Lego Otaku

I've loved trains for as long as I could remember. Locally we had diesel trains. No electric train anywhere near me and my parents wouldn't drive 2 hours to a nearby city that had electric trains. Oh well. I did see some steam engines at museum and a few working steam engines here and there like one at Greenfield Village (connected with Henry Ford museum) and one at Huckleberry Railroad I also got hooked on Lego when they had the classic space theme in 1979. But the real love for Lego didn't begin until I got Lego train set. My first set was a 7722 that I got for Christmas long ago. After that, there were hardly anything worth getting until 6990 monorail set. I picked up a few track expansion sets when they were on clearance sale locally ($10 each iirc) but then nothing else. I saw 2 more monorail sets but they were expensive and I had other things I wanted for Christmas and my birthday so I never got anything related to train for many years. I had 2 dark ages, my first return was in late 90's after I was done with college, had some free time and spare money until 2001 when I lost the job and eventually forgot about Lego. Then I came back this year when I found 7938 and 7939. I quickly lost the battle with my inner child and got both sets. A short time later I found a really cheap 7898 set (missing few parts). I was able to put complete engine and crane after a short shopping on bricklist for missing parts. I didn't put the rest of 7898 together as I used parts to build few more cars for 7939. I might rebuild the engine to use newer RC system since it seems the older RC parts didn't work with new remote controller. I also got Emerald Night plus some PF accessories for it. Sadly the original 4x6 table I got to start with is full. So I have pile of spare wheels, spare bogie plates, and spare coupling (both old non-sealed and new sealed magnets) sitting in a pile. ALso a bunch of Big Ben wheel in the mail as I wanted more of steam engine design. I'm working at cleaning a room and tossing out old junk (who needs about 1,000 floppy disks that no longer works?) setting up an "L" shaped table that is 8 feet by 8 feet with 4' by 4' corner cut out. That should give me enough room to do a few loops and allow at least 3 engines to run independently, along with elevated monorail (probably customized in old gray and blue with trans-yellow window ). I also plan to replace the flatbed cars I made (plus one that came in cargo train set) with American style flatbed cars. 2 will have a custom made green and yellow tractors on it (yes, John Deere tractors) and the rest would handle the cargo boxes.

I have gathered all of Monorail tracks I got from set 6990 and few expansion sets when they were out some 20 years ago, and I noticed that both switches: Monorail Track Point Left and Monorail Track Point Right Both of the switches I have aren't working well. It's kind of hard to manually slide the lever and the little pin that monorail train uses to auto-switch doesn't move freely either. I suspect it's a buildup of dust and crud inside the switch. Is there an easy way to take it apart for through cleaning? I may add a little petroleum jelly to the moving parts so they'd never stick or jam for a while. Or is that bad idea? TIA PS why no new monorail anything at all? I saw a picture of what appeared to be underwater themed set and a patent for a 4 way cross with auto switching. EDIT: had link for 2 left and no right by mistake.

I am not looking forward to sorting my collection. 30 years across 2 large 6 gal (22.8L), 4 of 4L tubs, and half dozen cardboard boxes. I had to make 6 trips to move all of my Lego out of storage,the whole lot are too big and heavy to do in 1 trip. I plan to separate all technic and non-technic first. Then by part type (1x1 brick, regular, 1x1 brick, round, 1x1 brick, cone, etc) Colors will be ignored. I did have some free small tubs for uncommon parts. They are Gerber tub that is about 1 cup (about 240 mL) so if you know someone who has a baby and feeding him/her Gerber food, ask them to save empty tubs. Now to figure out about storing the rest.

I wanted to do custom Wilykat and WIlykit minifigs as I'm a fan of Thundercats. Body & hair are easy but head isn't easy. Is there a trick to making it look good from someone who shakes like a 50 caffeine loaded espresso a day drinker? Maybe suggest someone here or on Bricklist that is good, reliable, and reasonable priced to do custom head? TIA

Hi, I'm Eric, from Michigan. I live in the Thumbs area and last I checked, there aren't any local LUG within 2 hours drive. (I detest driving into Detroit area anyway and that is 3 hours drive) I just got back into Lego after about 10 years absence caused by unemployment and then forgot about Lego. It's actually my third Lego age. The second Lego age was from 1999 to 2001 when I had money and picked up some Lego. Before that, I used to play Lego quite a lot until I started in High School which kept me busy in 1990 and I quit Lego. I still have everything from those 30 years of Lego (save a missing 1x2 brick here and a minifig head there, to name a few pieces) I'm putting together my train sets and I'm also planning an original theme from 1700's in North American. Mainly the forts and some local dwellings and some indians. Not the same as the western theme set that came out some years ago, this would be before USA declared independence.

My #1 fav is the original space set with gray and blue bricks + trans-yellow windows. I don't see Lego making any more of these as they haven't done this in about 30 years ;) Lego trains is a close second and it's what I am currently into, making some custom cars and more. I'm more partial to industrial side of the train (no passenger cars, etc) I'm also into theme that isn't made by Lego: mid 18th century North America frontier theme with forts, exploration of wild land, and battle between British and French with Native Americans in the mix. It is not quite the same as the wild west theme some years back.

I'd be happy if Lego just release a few cars set. No engine, just cars to add to existing train sets. extra Emerald Night cars for starter but since Emerald Night is s@l exclusive, the cars would likely be online only as well and not sell well like the past online only cars. Maybe extra passenger cars for 7938 or something that can be sold at stores. Or train garage that can have more than 2 tracks in/out. Or even a decent track turntable for 8 or 16 tracks total. I think 16 is the most one can get from a single 2 straight track while still able to connect all without needing flex track.

Way cool! I like that light effect. Did you use any kind of mist or set your camera for longer exposure to catch the beam?