splatman

Must be that pink plate on the left side right behind the windshield.

I did not even know it was the Statue of Liberty until I read further discussion.

Make the cab and bed Olive G., and the canopy Sand G.

A TRON reference?

Saw the pic first and thought Buzz Lightyear, then read the text.

Here's more acronyms than you can shake a brick at.

I've never personally seen a Lego switch point, so I have little clue what their workings are like. When I hear/read "spring", if I don't think of the season, I think of compression springs. The McMaster page I linked was just really a guess on my part regarding the type of spring called for.

How 'bout actual springs that you can buy off the shelf at a hardware/small-parts supplier? Would any of these do?

With pieces sorted by type in open-top bins, an idea I have, is sort also by color in plastic freezer zipper bags. Sandwich bags will work, but they're not as durable. No diggin' for the right color, and the pieces stay dust-free. Kill 2 stones w/ 1 bird! Colors in low quantities can be lumped in 1 bag. Or lump complimentary colors e.g. blue and yellow in 1 bag, green and pink in another bag.

Strange. They almost all broke from corner to corner, essentially following the path of most resistance. One thing they all appear to have in common, is the break crosses the injection point, so the injection process must have something to do with it. Do bring this to TLG's attention, if you have not done so already. This should not even be a thing. What are those tiny patches of gray on some of the fragments? On any injection-molded plastic article, there is tension round the injection point, probably because that part cools last, after the rest has already cooled and contracted. And therein lies my theory: the static tension eventually leads to a type of stress weakening, that leads to failure when the article is stressed. Why that only affect some dark red tiles (so far), is still a near-total mystery. This might be why countless cheese slopes have cracked/broke.

Earlier today, I went to visit Eurobricks, I only got the 403 Forbidden error. What on earth was up with that? Did anyone get the same error?

I wood be a carpenter. Building things out of wood has been my lifelong passion. So, in medieval times, or in any time (or place) for that matter, I wood probably build wooden things for a living, from toys to houses to everything in between.

Same here. Did not think it was actually a train rolling thru a glass underwater tunnel.

Not sure if that would play out. TLG has been making and selling video games since the late 90's, yet that did not stop them from taking the #1 spot. Lego video games, if anything, have encouraged kids to get their hands on real bricks. There were times I wish TLG put out roller coaster sets after playing Roller Coaster Tycoon. I have thought of making (not out of Lego) a real (not virtual) version of the online game Colourshift (lots of RGB Leds will be needed) and Tetris (Making rows disappear would be the tricky part). I once, in '86 or so, tried Lego-building the namesake spaceship from the Atari game Defender. Don't remember why that did not work out. The point, if you have not got yet, is I never really liked certain things to exist only in the virtual world. If TLG ever does go belly-up, third parties, such as ME Models, would likely step up to the plate (or brick) and pick up where TLG leaves off.

Since this is not a misprint, I guess this would be called a Missembly (mis-assembly).

If you need an idea, YouTube user Jimmy Diresta built a along the lines of a card catalog. If you or someone you know works wood, this might be a solution. Old card catalogs may work just as well. Check Craigslist or university auctions.

Just realized what you are talking about. Turning a straight section (designed the way I was thinking) 180 degrees, would result in a 2-stud gap at one end, and 2 sleepers side-by-side at the other. So the solution, is to have every section symmetrical. The rails can overhang each end by 1/2-stud, but then comes the issues that must be solved with jumper plates. Or just shift the entire layout 1/2-stud in 2 directions. Edit: Shifting the layout won't quite solve the problem, or would it? Having the rails offset by 1/2-stud, while having the sleepers "in click" with the baseplates, is simple enough with the straights, the curves, OTOH, are throwing a real curve-ball. Instead of R40 (LEGO track curve radius), for example, R39 or R41 might be the solution, albeit an odd one. Or would those be R39.5 and R40.5? Now comes the need for oddball length straights (3L, 5L, 7L, etc.). No wonder why TLG makes their tracks with 2x8 sleepers. Combined with LEGO and/or ME track (even with adapters), and things will get really screwy. Conclusion: 2x8 sleepers make total sense from a design and cost savings standpoint.

Really not understanding how having 1x8 ties/sleepers would throw off the track's alignment to the stud grid. Does it have to do with the transitions between the track sections? As long as the rails connect "in grid", the sleepers can be "in grid" also. The rails would start flush with the first sleeper, and overhang the last sleeper by 1 stud. The first sleeper may need 2 protrusions that would connect with the last track section, maybe also including metal tabs to provide electrical continuity.

With the point on the front of the black train, it looks almost like a Rocket! Full steam to the moon!

Start by sorting out the colors of which you have the most. Or set a quantity, say 40. Every color you have 40 or more pieces of a given type, sort. All colors of which you have less than 40 each, lump together.

Yes!

More acronyms. Many, if not all, of which are listed in the thread linked above.

Are you talking about this?

Alois, too bad you did not wait another hour and 21 minutes. Then you could say you posted message #1234 at 12:34pm. Now the question is, should the gear assortments or the letter bricks be stored here?

I actually wondered, during my kid years (80's), why LEGO did not make flesh-colored minifigs. If I had a large population of fleshies (I only have a few), I would just pretend the fleshies are Caucasians and the yellow figs are Asians. Like someone did creatively here. Worst part IMO? Any "One trick pony", like the train nose above, that you would have to get seriously brain-fryingly creative to work into a MOC w/o it looking like what it was originally meant to be. I'm not exactly "uncreative", I just seldom get any ideas that would set off a brain-fry-storm, so any "one trick ponies" that come into my possession end up on Bricklink. BTW: "One trick ponies" are already known in AFOLdom as SPUDs: Special/Single Piece/Purpose Ugly/Useless/UnLEGOish Design/Decorative. From Here.