I like the flex, it's useful It's unlikely to be cheap, or easy to produce. It's a complex part, the molds for this one were probably expensive and it probably needed a lot of costly R&D to get to a reliable design. Each piece has a couple of parts, which have to be assembled before shipping - that adds more cost. According to Wikipedia, unless you live in Denmark, Hungary or Mexico, all Lego is made overseas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego (I thought many parts were also now made in China, but that's not mentioned).

Emerald Night arrived today Do I keep the single coach or sell it? - I don't want just one coach for it, I'd rather have none. - I could build more coaches (with some MOC elements) if I go on some kind of epic Bricklink mission. I'd need at least three or four more to make it worthwhile. Not sure if it's worth the effort So keep for parts, or sell? I guess there are plenty of people out there who might enjoy another coach?

I was in my local toy shop today. It's probably one of a handful of fully stocked traditional high street toy shops in the UK (there's probably about one in each major city). A. the proprietor (nice man) said that Lego was the top seller this Christmas, and has been for 22 years except for the City Junior period when it's widely known that sales dipped. B. the only trains on offer are Hogwarts Express and the Toy Story train. He knows his market, he doesn't stock what doesn't sell. C. no track, motors or anything else like that. Shelf space is limited - the entire shop is full shelves from floor to ceiling, no gaps, no wasted space. Lego is perhaps 5% of total shelf space, maximum.

Nice. I'm doing something similar in red to match the 2010 passenger train (no pictures yet!)

One argument against this was that it confuses parents and makes it harder for shops to stock these items (shops will only stock a certain number of different products). But in the UK at least, physical shops don't stock the track pack anyway. Even on the web, not many UK stores stock these items, I found about four online stores stocking the straights and curves pack. So perhaps straights and curves could become pick-a-brick items? When racked on the pegs in quantities of four, they make nice large blocks which might be easy to handle for hand picking of custom orders. Would it be a problem if minimum buy quantity was four?

Snowplough attachment, using the panels from the rear + the pneumatics?

It's not nice in my experience, it's border-line pointless. It's a flawed design and that's possibly why lego dropped it (or possibly there simply wasn't enough demand). What's the problem with the design? It appears to be intended to provide a crossover for two adjacent tracks (probably a two-track loop). But it's not possible to line all the switches straight. Two of the four switches will always be lined to cross to the other track. This means that it's very easy to cause crashes by running a train in the wrong direction through the crossover. Crashes with Lego trains are a lot of fun, but they can get boring. It's a shame, because with the normal switches it's not possible to provide a compact connection between two tracks. It might have been better if each of the four switches could be lined independently (this would work just fine thanks to the neat sprung-switch design).

I guess that's about the size of it. AFOLS may grumble, but as a toy the flex-track is well designed. - it's reliable, it doesn't seem to have any problems with derailments etc. - it means any loop will pretty much always join, no need to figure out correct geometries - the o-rings on recent train wheels are thicker, which solves the problem where RC and early PF trains lose traction on the flex track. Production wise, it probably makes sense for lego... if the curved and straight track are produced from same mould (as believed) the straights can be sold in the track pack, and the curves used in the train sets. What would happen if TLG decided to stop producing straights and curves altogether (so just use flex track for everything + LH + RH turnouts)?