Hod Carrier

I completely support the actions of the admins in helping to reduce spam on the forum. Personally I wasn’t aware the problem was so big as I only see the occasional spam thread popping up, and they’re usually easy enough to spot. I imagine that it would help if individual members were vigilant too. I always report any spam that I find by clicking on the flag within the thread and it usually gets deleted quickly. I would encourage other members to do the same. The mods and admins can’t be expected to check every single post and it helps them if we can identify contentious content and mark it for their attention.

Hi Sven, It may be only a “humble” 0-8-0T, but you still lavish it with a huge amount of thought and detail. The planning and design that goes into your models is in a league far in excess of anything I’ve seen elsewhere. I know the large scale you have selected helps, but even so the quality of your models speaks volumes for your patience, skill and attention to detail.

Some excellent updates there. I like that you don’t ignore humble vehicles like the vans and pack as much thought and detail into them as you do into your larger headline-grabbing steam locos.

Ooo, I like that. It’s nice to see something modern so well realised. The shape and proportions look spot on. Very well done.

When will the answers come? (Just wondering)

I think it depends entirely on how you feel about it. When you consider how prevalent third party parts are, such as wheels and valve motions, and how acceptable it appears to be to use non-LEGO parts, like Arduino modules and Kadee couplers, I think choosing to use an SBrick instead of PF or PU really shouldn’t cause you to lose too much sleep.

That’s a very sweet little train you’ve designed there. I like that very much. Power is almost certainly going to have to come from a motorised wagon of some sort, as I can’t see how you would fit a motor inside the loco itself. One possibility might be something like this, although you may not necessarily need two motors.

I like that your model is as loud as the original. You got the shape nailed and I love the rough and ready retro look of the model with the techniques and parts you’ve used. Got to love those studs. I think it’s only right that you should complete it as much as you can. It’s been waiting for a long time to have it’s time in the sun. Please keep the overall style and look of the model and try not to substitute old parts for newer design ones.

@Brother From Another Brick Honestly...? I'd rather you didn't. I felt a little uncomfortable listening to the interview because I was concerned that it might just have descended into a public shaming and I'm not entirely sure that redoing it will add anything. @Jimbricked has had the opportunity to put his points across and I think we can all see just how naïve he has been, which is something that I hope he can now see for himself. Apart from failing to adequately raise the actual concerns we had, the only thing that concerned me was that Eurobricks comes out of your interview badly. Anyone watching it who doesn't know this community might get an inaccurate impression of what we are like. We are not hateful, vindictive or overly possessive, and neither are our rules draconian or restrictive. I do not believe that our reaction to this situation has been in any way disproportionate nor unrepresentative of how other parts of the wider AFOL community would have reacted. Jimbricked has not been banned and I would expect that he could still be a part of Eurobricks if he wished to.

@Tenderlok Most welcome. @MAB I'm not sure that the interviewer was unaware of the differences between right and wrong, but more that he didn't understand what the fuss is all about. He seemed to have been under the impression that it was about MOCs being featured on Jim's YouTube channel and failed to grasp that what we are objecting to is the unauthorised sale of work not originating with him. I would have hoped that if he had understood that, Jim might have been called out more effectively than he actually was.

Thanks for doing that, but I think you might have let him off the hook slightly. I understand entirely the point you were trying to drill down into with regard to featuring other people's creations, but that wasn't really the point. I don't imagine anyone would object to a third party picking up their work and featuring it. Photo hosting sites like Flickr allow users to "favourite" content and have it appear on their own sites enabling it to reach a wider audience. And that's the sort of thing that everyone who uses sites like that or feature their creations here on Eurobricks accept and are clearly happy about. The issue here was that Jim featured work that wasn't his and then harvested the instructions to sell for his own personal gain. If he'd featured the content, credited the creator and then linked to the creator's own page where the instructions could be downloaded under the creator's own terms, I'm sure that would have been fine and drawn no objections at all. Clearly Jim is a young man and innocent in the way that the world works, but youth and inexperience are not excuses. If you step into the adult world of commerce then the law does not differentiate based on age. You clearly called him out and gave him a hard time over his giveaways, but you didn't do the same over his money-making scheme. I was left with the distinct impression that you sympathised with him and that you failed to communicate the serious nature of his predicament. I understand that he has removed all his content now and that deals with the issue by one means, but I don't feel that Jim's has fully grasped the severity of the situation. All that said, I do hope that he learns from this experience and comes back wiser and more circumspect. Rather than asking friends and family for advice he should check for himself what is and is not OK. I expect that it will take some time for him to rehabilitate his reputation, but I hope he bounces back. I speak for myself when I say that the situation here is not personal but rather is based on his actions and that this is not a hate campaign or a witch hunt. I would like to think that the rest of the community agrees with my sentiment also.

@Toastie This is the beauty of IP and copyright laws. The owner of the IP can choose whether or not to assert their rights. The difference is the ethos of the community to which we all belong. The desire of it’s members to share openly and freely for the benefit of the community as a whole is one of it’s defining characteristics and it’s greatest strength. The problem is when someone abuses that for personal gain. It doesn’t devalue the ethos, but it clearly makes people nervous and reluctant to share their ideas and creations. Should we stop being a community because of the selfish actions of an individual or individuals? I would hope not. You may not care about what happens to your creations, but others do. If we lost the ethos of the community because of this the community as a whole would be poorer as a result.

Then I think that was a bit of an overreaction. He need not have taken down everything, only the stuff he didn’t have permission to use.

Was the content voluntarily pulled or has YouTube yanked the whole lot? I think it’s a bit of a shame. If Jim really does have content that is either his own or that he has permission showcase then I think he should be allowed to do so.

I’ve been following this thread with a sense of dismay but have refrained from commenting until now. While I thank you for taking this matter on and leading on bringing about a negotiated solution, I cannot bring myself to agree with your sentiment. I would only say that limited progress has been made in explaining to Jim the importance of respecting other people’s IP, but there is still a rather large elephant in the room. What alarms me is that someone has taken IP belonging to other people and monetised it for their own gain. While this may not be technically illegal (although it would be interesting to know the terms of the permissions he has sought), it strikes me as being highly immoral. If a designer wishes to sell instructions or .lxf files for their creations that is their decision and no-one else’s. They set the price depending on what value they place on it and the amount of time and effort invested, and therefore they benefit. If they choose to host or promote their files elsewhere this must be negotiated and terms, including any revenue share, agreed. It should never be implied that allowing free access to content online means the owner is happy for it to be harvested and monetised without their knowledge or permission. These processes should always be lead by the designer. I’m sorry to have to say these things because I support the community ethos that applies here, but I’m not really happy with this situation

@ColletArrow Call yourself a pedant...?!

Absolutely!! I’m right with you on that.

Oh yes...!!! Now that is very cool. I had been wondering what loco you would choose for the UK, but the Baby Deltic is an inspired choice. It is also a wonderful surprise to see it paired with a couple of VGAs. Together they do make for an eye-catching train. Well done for getting the shapes of the engine right. I always thought it was a handsome engine and a shame that none survived, but you’ve revived the spirit of these machines and done a fantastic job with your replica. A note on the prototypes. The Napier Deltic engines themselves were largely reliable. They were developed primarily for naval use during WW2 in order to fill the need for a compact but powerful alternative to the petrol engines previously used in MTBs and PTs to make them safer to operate in combat (diesel fuel is much less flammable than high octane petrol). They were used successfully in small warships such as minesweepers and fast attack boats such as the Nasty Class which operated with the US Navy during the Vietnam War. Railway applications came a little later when Napier’s parent company, English Electric, saw it’s potential due to it’s compact size, light weight and high output. Although the engine proved largely reliable, Baby Deltics often required replacement engines as a consequence of the failure of ancillaries, particularly with the shaft connecting the engine to the auxiliary gearbox that drove the cooling fans and air compressor. These shafts suffered from resonant vibration and could snap, rupturing cooling hoses and causing the engine to seize. Consequently their failure rates were four times higher than equivalent designs powered by more conventional diesel engines. However, the Deltic engine was very compact and powerful, as evidenced by BR’s suggestion that the engines be swapped for English Electric 8SVTs resulting in an 8 ton weight increase and a 100hp drop in power. In the end these locos fell victim of BR’s National Traction Plan of the 1960s to cut costs by reducing the types and numbers of diesel locos. The non-standard design and the fact that only 10 were built meant that the Baby Deltics were destined for withdrawal with the last one being cut up in 1977 (which sadly means the class would never have hauled a VGA).

Thanks for the link. That article is nicely vague when it comes to trains, though. We've had the ability to remotely control trains for years, so adding the app doesn't really advance us very far (unless I've misunderstood). I wonder if this means Boost will get some additional functionality and/or sensors to help with building programmable models.

Sorry to hear about your setback. It's clearly a hard nut to crack otherwise maglev would be everywhere by now. I have to be honest and say that I think you might have to take the same pseudo-levitation route taken in both of the videos you have included in your original post. Casting my mind back to playing with magnets as a child I can recall that the force of repulsion is incredibly unstable while the force of attraction is stable, directional and very strong. Reading more deeply into magnetic levitation threw up Earnshaw's Theorem which explains this phenomenon and has implications for the use of ferromagnetic materials in magnetic levitation. Basically, it is not possible to create stable magnetic levitation of a body in free space against the force of gravity using permanent magnets. Pseudo-levitation (where the movement of the object to be levitated is constrained in one or more direction) is possible, as your linked videos show. The length of the car prevents the magnets from flipping it end over end, while the guide structures (either built onto the car as in the space monorail or into the track as in the Arduino controlled sled) stop it from being thrown over the side. I fear that the diagrams you have referred to may be slightly misleading. I think their intention was to explain the forces involved rather than to give a DIY guide to building a maglev using household materials. My understanding of existing maglev systems such as Transrapid is that these use electromagnetic coils in both the track and the train for lift and propulsion. Lift is achieved using the force of attraction rather than repulsion and the strength of the magnetic forces are automatically adjusted in response to measurements of the air gap between the train and the track to ensure a constant, safe ride height. Clearly this is going to be difficult for the home hobbyist to replicate, though. An alternative system that has been the subject of experiments going back more than 20 years is Inductrak. Unlike Transrapid, this does use permanent magnets arranged in Halbach Arrays on the underside of the train to provide both lift and stability. Wire coils or stacked copper or aluminium plates are built into the track and, as the train car passes over them, this induces a current in the trackthat in turn generates a repulsive magnetic force that acts against the magnets and lifts the car. The advantage of this system are that it does not require any external power source to achieve lift and that the arrangement of magnets makes it inherently stable. The downsides of Inductrak are that it does not provide for propulsion and that the train must achieve a certain speed before achieving lift-off. Again whether or not this can be replicated in LEGO form is open to question.

That’s an ambitious but exciting project. One observation I’d make is that using your worm drive will require the train to carry both the motor, power source and controls, and that’s going to be quite a heavy mass to levitate. I wonder if you would have more success by taking the more challenging route of building a linear motor into the track with electromagnets and controlling the speed of the train through Arduino. As a fellow electronics idiot I understand the challenge you’ve set yourself. I wonder if, as well as researching the necessary electronics components and skills, you should also give yourself a grounding in the relevant physics and maths. Experimentation will obviously form a major part of your research, but having some underpinning physics knowledge may open some short-cuts to you. Unfortunately I don’t have any further expertise to offer. All I can do is wish you luck with this project and I look forward to seeing how it develops.

Correct. The reason why the cars were "bunching" was because there were too many pivots between the fixed point which meant that the couplers would "fold up" when the cars are pushed. You are right to say that a rigid mounting to the chassis would prevent this from happening. This is the real problem. The axles need to be steered because they cannot self-steer themselves, and the best (only...?) way to do this is through the couplers. Without this there would be nothing to align the axles with the track whatsoever. I did come up with a solution to the "bunching" issue, which was to add a small elastic band to the coupler magnet itself to keep it centred. This was sufficient to keep the magnets correctly aligned when the train was pushed which also kept the wheels correctly aligned with the track. I'm not entirely sure that a re-profiled LEGO wheel would have sufficient effect to ever make it fully compatible with LEGO curves and make them work in the same way as real train wheels, but it might possible if the curve radius is generous enough. I think you've asked a very valid question. Very few model railway systems ever truly mimic the operations of real railways in terms of vehicle dynamics, but the LEGO system is almost comically unsuited. No real railway has curves as freakishly tight as the LEGO system and so no vehicle designer ever has to consider how to make their vehicles traverse them. I guess the answer for us depends on personal preferences, and this is often a factor that gets touched upon whenever the question of scale comes up. Do you design your cars to scale with the track with dynamic characteristics to suit or do you look at ways of modifying either the track or the cars to work together in a more harmonious way? There is no right or wrong answer to this question. Some people like playing with the scale to make shortened LEGO-friendly caricatures of real trains while others like to push the boundaries of what is possible with LEGO by creating correctly scaled behemoths and then engineering them to work on LEGO track geometry. Personally I don't think we need to be limited by LEGO track geometry. I believe that there are ways of engineering solutions to most track-related problems, and this investigation was one example of this approach. There's no reason why a two-axle vehicle needs to use fixed axles with all the limitations this brings when there are alternative methods we can use to achieve compatibility between the train and the track. LEGO is traditionally seen as merely a toy and not worthy of serious consideration amongst modellers because of it's perceived crudeness, a perception that TLG seems unwilling to refute. However, this does not mean it is impossible to create some truly stupendous creations that, at first glance, really shouldn't work but somehow do. I like stuff to scale correctly if at all possible and try to get as close to realism as I can. This is one aspect of this hobby that I find incredibly attractive. The chance to show someone something and have them say "Is that really LEGO...??" and to undermine their preconceptions is priceless. But those are just my thoughts. As I said before, there are no right or wrong answers to this question and it's up to everyone to make their own judgements. Often it's simply a question of space that dictates the size of everything.

I agree. Weight is simply magnifying the problem you already have, which is that the wheels are binding against the rails creating unwanted friction. At @12 studs between each axle your car is quite long to be using fixed axles like this. If you have too many cars of this type in a train or your loco is not sufficiently powerful to overcome the friction you will find that it starts to become a problem. A single lightweight car like the cattle car in set 60051 would be fine, but you're talking about an entire train. Each car you add to the train multiplies the amount of friction experienced. If you don't want to use bogies you will need to explore methods of axle articulation, such as was used in the thread I linked to yesterday. That last photo shouldn't be anything to worry about. It's simply the swing due to the length of the overhang at the end of each car. Yes, each car is trying to pull the other slightly to the side, but it's not adding too much additional friction and the articulation on the magnets is sufficient to deal with this. If you set up almost any train onto a bend like this you will see a similar twisting of the coupling magnets.

@bradaz11 Real trains work very differently from LEGO ones, and this is the main reason why vehicle dynamics have to be considered differently. Real train axles naturally self-steer because of the cross-sectional profiles of the train wheels and track. The diameter of the wheel tread is largest next to the flange and reduces slightly as you measure away from it. As the axle enters a bend the wheels move laterally towards the outside of the bend. As a consequence, the diameter of the outer wheel where it is in contact with the rail is larger than the diameter of the inner wheel meaning that it will travel further per revolution which causes the axle to follow a curved rather than a straight path. It is this difference in wheel tread diameter that causes the axle to follow the bend, not the flange itself as is commonly believed. You can push a rail axle down a length of track and it will follow the bends happily without any intervention. Rail vehicles take advantage of this by allowing each axle a certain degree of movement within the suspension to permit each axle to steer itself relative to the position of the vehicle body, allowing the vehicle to take bends without creating unnecessary wear to rails or wheels due to excessive friction. LEGO rail wheels and track are far cruder meaning that a LEGO axle will not naturally self-steer in the way that a real axle would. Believe me, it would be far, far easier if LEGO axles did behave this way because you could then be sure that they axles will follow the path of the tracks. But because they don't, any steering effect you get can only be achieved by applying some force to the axle assemblies directly. In the case of the vehicles that I and others were testing, this force was applied through the coupling to the neighbouring vehicle. Free steering axles that had no steering force applied would not follow the course of the track, refused to self-centre (even when at the very rear of the train) and were frequently the cause of derailments. I did not experience any problems with the buffers steering the axles off because I made sure there was sufficient articulation to ensure that the buffers never made contact with each other. This might be a problem if they were rigidly mounted to the vehicle itself, but mine were attached to the axle assemblies which prevented any interference. Certainly one solution to this problem would be simply to use larger radius curves, but not everyone has the luxury of space to use them and many have to make do with LEGO's standard curves. As a result, focusing on the vehicle rather than the track makes the solution accessible to more people. I'm sure that those people or clubs lucky enough to have the space for large radius curves will have looked at this and decided it's not required for them, and that's fine. But for the majority of us it opens the possibility for running scale length vehicles on the standard track without the excessive friction and derailment issues previously experienced by trying to run long-wheelbase vehicles with rigidly mounted axles. To answer your question about real rail vehicles, there are indeed limits to how large a two-axle vehicle can be. Partly this is down to vehicle dynamics but partly it is due to axle loads. The model VGA wagons that I built on the back of this testing are representations of the largest two-axle vehicle to run on the UK rail network. There may be larger vehicles of this configuration elsewhere in the world, but anything larger than this in the UK would require bogies. The trend in rail freight has moved away from trains formed of large numbers of small wagons towards smaller numbers of large wagons. This gives greater efficiency of operation and permits larger loads to be conveyed in trains of equivalent lengths by reducing wasted space thereby increasing the load density. I hope this answers your questions, but if you'd like to ask more I will be happy to answer.

It is possible to go longer, even with a larger overhang at the car ends, if you allow the axles to articulate. A few of us did some investigations about just this sort of problem earlier this year (click). However, looking at your models I would estimate that the problem is not to length of the wheelbase (the distance between the axles) but, as @sed6 suggests, the buffers are interfering with the way in which each car moves relative to it's neighbour.