SavaTheAggie

Meh. Decent LEGO version of an ugly train. Nothing against the set designer, an admirable job with having to work from the source material. I'll never pay full retail for that. --Tony

Full Gallery The Waco, Beaumont, Trinity, & Sabine Railway Company Prairie (2-6-2) type steam locomotive #1. Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Company in 1920, this oil burning steam locomotive served the Waco, Beaumont, Trinity, & Sabine Railway Company until it's closure. At it's peak, the WBT&S had 6 locomotives and 56 cars, but don't let the name fool you. The Waco, Beaumont, Trinity & Sabine Railway Company never made it to Waco. Or Beaumont. Or Sabine. It seems the little railway company that could had big dreams that simply never manifested. Weaving through 115 miles of ballast-free and weed infested tracks through the Piney Woods of East Texas, the railway served the city of Trinity and the surrounding areas. In 1930 the WBT&S was forced into receivership and stayed there till it was completely abandoned in 1961, the longest bankruptcy of a railroad in Texas history. In its waning years, the railroad began using regular automobiles on rail wheels, pulling rickety and home built passenger wagons to try to boost service. It is little wonder the railway quickly earned the nickname "Wobbly Bobbly Turnover & Stop". But little #1 trudged on. In 1959, after years of faithful service, little locomotive #1, the last locomotive of the WBT&S fleet, failed its ICC inspection and the railway ceased all operations the same day. In 1961 the last remnants of the WBT&S was torn up and lost. The #1 rusted away in the Trinity yard until 1981, when she was moved to the Galveston Railroad Museum, cleaned up, and put on display. She remains there to this day, proudly welcoming guests into the museum. This model is completely unpowered, and is one of the smallest steam engines I've ever built. Still, she was a very challenging build - it was very difficult to not only pack all the detail into a very small space, but it also had to hold together enough to run on the rails! I look forward to introducing the real thing to her LEGO doppelganger. --Tony

Full Gallery Southern Pacific's GS-4 4-8-4 (Northern) Daylight #4449. This marks the 20th LEGO locomotive I have built. This model is fully track compatible with a fully functioning 4 wheeled leading/pony truck. However, in order to do so I was forced to build her so that she swings out in curves more than any other locomotive in my collection. She currently sports 9v motors, but will eventually be rebuilt as completely Power Functions. --Tony

In spite of me being just another American, I am very familiar with tank engines. I'd still make a powered boxcar or passenger wagon if I built tank engines. I might build one tank engine with internal power just to prove I could do it, but that's it. Novelty. As to the question posed regarding powered cars pushing unpowered engines, if it were a tank engine, I.e. tenderness, it wouldn't be much of an issue. But to push an unpowered tender engine you're better off running slow. Trains pull better than they push, and the faster you go while pushing the greater the risk of derailment. Unpowered tender engines would be best pushed at slow to medium speeds. Its not really a matter of the wheels in question, but the amount of play between units. There's always slack/available space to move built in between couplers given their nature. Pulling removes this slack entirely (except perhaps downhill). More units ahead of the locomotive = higher risk if derailment. --Tony

With the exception of my yet to be built next project, ALL of my steam engines are tender driven. Unless you're specifically out to get the steam engine to do the work, there's no reason to have a steam engine with powered drivers. Personally I think, as far as LEGO is concerned, it's a novelty. Yeah it isn't realistic, but performance is so much better otherwise. As has been said, you can have torque or speed but not both. My Allegheny runs on two XL motors with a 1:1 gearing to its wheels, meaning the tender wheels turn at about 200 RPM: My PRR T1, however, is running on two 9v motors in the tender, which provides a lot of speed, but with all that locomotive in front it has to make up pulling power by serious power input (though through lubrication I've improved on that) For my money, the best combination of power and speed comes from two standard PF motors in the tender. My TSRR #500 is a true workhorse for me and TexLUG. She can handle long trains and reasonable high speed. And if you're having problems with your ten wheeler (4-6-0), may I humbly submit my ten wheeler. She can take all switches, curves, s curves, etc. at high speed. --Tony

Why use pneumatic hose? Use flex tubing instead for handrails, as was done on the Emerald Night and the BNSF. Hose, Rigid 3mm. Its much more plentiful and cheap. Plus a minifig can grasp it. --Tony

Engine #500 demonstrates the wye at Brick Fiesta 2012: --Tony

Well done my friend, well done. The Big Boy is a very challenging build, and you chose a very good source of inspiration. The working lights are just icing on the cake of an already gorgeous MOC. I plan to build another articulated someday, but I'm thinking a Yellowstone for me. So if you're building off of other people's designs, when will you attempt an Allegheny? ;) --Tony

Thanks much! I've tried my best to capture the spirit of the engines and the park in my MOCs, I'd like to think I succeeded. I linked to a picture to coaches #42 & #44 in the original post, which is also in this folder: http://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/sets/72157624602626636/with/4969652411/ Thanks much! Closeups of what exactly? I've taken very close and detailed shots of everything, linked to in the original post, except the wye itself and the Engine shed (which I haven't quite finished just yet). Thanks! I appreciate it. --Tony

The best tip I can give is to build a steam engine. Experience through trial and error is the best teacher when building steam engines. Heck, I've gone back and rebuilt many of my steam engines two, three, some five times. I either find a better solution or just want to add more detail. --Tony

Thanks! No, the wye is only mechanically functional. If I owned one more pair of 9v switches, and I used some form of tape to electrically block off the different sections I could. A triangular setup like this would short out a 9v system otherwise. As it is a pair of PF switches keeps the arms of the wye electrically segregated. Thanks much! I posted the station and water tower here a while ago, I plan to post pictures of the engine shed by itself in the near future. Thanks! Thanks! I'm going to have a lot of fun with it at Brick Fiesta. I plan to take some video of a few of my steamers going through the wye. Thanks! Though to be fair this is my first true layout, and even then it's more of a diorama than anything else. I've never had a layout of my own before (and this is far too big to fit in my house!) Thanks much! Thanks! I did a lot of study on the real buildings, while I had to make certain sacrifices I still feel I captured their spirit. --Tony

Full Gallery Welcome to the Piney Woods of East Texas, home to the Texas State Railroad at Palestine, TX! This is the full 10'x10' (T-shaped) layout of the TSRR Park at Palestine Texas, home to one end of the TSRR's line (the other end is in Rusk, TX). This will be on display in two weeks at Brick Fiesta, as well as potentially future TexLUG events (room permitting). The official name of it is "The Piney Woods Layout". Featuring: The Palestine Depot The Palestine Engine Shed The Palestine Wye Locomotives: 1 201 22 300 400 500 610 7 8 and The TSRR Motor Car Passenger Coaches 42 & 44 --Tony

Thank you all, I'm happy to see so many others who share my desire for large trees. I don't want to include fall colors in my project not because I don't want them, but because its 100% buildable as-is with no new molds and no new parts required. In my eyes that will give it the greatest chance of passing review, should it ever get 10,000 votes. So aside from fall colors, and better pictures (which I plan to remedy this weekend), what else could I do to improve this project? A minifig or two? Park bench? Picnic scene? I don't want to add too much so as to keep the part count low. EDIT: or, by its virtue of not having more, not having a minifig or park bench, does it make the project more universal? It isn't locked in to any one theme? --Tony

Thank you all. I have now reached my goal of 100 votes. I hold no delusions about ever reaching 10,000 on this project, but its fun to see the interest. --Tony

Done. --Tony

The Landscape Kit is a general purpose decoration designed to add organic, visual interest to nearly any MOC or layout. It consists of three different types of brick-built trees - a large spruce tree, a medium sized birch tree, and a small young pine tree. Each tree comes with a unique base containing more flora to further help add to the illusion of life. Each tree contains a length of 3mm Rigid hose to hold it together firmly for maximum durability. Strong enough, in fact, that I can drop them on the floor and very little will fall out of place, at least on the two smaller ones. The Spruce tree is a bit heavier so it might lose a leaf or two. In spite of their size, all told the total part count sits at around 300 pieces. The graceful birch tree comes with a bed of red flowers, bringing contrast to it's bright green leaves. It would be perfect near the home of a fairy princess or the girl next door. Leaf count: 60. The young pine tree comes with a small assortment of large leafy plants. This tree would look perfect hiding in a grove, a city park, or a residential street. The mighty spruce tree stands tallest of the three, shading a small collection of mushrooms at its feet. It's dark green foliage would be perfect on a ski slope or as the backdrop to a grand castle. Leaf Count: 98. For your consideration: The Landscaping Kit http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/18032 It could fit in nearly any theme - Town, train, castle, pirate, even Star Wars. Its part count is low, so its cost should be very reasonable for the size of the finished models. --Tony

You've never seen these before because they're MOCs, not sets. --Tony

Star Wars Pickable Models as seen in the Baybrook Mall LEGO Store LUG Showcase window. The Pickable Models are a series of figures sold in the LEGO stores in a standardized design. So far there haven't been too many, but I felt inspired. The Emperor and Darth Vader Boba Fett, Han, and Chewie Leia, C3P0 and R2D2 Luke and Yoda --Tony

9v motors work both ways - getting their power from the track or getting it from the power connector on their top. Test the motor by powering it off brand new batteries in a battery box hooked up to the top of the motor. The major fault point on 9v motors is not the motor itself, but the brushes that pull power off the rails. --Tony

4-4-4-4 T1 Duplex by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr Instructions for this MOC are now available in my Bricklink Shop. --Tony

Plenty of steam engines had daylight under their boilers. I'm only now revisiting old MOCs and adding, or I suppose more accurately taking away, such detail. Check out the amount of daylight visible on this steamer I found at the Galveston Railroad Museum: GalvestonRRMuseum_083 by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr --Tony

Thank you everyone, I appreciate it. This was a lot of fun, more fun building than I've had in quite some time. It didn't feel like work. Now I need to order parts, I only had enough for this one side of the locomotive! I have to be careful, though, about adding such valve gear will-nilly to my MOCs. I was watching some video last night and came to the realization that Texas State Railroad #201 lacks almost any form of external valve gear, it predates it. Whoops! --Tony

Nicely done. There's some great techniques on her, and I there's nothing bad I can say about the color choice. :) --Tony

I've long wanted to improve the pistons and valve gear on my locomotives. Cale Leiphart's piston design is awesome, but the way I've been using it it's a bit plain by itself. Carl's recent masterpiece inspired me to go the extra step. Texas State Railroad Engine #500 by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr Now while I'm not willing to go as far down the path of customization that Carl does, I found a lot of inspiration in his design. So I sat down and began playing with my Pacific #500: #500 Valve Gear by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr Here's a video: While it uses the same basic design as Carl's, because my pistons are oriented perfectly vertical, and Carl has more room to work with because he isn't using thin liftarms as connecting rods, the L-Bar looks very strange on my locomotive. It's too far down the length of the locomotive, and far too high above the drivers. The real valve gear, at least on this locomotive, should be centered on the axles. So I decided to spend some more time with the design, to see if I couldn't get it to sit lower and more closely mimic the motion of the valve gear. Here's what I came up with: #500 Valve Gear Take 2 by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr And video: I'm much happier with this design. It isn't perfect, but I think it does the job very admirably. Eventually I'd like to add valve gear like this to all of my TSRR steam roster, and maybe to a few others as well. And just for the sake of being complete, here's a nice video of the real #500: And here's another: --Tony

An elegant solution to a challenging problem. Well done, sir. I always look forward to your next build, and this was no exception. Once again I find myself looking forward to your next great MOC. --Tony