Dutchiedoughnut

Hmmm... For historical significance the Rocket is amazing. Can I also pitch in with the Deltic as it sort of ended the steam era? For sheer beauty I'd love a TEE VT601...

Forgive the crappy upload quality ;) This is a model I had printed quite a while ago. I'm not very pleased with the look anymore, but the quality and fit are nice. They also fit my lego's rather tightly, so I am reasonably confident in the quality of the 3d printed materials themselves. The steam railcar features rather a lot of 3d printed blocks though. If I go with standard Lego blocks (except for the windows), and add the lines as decals I can use standard parts mostly. I do like the look of the panelling, but I´m sure I will reconsider once I get the quote...

Yeah the walls especially are more based on the LEGO system rather than being actual Lego. It's all still held together by studs though.

You would get amazing speed though ;). If your motor can manage the torque.

I dont think the two huge wheels with tyres will be on the rails in the tight curves

Welcome back and feel better! I think you should erect a statue for Devastator the Terrible for the immense damage she did to your town ;). I always try to think of it as an excellent oppertunity for a new start... when I'm over the OMG bit.

Here is an update, I suppose I was on a roll today: In the picture above it looks a bit like a boat, but with the added roof that is now sorted. The interior is also sorted and I think 14 minifigs can find easy spaces (including a driver and stoker). The IR receiver is doing a stand in for the boiler at the moment. Here is a view of the real thing:

Of course Lego's dont have to make sense ;). It's just that right now you haven't got that much distinctive stuff going on. I can see how adding side doors will make your carriage quite short - I'm working on an old steam railcar with kind of the same problem. I was kind of suggesting something like the TGV layout where you have the side doors on just one end of the carriage.

To me, it looks very clean and boxy. Clean could be good though ;). I'd certainly make it a bit rounder on the roof and to the ends of the carriage, if you can. I'd also consider a door to the platform at least on either end of the carriage. That will break up the tubular kind of look you've got going at the moment. Usually in a railway carriage, you have the passenger compartment with a balcony on either end that has the door to the next carriage. One advantage is that the balcony isolates the passengers from noise and the outside temperature. The balcony might have doors to the platform as well. In your case they are kind of missing, and I think they can add a great deal of realism.

It's definately just a shunter :). I'll be ordering the parts shortly so I'm excited! Right now I'm hijacking my own thread with another experiment. It's a steam railcar (number 93) as it's running in Didcot. I like how it's turning out, I like the general look of it as it compares very well to the real thing I think. There are also buckets of space inside and it's nearly as spacious as the real thing. It is 7 wide, with the interior space being 6 wide - quite enough space to spend on seating arrangement. I do have to come up with something special for the battery box. There is no conceiled space to put it in! The infrared receiver goes where the boiler is on the real thing. I am thinking of cheating here, lol.

Well if you stay to the predetermined play sets maybe. But as a kid, I honestly can't remember any instruction books or whatever? We just had this massive box of lego's and we grabbed the bits we needed at the time. Even today Lego is giving me the tools to express my creativity :). Meanwhile how can offering kids a fictional environment, inspiring them to think beyond what's in front of their noses, be harming their creativity. There are some points being made - Lego doesn't need to enforce gender stereotyping (such as pink is for girls), but overall this article seems to be a political instrument for Greenpeace as they oppose Lego on their deal with Shell.

Well, they have to do one step at a time.

Hmmm, it's not a class 43 or wasn't intended to be one ;). Looking at its nose, I think it should be a little rounder but it is increadible similar. It was intended to be a Class 91. Anyway, either class looks really good in different colours! This one is a rough draft really, I'm curious to see how it will evolve :). It's currently 7 wide, with a 6-wide roof and a 5-wide bottom of the locomotive. That's not too much difference but its profile is much more realistic and interesting than using straight walls. Anyway, I think I will build it in GNER colours as I think it goes with the 1980's theme and I like it a bit better than the Intercity livery. For now its back to the general plan of the layout. It looks like it will fit either my basement or my living room if its laid out straight. There are quite a few buildings in the plan. The main thing I will do is shorten these buildings as I dont want to house 40 locomotives. Therefore the engine shed will be long enough to house 1 engine and its tender rather than 3 or 4.

Isn't there a kickstarter project to do just that?

I guess the litterbin-aspect of this thread is showing a bit as I'd like to show you another model I'm working on. It's clearly modelled after a UK class of train but I will let you guess at which one, should take about 5 minutes ;). There are quite a bit of custom parts in the nose as it is quite distinctive, but just a few dotted left and right in the side structure so I am pretty pleased about that.

In general I agree about the binding, but I feel I need to to get the proper force distribution (these walls are rather small). If I do have binding I can just drill out the outer holes, and it would be easy enough to not have the frame descend that far, as you say. I will be using "Blue strong and flexible polished". I have some other parts which seem to work OK - in fact they are a bit tight. But I do expect that fitting problems will be my biggest problem.

"Big" isnt so much the proper word as "Massive" ;). The key to modelling is to take the most characteristic elements and model those, and basically fill in everything else. I wouldn't have to build the complete station of Moor Street to be able to identify it as the Moor Street Station. For example, I dont have to support 8 or more carriages, I'm aiming for maybe 5 max? Anyway, here are the maps: Birmingham Moor Street. There are two derelict tracks near the bottom which I want to connect to the track of Didcot. There's actually an old steam locomotive caught on these tracks. A flyer of Didcot Railway Centre, although I am afraid it´s hard to read now. The tracks at the bottom will connect to my version of Moor Street and there is basically a number of buildings in between two running tracks: - A coal stage where coal and water were stored. Also, locomotives were refilled with coal here. - Engine shed, where they serviced the locomotives - Locomotive workshops to repair the locomotives - Turntable - Carriage display building, I will repurpose this as the Experiments Building - Traverser for the Carriage Display building - Transfer shed And there are a couple of halts and stations throughout. Needless to say, I'll have to eliminate quite a few things...

So I guess the Class 08 is turning out quite good when I get the money to actually order the parts. I am thinking about my next horizon, what'll be the track the little shunter is going to run on? Bear in mind that Lego is taking a huge back seat to my work and my other super expensive hobby - photography. I suppose progress will be slow but I dont mind that. This topic serves as a bit of a grab bag for my notes about the track layout, and as I assume loads of random screenshots. I've spent a week in England recently and I fell even more in love with the place than I already was. My layout will take place in England! To be exact, I want to mix Birmingham Moor Street station with Didcot Railway Centre. I think Moor Street is a very nice station dating back to the steam era but it has been re-opened recently. In the steam days it featured a two track traverser which seems like an amazing challenge to fit in there. Didcot Railway Centre today is a museum where steam locomotives are restored. Crucially it is also home for one of the UK´s gas turbine powered locomotives (BR 18000) which takes my interest. It used to house loads of steam locomotives and service and repair them so there is quite a bit to model. Timewise, I am thinking the mid or late 1980's. That allows me to model steam (for the museum), diesel and all gasturbine prototype locomotives and trains. I've got a bit of a thing for gasturbine trains as I studied aerospace engineering. I also have a thing for nearly all crazy nearly experimental trains, such as the Deltic which had quite a special engine! I´ll try and compose some sort of a map for what I am thinking of.

Well, it's Lego after all so we're nearly unlimited in what we can achieve. And nowadays we have numerous websites that offer us individual bricks so I can very easily see contests for rolling stock or trackside buildings. Why not? I'd just suggest adding a parts limit or a budget limit. Honestly if Lego were to provide trackside structures where would they start? There are so many different buildings and even era's. A 2010 building is of little use if you're running steam engines.

I am actually completely in love with the inner lining of my airways! I can only print the bricks in colors that I don't want the model to be in, so I will have to do some painting. So I guess I will have to sand them a tiny bit, use primer and color. I'm also thinking of having the model weathered to make it more realistic, but I guess I'll decide when it's built. I was asked for the frames that hold the wheels:

Redimus, I will post some pictures of my frame lateron. They are 3d printed models at 4x1. I'm not too sure about their height. I can upload them to my 3d printing service so that you can use them as well? My class 08 is 7 wide, and the connecting rods just about fit in that envelope. I think the model, with Lego standard connecting rods, will most likely be 8 wide.

I think your gearing may be too high... Did you try (for the fun of it) to run them at 1:1 or even 1:2?

Did you think about a top module with tethers so that you can use cables to steady the tower?

This tram seems really similar to the Siemens Combino type, i guess. Do you plan on hiding the battery box and IR receiver somewhere in the tram? I am not sure you'll be able to do that, but I've heard of people using a 9V battery instead. I can easily see that being hidden somewhere along the roof. If you can hide the IR receiver somewhere, you´re golden and everyone will be asking where the batteries are ;)

Not bad at all for a first attempt! How does it look on the street itself? If Im not misstaken, it's 8 studs wide and the wheels stick out a bit. I'm rather worried that it's more than 1 lane wide? There is something funny going on with the wheels - or with the scale. I think the wheels are a tad too small and I would say that the front wheel is a bit too much to the back? I'm just looking up a few Greyhound bus pictures. The wheels seem to make up 1/3 the height of the bus. Maybe you can play around with slightly bigger wheels?