ecmo47

Man, I could watch those trains all day! Love the curved bridge! What a great layout to display your trains on.

Fantastic, Just like the rest of your builds! Are the primary colors used Reddish Brown and Dark Orange? Is the base 2x 48x48 plates?

5 months!?! It's already a giant display! Might need to pace yourself a bit!! I like the various levels. It really makes things interesting. Keep us posted!

Great build! Dont worry about interiors unless your planning on entering a contest. Having an interior is about like saying "I've got a 10197 at home!"

That is a GREAT idea! Seems like a "no-brainer" for Lego. It would be easy and cheap for Lego to do and would really make a bunch of AFOL's happy. Maybe we could start a Lego Ideas idea to post instructions as you have suggested. Another vote/plea for the LDD files! You cannot imagine how excited I was to run across this thread. Cavegod posted a picture over on Brickset a while back, but I could never find it again. It's one of my favorite Star Wars ships and you have rendered it perfectly! Thanks for sharing the photos and information!

Im not sure how to say this gently but it seems that you have a copy of Cavegods LDD files that you may not have paid for. From your verbage above you certainly didnt get the plans directly from Cavegod to begin with. Perhaps something has changed but those plans are his intellectual property and he has not offered them free to the public to my knowledge. This is the very model that he submitted to Lego Ideas which was reviewed and apparently passed over. I may get slammed for this but I feel that a person should be compensated for his effort if that is what he chooses. He certainly put in a ton of time to develope this model and creating the LDD files. The fact that he made them available for purchase is a fantastic oppurtunity for the rest of us none-creative types. Perhaps Im way off base and nothing improper has happened but if Cavegod hasnt yet received compensation for these files, I hope that the situation is made right.

Final after-action on the show. 1. I made my tables too robust. They are 3/4 plywood with 2x4 frames which is over kill and very heavy. 2. I handed out about 50 polys and small sets, mainly #31015 (Emerald Express). This was fun but not necessary. Kids had great fun with the Seek and Find (S&F) without the knowledge of prizes. I did not advertise that I was giving away prizes. I just spaced them out over the 2 day’s time. 3. My gracious wife and a fellow Lego enthusiast helped man the layout which was a good thing since it was always busy. 4. The shay log train impressed the adults but was too slow to run much on the layout. 5.The EN did not perform as well as I'd hoped. It would jump track at switches occasionally and was a little slow. 6. I ran the HE quite a bit as it had a rechargeable battery. Also, the fact that it was orange made it rather eye-catching! One motor pulled a 7 car train easily. 7. I kept forgetting to move the switches so had several rear-end collisions when changing out trains. D'oh! 8. 9v loop ran without fail the entire show on one transformer. I had three 9v trains which I kept switching out. Kids liked the "rocket car" which I could make go pretty fast without it flying off the curves. 9. Of the Seek and Find clues, many did not know who Harry (Potter) and Ron (Weasly) were. Also, as previously mentioned, the term "hobo" confused some. 10. I had the set-up packed up and in the vehicles in 1.5 hours. 11. I did not have much luck with either the EN or Maersk double headers. Seems one engine would work and the other would not. Even though both locomotive receivers would be on the same channel, they seemed to work rather independently! 12. I found that I didn’t have much time to "mess" with the trains as I was always working the crowd, handing out S&F checklists, giving clues and talking to interested adults. I spent much of my time on my knees talking to kids. 13. Using Part #87580 (Modified 2 x 2 with Groove and 1 Stud in Center (Jumper)) to replace sidewalk tiles was extremely helpful in quickly setting up minfigs. Thanks about all I can think of for now. Fun to do but I’m not interested in making frequent thing!

When I bought the LDD plans from Cavegod back in 2013, he had already re-designed the engines to not include the very expensive Star Destroyer wheels. It's curious that your plans would not reflect a change that was made years ago. Perhaps you should contact Cavegod for the latest set. But to answer your question, the basic replament part was #44772 (Wheel 56mm D. x 34mm Technic Racing Medium, 3 Pin Holes). One other thing is that you only need 2x3961 (LBG 8x8 dish) instead of 6. The 4 that go on the feet can easily be replaced with #6177(Tile, Round 8 x 8). Use the 2 remaining 3961's on the head.

http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/11365/ucs-at-at-ready-for-duty/p1 Here's a link that details some of our earlier experiences in building this incredible model.

Looks like a great start on the building. The tan/red/black color combo works very well!

Honestly, I don’t see enough to render a worthwhile opinion. Also, specific questions would help elicit more responses! After much studying of the pictures, I finally figured out that we are looking at the transfer crane. I guess my question would be why? Is this a freight depot or a passenger depot? It might be a cool play feature for a “City” type set but it’s not a usual feature with real depots (if that is your goal). And I vote yes to gravel! Adds lots of realism to your tracks especially if your just doing a small diorama.

Yes, my wife said I should paint it or something but that just didnt get done. Something for next time! Here's the full list. Unfortunately, I didn't take specific picture of each item but most are visible in overall pictures. I'll try to point them out. Seek and find in Legoville!!! See if you can find the following on the layout: 1. Flash to the rescue! 2. The Ice-cream man 3. Boy with a Popsicle 4. Cat on a (hot tin) roof. 5. Abe Lincoln. 6. The detective 7. The sad clown. 8. Chicken man and his pet chicken. 9. Dinner diners to be dino dinner. 10. Two pigs going for a ride. 11. Wonder Woman in her invisible jet. 12. Harry and Ron wondering how to get to Hogwarts. 13. Batman chasing the Joker. 14. Cat Rescue. 15. Marge Simpson. 16. The lost (Lego) 100 dollar bill. (Hard!!) 17. Flock of parrots. 18. Dog taking a shower. 19. Hobo cooking dinner 20. Cop chasing a thief. DSC01085 by ecmo47, on Flickr 2. The Ice-cream man (Blue hat in the middle of the picture) 14. Cat Rescue. (White cat in tree with fireman on ladder) DSC01082 by ecmo47, on Flickr 1. Flash to the rescue! 4. Cat on a (hot tin) roof. 6. The detective (very left edge of picture) DSC01081 by ecmo47, on Flickr 3. Boy with a Popsicle (by hydrant in front of Town Hall 7. The sad clown. (to the right of lamp post in front of CC. 13. Batman chasing the Joker. Top of GG. 15. Marge Simpson.(Driving Yellow car) 20. Cop chasing a thief. (Just left of the sad clown) DSC01080 by ecmo47, on Flickr 9. Dinner diners to be dino dinner. (My favorite clue!) 16. The lost (Lego) 100 dollar bill. (Hard!!) Not visible but it's by the road behind the (miss-adjusted!) railroad sign. DSC01079 by ecmo47, on Flickr 11. Wonder Woman in her invisible jet. (Left edge of picture on top of brown building)] 12. Harry and Ron wondering how to get to Hogwarts. (2 minfigs on the left side of the inner platform. Scene from book 2) 17. Flock of parrots. (In tree to the right edge of station) DSC01073 by ecmo47, on Flickr 5. Abe Lincoln. (Back of EN Observation car) 18. Dog taking a shower. (Under water tank. You can see the water puddle but not the dog) 19. Hobo cooking dinner. (Under the apple tree to the left edge of picture. Had to explain to many what a "hobo" was. Guess kids are more familiar with the term "homeless") DSC01074 by ecmo47, on Flickr 10. Two pigs going for a ride. (In stake truck to left of picture in front of GE) 8. Chicken man and his pet chicken. Barely visible behind the FB tree. That's all of them!

Day one of the show went very well. Here's a few photos I took right before the show opened. DSC01071 by ecmo47, on Flickr DSC01073 by ecmo47, on Flickr DSC01080 by ecmo47, on Flickr DSC01082 by ecmo47, on Flickr Observations/thoughts: 1. I had a rope stanchion about 2 feet away from the layout. I was in this area all day talking to people and it kept the kids hands off the trains. 2. I did a Seek and Find. I had 20 vignettes to find which I printed up on a 1/2 sheet of paper. The kids had a ball finding them! My most clever one was "Dinner diners to be dino dinner" which is shown in the picture above. 3. I gave away some Lego sets to random kids that found all 20 items. 4. The Lego LiOn batteries lasted forever! I got 3 hours of run time out the HE pulling a 4 car train most of the time. 5. Not many people looked at the white board sign behind the layout. 6. Many interested adults! 7. Set up took about 4 hours. 45 mins on the table with my son helping and the rest by myself. Not looking forward to taking it down and hauling it home tomorrow. 8.No catastrophes! (Knock on wood)

Make sure you DONT mention my name when your spouce is giving you the stink-eye ( ) !

DSC01016 by ecmo47, on Flickr DSC01039 by ecmo47, on Flickr Does this help? I'd grab 2xHE before the price goes up any more. Honestly, I didnt think this train was as good as Emerald Night and the Maersk but the after market prices are going up faster than I expected. ....and no, you will not be satisified with just 1/2 a train (one set).

Thanks for the link and your excellent "how-to" videos. Very clear and concise.

Thanks for all the advice. One of the motor ran fine with no load on it so I "fixed" by building a shell around it and turing it into this rocket car! Should be a crowd pleaser as it zips around the track. I will definitely op check the other one following the above information as it will only run a few mintues before stopping. DSC01069 by ecmo47, on Flickr DSC01067 by ecmo47, on Flickr

Thanks for the reply. I'll give it a try. Any idea what "too long" (to run these motors) would be?

Two of four of my 9v train motors conked out 3 days before my first show. One motor seems to run fine by itself but when you add to a locomotive, it doesn't have enough "umph" to move. The other motor will pull a train for a few minutes then just stops. Is there a fix for either one? For starters, is it even possible to open the motor?

Maybe it is just me, but your link doesnt work. Since the picture is on Flicker, you can just post it here.

Ah! So on Kieran's "A" unit, he has part #2871b on the rear (you can see the axle cut-outs) with the 9v motor and #2871 on the front and "B" unit.

It's part number 2871.The problem is that the only set the Bley ones came was the BNSF engine so they are about as rare as the Light Grey ones. Per Bricklink, the average cost for the Bley ones is about $9.25 where the Light Grey ones run about $8.71. If you switch to black, the cost is only $2.21. Kieran quote part #2871b which is the side frame associated with the Power Function motors. Part #2871 is the correct one for the 9 volt motor. I dont know what the difference is or if they are interchangable. Oh...and great looking model! Love the A+B unit combo. Hope you can find some decals for it soon.

Thanks for posting. Many great builds!!

Ah...I missed the IR receiver in the front of the wagon in the video.

Lovely!! Nice break from all the monster MOC's that graced these pages. Is it IR controlled or just on/off?