Redimus

That's one of the nicest mods I've seen to the EN loco. It actually looks like it could be British, and like it's in proportion! (I'm not a big fan of EN, and even less of a fan of it's price.)

Looking good.

I think the real ones just had extended power bogies with a solid full length body. Is that right?

Yeah., that's utterly unlike Emerald Night, lol.

I dunno, you're is probably a cleaner approach which means you don't need to build in a big ugly switch that's only of use for exhibitions Also more expensive, so swings and roundabouts..

Looking good, definitely an improvement on the original. I've been toying with getting this loco (not fussed about the rest of the set) but I've a feeling it'll look rather silly sat next to the Maersk loco. Has anybody got any comparisons?

Gotta love a bit of Professor Elemental.

This seems a sensible place to ask this. So it seems I'm still on holiday the weekend this is on, and I get paid the Friday before, so there's little reason *not* to go, other than the minor issue of knowing nothing about Swindon. Do any of you have a recommendation on BnB or the like that isn't too far away and too expensive I could kip at?

Official Lego (all modified to some extent): - Full Horizon Express train (2 sets) modified to be fully articulated and powered at both ends (but controlled from only the front). - Yellow freight train set, plus everything again but the track and the loco, although most of the second lot have been dismantled, as have both container wagons, and the containers have been spliced to form Maersk scaled containers. - Maersk set plus 2 black and red versions of the wagons, 2 custom containers and a load of makeshift containers (see above). Custom: - Blue generic 2-6-0 steam engine, modified several times over. Probably going to make it a 4-4-0 as the current wheel arrangement looks *very* toylike when compared to my other loco MOC. - Southern Railway Q Class 0-6-0 (7 wide) (see the sig). - 2x Mk0.5 (generic sort of but not really Mk1 coaches, 6 wide and very toy like, Standard Brake and 1st/Buffet). - Pullman coach (torn between building a couple more (including a break end) or redesigning them to be a little longer, and 7 wide to go with my new preferred standard). - 2x generic tankers on bogies, modified from 4 wheeler tankers bought from ebay, I have no idea if they were customs or actual Lego designs). The build list: - Generic Southern Railway Brakevan (7 wide). Well on the way to completion. - Generic '4 plank' open wagon. Bits ordered (7 wide). - Generic van, cattle van, steam era tanker wagon, '2 plank' open (all 7 wide). Designed, waiting on the completion of the open wagon to make sure there's no problems with the chassis.

A flat bed is an easy to do wagon, and you're bound to have something to act as cargo.

Odd, I could of sworn it was my first 9v loco that did that once... Eh, it could have been a PF loco, it's only ever happened once for me either way.

I don' think any of the regular PF sets have used lights. The only post 9v sets that I know of that could have lights were the one off RC goods set (and maybe the passenger set too?) and the Horizon Express is capable of having lights included too.

Cheers!

The track is a tad expensive, but if you're willing to take a hit and replace your track, the design headaches disappear (at least until you start mucking about with stand alone motors and gears) and the motor bogies curreently go for around £20-£25 on Bricklink and ebay, so it's actually still far cheaper to power your trains with 9v (once you have the track). I only got into Lego trains at the beginning of the year, and I'm glad I realised 9v was the way really early on.

^story sounds familiar lol ^

I've had a company called Reprolabels do me custom Transformer stickers before (their stock in trade is replacement and upgrade stickers for Transformers) and I know there's 1 or 2 Lego dedicated custom sticker guys too. Been meaning to get quotes on stickers for the loco in my sig.

I wouldn't be so worried about them going out of sync, but there's still an advantage to separate channels, in that you can separate them at journey's end.

So I got bored, and decided to look into designing a station as a display piece (and for possible later use on a layout)... At 1581 bricks (mostly 1x2 plates) it'll be expensive as it stands (especially as I'd need this baseplate plus 2 more with slopes at either end). The finished version will look to hide (and therefore not have to use) as much of the sides as possible, but I may still have to go for a slightly less scale brick finish. Also, until it's officially part of a layout, I'll probably move the two tracks closer. This style is entirly inspired by Michael Gale's work.

Hmm, that may well prove useful should I decide to do the T9 at some point (an engine I'd very much like to tackle some day).

As I focus on the UK, I have decided on 7 wide. Most 8 wide UK designs look a bit fat and bloated to me (although there are good ones out there), and unless there's plenty of greebeling on them, the full stud distance between the wheel and the side of the train tends to look a bit too obvious and detracts from the overall look.

Chances are, they won't, but ME Models might answer that call when they start proper production.

Too far across the pond? And here was me thinking it was too far across the country!

How about putting some lineside scenery (electrical boxes, ground signals, weeds, etc)? Are you 9v track powered or RC/PF powered? If the latter, then just use the flexi track to push the track closer together (in the case of 9v, I'm afraid you'll just have to muck about with curve point and strait configurations until something works).

Are you intending to build an island platform or a platform aside each track? Assuming it's aside each track, there's no real issue with the distence between the lines, as long as you scale the width of the platforms to match. If the platforms are only 4 wide, it'll look weird, but make them wide enough, and it'll look OK.

Hasn't someone done some add on files of Big Ben Bricks' wheels for LDD? I'm sure I saw mention of that somewhere on this forum a few months back. As for the colours, are they not able to do custom lots? I'd assume the all you have to do is do a run in a different colour? It's something I'll have to look into.