SavaTheAggie

I got the idea for brown from one of the official LEGO "steam" locomotives, and I rather like it, in spite of my wife saying it looks like a piece of poop on wheels. I keep running out of parts, though; I knew I'd have to order a few parts, but I'm putting it off as long as possible by using what I have in the most efficient way possible. I gotta say so far this locomotive is a good runner. I've not tried it under its' own power yet, but from what I've seen it should be more stable than my 4-4-0, which means it might allow me to crank it up to higher speeds. --Tony

It's really starting to look like a locomotive. --Tony

Progress Update: Due to certain events of which I have been recently made aware, I decided to go from the blue and white color scheme I was originally planning and go with a brown and black color scheme with either yellow or orange accents. That isn't to say, however, that I've given up on making a blue and black loco with white accents, the opposite is true ;) But for now I need to figure out just where the yellow or orange will go (especially if I go with orange given that not many parts come in that color, compared to yellow anyway). I really like the brown for some reason. I don't know if it makes me think of rust, or brass (as one comment on my photo states), or what. In any case it should be a rather cute little locomotive when all is said and done. The piston action works perfectly, and I really like this reversed, studs-backward piston design I've come up with. --Tony

Well, I wasn't expecting to start a new steam engine so soon, but I got a pretty good incentive. I'm not going to say what that incentive is, you'll just have to pay close attention to figure it out. Yes, I have an ulterior motive to writing this post that you'll just have discover for yourself, cause if you like steam engines you'll dive deeper and thank me. :) Anyway, it's a ten wheeler, and if you're interested in following my progress I'll be updating my flickr account with pics. I've decided I'm going to base it off of the Grapevine Railroad's "Puffy", but I think it will be colored closer to Gulf, Mobile & Northern's #425. Visit the Flickr page for more info on what I plan to do. As always suggestions and feedback are always welcome. --Tony

Aww shucks... you're going to give me a big head... oh, nevermind, too late. :-D Thanks! Thanks! I don't think I'm putting anyone to shame, there are a lot more talented train builders out there. Unless, of course, you're talking about simple fanaticism, in which case I'm king. X-D Thanks! Thanks! I don't know if I'll build it. It's so close to my other 4-4-0, but it is historical. It's either this one, or a ten wheeler modeled after the Grapevine Railroad's "Puffy" or a 2-6-0 after the "Chatanooga Choo Choo". --Tony

On May 10, 1869 a famous meeting took place between two locomotives at Promotory Point, Utah, at the Golden Spike Ceremony which celebrated the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad over the United States. These two locomotives were Union Pacific's #119 and Central Pacific's #60, better known as The Jupiter. After I came up with a few color options for my American 4-4-0 steam engine, one of which I said was like 'Jupiter', I went back to look at the famous locomotive and found I was very off. So I decided to rework my 4-4-0 to see what it would look like if it really did resemble 'Jupiter.' A few differences besides color - added accent to the boiler nose, added plate height and accent to the pistons, added height to the rear of the boiler to match the original locomotive, removal of one of the three boiler domes. --Tony

He posted this to Lugnet. It's a special type of tin-plated copper tape used for specialized functions. It's apparently very pliable, very thin, but also very sharp. His main concerns are how long the tin-plating will remain on the rails during use and how long the adhesive will keep it attached to the track. Fortunately some of the problems that might arise from the adhesive giving out could be fixed by wrapping the tape around the rails where there are holes under them, just like was done with the 9v rails. Unforutnately it doesn't seem that this tape isn't readily available to the public. --Tony

I was recently commissioned to create a red version of my Henry Dreyfuss inspired streamlined hudson, named 'The Ruby Runner'. To get my mind off of the death of 9v trains I decided to share the pictures of the finished product. So here it is: Whitesell Lines locomotive #1007 "The Ruby Runner" and her sister locomotive, Sava Railways locomotive #7244 "The Tequila Sunrise" Full Gallery with a few in-progress and rendered pics. --Tony

Thanks! I took the motor out to lower the cost, but I kept the design such that it could still accept one. I haven't been able to do a lot of research into it, but I'm hoping I'll be able to sell them for somewhere around $75 to $100 each. Not terrible for a custom set, especially if it's track ready :)

I'm currently working on creating copies of my American 4-4-0 steam engine to sell for a little extra money, and in doing so I recreated the locomotive in LDraw so that I could have an accurate parts list to order parts from. So with an Ldrawn engine, I decided to have some fun with POV-Ray. And, since I had an Ldrawn engine, I decided to play around with some color options. I kind of like the dark blue, and the normal blue does a pretty decent job of resembling Jupiter, one of the steam engines at the golden spike ceremony. And of course since I had already Ldrawn my streamlined engine, I thought why not have a comparison. And as a bit of trivia, if anyone is interested in knowing, of all of my trains, both LEGO sets and personal MOCs, my 4-4-0 is second only to the official LEGO caboose in height. --Tony

Yeah, I have quite a few useless bricks that I inherited early from my sister - bricks from the mid 70's that no longer grip and are really off color. I keep them segregated as best I can. My brickshelf folder can be found HERE, and if it's the one you're thinking of, my previous iteration of my hydra is HERE. If it interests you, those shelves are $14 assemble-yourself from Wal-Mart. They're really flimsy until you put the very last piece on and tighten all the screws, and then they're pretty rock solid. --Tony

Monorails aren't necessarily magnetic. Monorail simply means mono-rail - one rail. Most monorails run on tires both vertical and horizontal to keep it on the rail. Maglev is the kind of train that uses magnets to suspend it on the rail (maglev = magnetic levitation), and a Maglev Monorail would be a monorail that uses magnets. In any case, I've been following this builder's brick-built monorail evolution for years, and I am very intrigued. I've been dieing to try it out myself, and with this latest iteration it might just very well spur me to action. The only problem I have with it is the use of the old train track rails to add the shape to the curved track, and I only have a problem there because I don't own any of those rails, at least not the curved variety. :) Perhaps a combination of hinged bricks and some fancy brick work would be able to lock the curve without the use of the rails, it certainly begs for experimentation. --Tony EDIT: Now that I think about it, as long as you were to lock down every third section of track (that is to say lock down the section of track after every third hinge), say, to a baseplate, you wouldn't need anything else to keep the shape of the rail, it should hold it shape by itself. However, the curved rails do provide a nice, smooth arc which prevents other problems like making too sharp of turns.

I finally put together all the shelf units for my LEGO room and got all the boxes off the floor and onto shelves. It's still really disorganized, but I feel I can finally start actually organizing instead of simply cleaning up, and I'm rather proud of that. So I took some pictures. Welcome to my Inner Sanctum: http://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/1394197669/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/1394197959/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/1395093492/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/1394198455/ --Tony

http://www.bigbenbricks.com Custom made, injection molded, train wheels by Ben Fleskes. Worth every penny. --Tony

Well, I've already built the locomotive, which was really the only tricky part. I've extracted a parts list for the five cars (minus interiors) and I guesstimate it'll cost around $100, maybe $125, (plus tables and chairs, etc.) to build them all. As for when, I plan to get started as soon as my finances allow me to spend the money, but that may not be for several months. --Tony

I've (mostly) finished the exterior designs for the passenger cars to go a long with my streamlined steam locomotive I built some months ago. The full consist includes: locomotive, tender, baggage car, passenger car, tavern car, passenger car and observation car. CAD pictures of the individual cars can be found in the main directory, here (no interiors, sorry): http://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/...57600862647350/ It's all still a work in progress, but I'm using a lot of basic bricks, so it should be very doable when my finances improve. I even have a design in mind for the karaoke machine. --Tony

It may deserve its own post, but Classic-Castle.com is hosting a Create a Theme building contest in which you can win a set of these animals, graciously donated by Brickforge. --Tony

My town consists of lots of trains... so my town's infrastructure is all set... it's too bad the figs have no place to go ;) --Tony

I'm not a member of COLTC, or even in the same time zone, but I did some glancing around Brickshelf and found this gallery with a few pics of the train: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=118567 I talk with Troy C. (COLTC member, Troy's Surplus LEGO on BL) almost daily, which is how I know about their super Super Chief. --Tony

As far as the weight of the engine/car affecting performance - absolutely. This is why I suggested watching the magnetic couplers as the train is in motion, since you'll never really know how all the variables will interact. As far the individual weight of cars putting strain on the motors, believe it or not the heavier the better. In fact many big clubs add more weight to already heavy locomotives to improve traction. More traction = less slippage = less strain. That's how COLTC get's their 20+ car long Super Chief to run with only 3 9v motors (and many speed regulators on a ginormous amount of track). They've also had to buy special magnets to insert between cars due to the train being so heavy. It seems silly, that more weight being pulled would add strain where more weight pushing down upon it reduces it, but it seems to be true. Of course, all things in moderation - you couldn't expect to put a five pound weight on your 9v motor and expect it to perform well. --Tony

Yeah, but in theory they'd all be proportionally slower, so the faster ones should still be faster, even if th ey ar en't going their normal speed at that regulator power setting. Another test you can do is to watch the couplers. As your train goes around the track, watch the magnetic couplers - there's a lot of give to them, so you can tell if a car is being pushed by the car behind it, or if its pulling. As long as it looks like there is tension on all of the couplers, none of your motors are trying to push the motor in front of it. --Tony

I'm not an expert, but I have been told that pushing can put undo stress on a LEGO 9v motor. I have seen first hand, though, that a LEGO 9v motor has more power in pulling a train than pushing it. Putting the motor on the tail of the train may be a bad idea, though that isn't to say you couldn't have a motor in the middle of the train. If you do put the motor on the end of the train, however, be sure to make sure it is your slowest motor. place all of your motors without being attached to any cars on the track and run them around a loop. Place the faster ones at the front, with the progressively slower motors behind it. That way you won't have a faster motor desperately trying to push a slower motor in front of it, putting stress on the faster motor. --TOny

Here's a more complete version of my observation car design: --Tony

If it didn't mean having "yet another license", the Polar Express would be an excellent source of parts and Christmas cheer. My version would probably cost too much though, unless LEGO broke it up into several sets. --Tony

Well, how would you go about that? Stronger batteries are stereotypically much heavier, so you're limited to what the train can pull. Of course you could use a car battery, but no LEGO train could pull it, so you'd have to set it on the side of the tracks, you know, and have some sort of method of getting the electricity to the motor remotely, say, a electrically conductive surface on the rails, and of course you'd have to have some sort of metal wheels on the motor unit to pick up that electricity... ;-) --Tony