Hod Carrier

This isn't the end of the world for the hobby, as I'm sure there will be ways around this. One option would be to sell a kit of parts (e.g. bearings and axles) that the consumer can then add to their own LEGO elements and to either offer a sticker sheet that the consumer can choose to use or to provide an optional parts printing service as outlined by @JopieK above. That said, it is a harsh judgment for HA Bricks. I don't know what the normal range of penalties for trademark infringement under European law are, but these costs do seem punitive. That said, there is a difference between thinking that you know where the boundaries are and doing your research to find out. As I hinted above, I think that, as a community, we need to get away from the idea that we're doing LEGO some sort of favour by helping to grow the hobby, as that leads to the erroneous assumption that they will somehow see and understand this and smile benevolently on us.

Ah OK. It wasn't clear from your earlier post that you were quoting from a third party. Either way, the point still stands. To be fair, we don't know that. The difference is that it appears that the SME quoted by @Phil B were happy to accept the terms offered by LEGO whereas HA Bricks did not, probably because of differences in the two businesses' offerings, and that LEGO refused compromises offered in return, creating an impasse that lead to legal action. Chinese courts are notorious for ruling in favour of their own indigenous producers, even where copying has been blatant. Ask virtually any brand about it.

I do understand the strength of feeling about this, but I do fear we're at risk of slipping into hysteria. We've had a couple of very informative contributions from @Phil B in this thread today, which I feel give a very balanced view from the perspective of someone who has been in a broadly similar position to HA Bricks and can explain a bit more why this is (or at least may be) happening. I also wonder whether we are overstating the importance that we as a community really have to LEGO. The argument that retailers like HA Bricks are helping LEGO to grow the hobby is unlikely to hold much water given that we are a niche within a niche, even within the AFOL community which makes up only a fraction of their customer base. They neither need us in this capacity nor will they miss us if we turn our backs on them. But even if the contention were true, does that really give carte blanche for folk to infringe on registered trademarks or other legal rights, especially when, as @Phil B demonstrates, there is a way to navigate through this issue without ending up in court. And why shouldn't LEGO, like every other brand, exercise it's right to legal protection of it's property, whether physical or intellectual? Like most of us here, I am not privy to the full chronology of this, but I doubt that this situation went from zero to court action immediately without some other discussions and whatnot in the interim.

I find it extremely disappointing that a matter such as this has found it's way into the courts and may threaten the future of a trusted retailer. That said, I'm not sure that I completely agree with @JopieK's views on the matter. I've had a few Technic bricks with bearings inserted bought from a different retailer crack and fail, but as a consumer I understand that this modification is outside of what LEGO expect to happen with their product and over-stresses the part causing such failures to become more likely. I also understand that modifications such as this (or cutting, gluing, painting, etc, etc) voids any warranty that I may have regarding the part with LEGO themselves and, as such, the risk of part failure falls onto me. Also, what I choose to do with LEGO parts as an individual in the privacy of my own home to achieve certain results is my own business and not something that LEGO has any say over. To me this seems to be a question over reputation. HA Bricks make it clear that these are LEGO parts, including customised and altered items, to differentiate themselves from the clone makers, thereby ensuring that customers can be reassured about the quality of the finished product. Clearly this must be fine as there are other retailers doing the same or similar things, including customising parts (unless we're going to find out about other retailers being pursued through the courts as time progresses). However, by doing this HA Bricks is invoking LEGO's reputation for quality and riding piggyback on it. It seem to just comes down to the bearing part, which LEGO are worried about failing and the potential for reputational damage as a result. I guess the point that LEGO's lawyers are essentially trying to make is that you can't be invoking LEGO's reputation for quality while at the same time selling a part that has been modified in such a way that would make failure of the part more likely without it having some impact on LEGO themselves. While those of us within the AFOL train community may be aware of the risk of the part failing and give allowances, this may not necessarily be the case in the wider population, hence a concern regarding reputation. I'd feel fairly sure that if the bearing part had been a custom part rather than a modified one, whether printed or molded with the bearing, this would not have caused LEGO the same concerns. As such, I'm not so sure that it's a crusade against the train community but rather just a specific problem that just happens to affect the train community in particular. All that said, I do hope that an amicable solution can be reached. It does seem from what's been posted that this is something that probably was being discussed before the courts got involved which presumably didn't meet both parties' needs. But I do have to confess that there is a little detail that does worry me. If HA Bricks has already offered to remove the offending part once and this has been turned down, taking the matter to the courts does sound punitive. HA Bricks are not the only retailer selling parts like this and may not be the only ones coming under scrutiny, but maybe there are aspects of European law that make HA Bricks more vulnerable to this kind of action. Maybe we ought to be going back to LEGO as a community and pointing out the potential for reputational damage as a consequence of bricks cracking in normal usage, as highlighted by @Imanol. Just a thought.

I like that. If I had to make any criticism it would be that I would have liked some detail on the roof, such as the exhaust ports and cooling fan. As for livery, I have a weak spot for the Railfreight triple grey but in truth it's a very deep well that you can draw from, including post-privatisation "specials".

Thanks for the input so far. I'm unsure that any of the options so far are likely to be practical but I do appreciate your thoughts.

I have used bogies of this size and design with some success on my CIE CC1 locomotive, and that can run on R40 curves (Click - Loco appears about halfway through). I used 14L Technic bricks (#32018) the same as the design you downloaded and had blind wheels on stub axles in the middle. For these, I used a round plate with a cross hole (#4032) and a round tile with hole (#15535) on a 2L Technic axle (#32062) to allow for free rotation, as these wheels are not driven. This gets around the need to leave space for a sliding axle to move from side to side in the bogie and the side frames and also allows space for a drive shaft to pass down the middle of the bogie to link the first and third axles for drive through bevel gears. How you power the loco will depend on what sort of performance you want. The fastest motor is the train motor followed by the Technic M, L and then XL as the slowest. You can always gear the Technic motors up for a bit more speed, but that will require some space inside the loco or bogies to accommodate it. If you're feeling very brave you can still use the train motor with Technic bogies to get the look and speed you want, but it's not an easy technique. Basically you would need to mount the train motor on it's side inside the body of the loco and use one of it's axle holes as your bogie pivot and drive input, but that requires careful placement to ensure that the axle hole is central and exactly where you want it. I think most builders would recommend that you put the couplers on the bogies and not the body due to the large amount of movement possible between vehicles. I know that I would. I always design digitally first and then build once I am happy with how everything fits. It helps to keep the costs low because you only buy the parts you actually need rather than needing to have loads of extras that may not be used. This may not be an issue if you have loads of parts already, but I don't have that luxury. Ultimately it's up to you to find what works best for you. Just be a bit careful with Stud.io as it can allow some overlap between parts before flagging a collision.

I'm at an advanced stage in with a MOC and have reached a point that I can put off no longer, and I wanted to ask the community for your thoughts/advice about how to proceed. Basically I am building something historical which has markings that are fairly obvious features. Normally I would design and print my own stickers at home to apply to the model, but there is a complicating factor in this instance. The problem is that to get the shapes that I need I have had to use studded parts where some of the markings appear, specifically wedge plates, which are not going to be compatible with stickers. I had considered approaching a printer to see if it was possible to print onto studded parts, but I am presuming that it's not the sort of thing that they could do otherwise we would have seen it done already. So, short of waiting for LEGO to introduce wedge tiles in the necessary shapes and colours (which I fear is going to be akin to waiting for hell to freeze over), I see only two options. I could keep the purity of the shape (which I would prefer) and ignore the markings altogether (which would leave the model looking incomplete) or I could compromise on the shape by replacing the studded parts with tiles so that I can apply stickers. My question to you, therefore, is what would you do? Or is there some third way that is worth considering?

I'm not sure that I completely discounted the manufacturing process as the cause, although I was unaware of the issues caused by changes to the molding processes as described. I just couldn't see any other plausible explanation once misuse was ruled out. But now that we can see that this cracking has affected many others, I think we can see where the issues come from. Given that your bricks were new and cracked almost immediately rather than as a result of degrading over time, I would still recommend that you take a full inventory of damaged parts and complain to LEGO, especially for those parts that came directly from them, asking for replacements. Just to say that I think you've got yourself a great looking consist there now. All that hard work has really paid off. Congratulations!!

I did this with a BR Ventilated Van body that also has angled side supports. It's just a 1x6 tile on a jumper plate and turned against the cant rail to give the angle I wanted.

I've been giving this a lot of thought over the last week or so, and what I don't want to do is seem like I'm discouraging you because I think you've got some really good ideas. Wheels are already an in-demand item, and I'm sure that there will be really good demand for new designs and/or sizes that have not yet been done. I also like the idea of the Bracers, as I sometimes end up with little gaps that are half a plate high where a part like this would be very helpful. What I'm a little less sure about are some of the curved parts. They seem very specific and may not be easily used by other builders. If their purpose is to help give you a rounder boiler than can currently be achieved with official LEGO bricks, then the radius of that boiler is going to be dictated by the parts you produce. While they may be suitable for the model you are designing, this may not be the case for others. You could end up having to design a lot of different parts in different radii to cater for the range of boilers that builders may be trying to replicate. The specificity of these parts also give me a little disquiet, and for this paragraph I need to be entirely clear because I don't want to be misinterpreted. I have no issue whatsoever with 3rd party parts where the purpose is to provide something that is otherwise impossible to achieve using official parts; by which I mean things like wheels, controllers, decals/stickers, etc, and have spoken-up in defence of their use. Heck, these are things that I have done myself so I couldn't really say anything against them. Where I start to get a little uneasy is where new parts are provided simply to give a shortcut to a better result than can be otherwise achieved. I have said many times that, for me, the process of designing in LEGO is a quest to find the least worst solution to represent what we're trying to achieve while keeping in mind that it is never going to look exactly like the real thing. I want to be clear when I say that I know that you are not doing this, but I feel that there is a line somewhere that some day may be transgressed where a designer offers a box of specific interlocking parts that together build up into a perfect LNER A4 Pacific (for example) and nothing else, and when that happens can we really say that it's a LEGO train. As I said, I really don't want to be discouraging because you've got some great ideas. These are only my own thoughts that no-one is bound to agree with. If it comes to making a start with the business side of it, I think that the Bracers in different sizes and colours could be a real winner as they are very usable part that is not limited to train building. I will wait to see how things develop and wish you every success. And now I'm going to go and hide in a cupboard.

That seems to be the accepted explanation... ... and yet, BuWizz...? And there's the rub. It's waaaay too big for most things. So it's looking increasingly like I'm going to have to go down the route of creating some manner of hybrid system or go further yet with 3rd party motors and/or connectors. Any feedback on alternative products from suppliers such as Green Gecko?

That's all very true, but the contest part of OcTRAINber always seemed to run fairly smoothly (or at least that's how it appeared from the outside). It's just the prize-giving that seems to have been where it came unstuck, with many people still waiting for items that were promised over several years. It might have been better if they'd taken a similar approach to the Brick Train Awards where the prizes come in the form of credit with the sponsors to be spent on their products. That way all that would be required is an exchange of emails and there would have been none of the complication of shipping things around the world. Ah well. C'est la vie.

Yes absolutely, which is why I'm not looking to them for an answer. Which brings me back to my starting point, which is why are the other manufacturers persisting with PF sockets and not kept up with PU, because it's pushing me towards further 3rd party involvement on the motor front in order to preserve compatibility. That's the main one, as using the train motor does get around all the additional space needed to gear a Technic motor up to the necessary speed.

Apologies if I've been unclear. Controller = Hub. So SBrick, PFx Brick and so on. The PU app is actually not too bad (although it is far from perfect and does have some rather annoying features) and can be useful in accessing some of the features that PU offers that you don't seem to be able to get by using the remote, but the hub itself is the limiting factor because of the number of outputs. The use case is a fairly common one; that being a train with one or two motors and controllable lights. PFx Brick looks like the best option in terms of features and value, but it still has PF rather than PU sockets.

I have to confess that I am a little disappointed that more makers of 3rd party controllers haven't gone with the change from Power Functions (PF) to Powered Up! (PU). As it stands, it seems that the only option is the frighteningly expensive, but no doubt excellent, BuWizz 3.0, but that seems like overkill for most train models. I am aware that the PU plug/socket are TLG proprietary designs which may be holding some developers back, but that doesn't seem to be stopping BuWizz. So why the inertia from other manufacturers? Looking to the future, it seems that the most realistic option would be to source 3rd party motors that continue to follow the PF design philosophy, in conjunction with the existing designs of controllers. The official PU hub, with it's two input/outputs, is limited in terms of it's usefulness, but PU allows for motor functions that have been proven to be very desirable. I know that many here are confident enough to take the DIY route with great success, but not everyone here has that level of ability to make that a realistic option. For folk like me who could probably crimp a bespoke connector but not much more, plug-and-play is still a valuable route, but one that is starting to look a little bit precarious. I'm not so bothered about why we find ourselves in this situation, but as a builder I am starting to find that the decisions around power and control are starting to get increasingly complicated when before it was a more straightforward choice. I am not averse to 3rd party elements, although obviously I would like to be at least fairly sure of the quality that I am buying before parting with my hard-earned. Thoughts...?

Thanks for testing the idea.

Part of the joy of designing our own things is that we don't have to stick to the rules and can do things in the way we want. I have made extensive use of stuffing studs into Technic pin holes and have never had a part break or show signs of excessive stress. It's a very effective technique which gets around this problem easily, and it's what I would use for the S-449. Besides, if you're worried about breaking the rules, the diagonal top link in my bogie design is probably illegal too. I appreciate that you want the windows to be as secure as possible, but I'd be inclined not to worry too much. The windows in my railcar are done in long strips that are only secured at the ends, but because I know that makes them fragile I am careful about how I pick the train up and handle it. Another option for locking parts together without studs that I have found (although not yet tried) is to use 1x1 cheese slopes.

@zephyr1934 I see an opening for a new sticker.

Thanks for posting these images of the underside of the car. Are there any linkages or mechanism to connect the outer and inner axles hidden within the coach or do all parts move independently of each other? If you have omitted some sort of linkage you will have all sorts of issues when you run the car for real. Although I can see how the axles take the shape of an R40 curve all by themselves, you will still need something to bring all the axles back into line again for the straights. The problem is that a LEGO axle on it's own will not simply follow the shape of LEGO track and needs to be steered, otherwise it will do whatever it wants (usually turning itself across the tracks) which will cause friction and derailments. Trust me on this, as I spent a lot of time looking into this a few years ago. As your car has three axles and not just two, you can make a mechanism that should work quite effectively by using the centre axle to steer the outer axles into curves as well as bringing everything back to the centre on the straights. I strongly recommend you have a look at @jtlan's Umbauwagen 3yg design and see if you can replicate something like his solution into your car so that you and your customers are not disappointed with the running qualities of your design.

I've sent you a PM.

I fear that I must take issue with your history, as the "land cruise" that you talk about has been running in one form or another since the mid-1970s, even overlapping with the last of the "official" scheduled Orient Express workings, and the popular Venice-Simplon Orient Express has been running continuously since the 1980s. It's only that the official Orient Express brand is about to have yet another relaunch at the hands of the latest owners (Accor Hotels and French national rail operator SNCF). That said, the rolling stock used in the new service will include a decent number of refurbished historic vehicles from the defunct Nostalgie Istanbul Orient Express which themselves date back to the 1920s and 30s and will look very like the ones included in the LEGO set, as does the rolling stock used by the Venice-Simplon Orient Express. As such, it means that a builder has plenty of options to decide what period to build in from the century since these vehicles were constructed, and what sort of motive power to pair with their coaches. I think that offers a good degree of flexibility by not pinning us down to one iteration or another. Speaking for myself, like you I'm not unhappy with the set as, like all LEGO sets, it provides a good starting point and has already sparked a lot of complementary designs for both locos and stock. The only thing that irritates slightly is that the Orient Express is a European icon and some of the designs I've been seeing, although excellent in their own ways, appear to be a little bit too Americanised to my eyes.

All sets merely provide a starting point for folk to take different directions, whether static display or motorisation. The hollow tender is not necessarily a smoking gun, though. It’s a jolly convenient size/shape for sure, but you wouldn’t expect LEGO to fill the void up for no purpose.

The description also says that the outer wheels are on a pivot, the nature of which I was enquiring about.

Techbrick do sell at least some parts as separate items, although their stock level doesn’t seem great at the moment. Kits are good value, though. You get a rechargeable Bluetooth hub, two motors and cables, plus all the bits to make a little tracked tank for 35 quid, which isn’t bad. I’d just be inclined to buy more kits for any extra parts.