Hod Carrier

Blimey!! Is that really on the track at all...?? Ha ha!! What a beast. Very sleek and menacing in black.

Thanks Zephyr. Never yet been moved to make the leap to 8-wide, but never say never. Photo paper does give a nice sheen, but the decision to give it a try was to achieve a crisper print finish compared to conventional paper labels. I did have a scout around to see if I had a felt tip in a close enough shade to colour the edges but sadly I didn't have any to hand. I'll have a look at the vinyl option and see how thin that is by comparison.

Thanks guys. I'm glad you're liking it. :o) I have got some narrow gauge curves from the Alien Mothership set, but they are very tight. I don't think there's enough bogie articulation for this train to take them. Besides, it's a high speed train so it's most often seen on long straights and gentle sweeping curves where it can get right up to top speed easily. ;o) Unfortunately the classic look of TGV family has split windscreens and pairs of light clusters. Er, well not really. I've just settled on 4-wide as being a nice scale for modelling that is large enough to convey some detail and correct proportions but small enough to display without taking up too much space and is economical on bricks. There wasn't ever any conscious decision to take advantage of LEGO narrow gauge track, mostly because of the length of the cars. I have tried to make a powered model at this scale (see here) but it wasn't entirely successful. There is an update to come on it, but that model is ultimately destined for the parts bin.

Hi Nemo: Thanks very much. I'm glad you like it. Not sure about your question. I might have misunderstood, but there are no curved rails in the photos.

It's been a little while since I posted up a new model as I've been busy with getting the house and garden straight. I've also needed to take a bit of a break from the headache that is the TRAXX. But fear not, for I have not been idle. After creating a couple of commuter trains I thought it was time to tackle something a bit sexier. Staying with the Dutch theme I decided to have a crack at the Thalys, and here is what I came up with. It's a Thalys PBA set in the original livery. At the moment it's very much truncated, but I do have additional cars ready on LDD awaiting parts ordering. However, I wanted to just check first how the build would go and make any alterations necessary before committing to buying the necessary parts. The model makes use of the dark red colour. I'm pleased I was able to stick with this colour although I knew it was a gamble because some parts may not have been available. As it turned out the only part I couldn't get was the profile brick used for the cooling grille on the side of the power cars, so unfortunately I've had to build the sides using plain bricks instead. Passenger doors are SNOTed to make them look like, um, doors rather than needing stickers. Jacobs bogie in the middle. I've improved the bogie design to make it more detailed and slightly slimmer than the ones used on the DD-VIRM or SLT. Of course, as the Thalys PBA is basically a TGV Reseau in different colours I thought I would see what else I could come up with. As you can see I think I went a bit mad. As well as the Thalys and TGV Reseau I made some tweaks to back-date the model to represent the original TGV Sud-Est sets. There's the classic orange and grey (desktop HE anyone...?), the newer TGV Lyria colour scheme and also a TGV Poste. I also scraped together acceptable trailers to make a TGV Reseau Duplex. A little more on my Flickr page if you like. A note on the stickers. As before I have made my own stickers using my desktop printer. However, unlike before when I used ordinary paper mailing labels I tried to use something a bit different to give a better finish. The power car logos are printed on photo paper and stuck on with double-sided tape while the trailer logos are printed onto clear mailing labels. I think that both are better than ordinary labels, but there is still room for improvement. The thickness of the photo paper leaves a white edge all around while the carrier film on the clear labels is textured and therefore still visible. I shall be changing all of these at some point for printed logos on self-adhesive vinyl once I have sourced some, and will also have another go at colour-matching the dark red. **EDIT** Syntax tidied up.

Your son is a very lucky boy. I hope he takes care of your creation because it's a beautiful engine you've built there. It's so nice to see something bright and colourful after so many austere looking black and grey engines. How did you colour match the foils? Did you need to order it specially or was the colour available from stock? Now you just have to build one for yourself with all the missing details added.

Not sure I'd go quite as far as that. LEGO has a point in that sets must sell otherwise they won't justify the investment. After all, they are there to make money and not to pander to our whims. 10000 votes seems like a lot, but it's nowhere near the same as 10000 sales. Ideas has thrown up a couple of really good original ideas, but the rest has just been derivative but highly saleable junk. I can't imagine that getting the rights for Sherlock would be any harder than getting the rights for Dr Who, but I just don't see that the two series share the same fanbase. The so-called "worth" of a MOC also seems to have little currency. Surely it's the idea they want, after all. In conclusion, I wouldn't say Ideas was a scam. However, clearly LEGO have their own criteria for picking winning ideas with the voting only being one part for gauging potential interest.

I'd be prepared to go so far as to speculate that no train will succeed on LEGO Ideas, although I'd happily be proved wrong. They are looking for original ideas and the trains theme seems to have been sufficiently well explored already that anything "new" is likely to be merely a variation on a theme. Look at the sets that have succeeded on Ideas. They are either truly original (e.g. birds or the ball maze) or are predictable derivative sets based around highly marketable and merchanisable themes (e.g. Dr Who, Ghostbusters and Big Bsng Theory). I'm probably just being an old cynic, but that's how things appear to me. By all means go for it and put something on LEGO Ideas if that's what you want to do, but be realistic in your expectations.

Nice!! The Class 20 diesel electrics on which these locos were based can still be seen in mainline operation in the UK, most often shuttling new London Underground trains between the factory in Derby, the test track and storage facility near Melton Mowbray and the London Underground depot at Neasden in West London, as well as in preservation. Your model unmistakably shows the original's roots and heritage. The only thing I would say is that the plinth could bear to be longer so that the loco itself doesn't overhang the ends so much. I appreciate that another track length will make it 50% longer, but you could mount the anniversary board directly to it and even display the prime mover outside and separate from the loco itself. Would love to see it in brick.

LEGO isn't really well suited to scale railway modelling, particularly, as has been pointed out, when it comes to minifigs. For me, the answer is not so much tied up with questions of scale but of proportion. Quite simply if it looks right it generally is. I don't think many people are going to notice that your MOCs are not quite on the correct gauge track.

Track end buffers are not meant to be hit with a train and wouldn't necessarily stop a train from overrunning the end of the track. You're meant to draw up to them slowly and stop short of them.

Phew!! I was worried that you were leaving us. I'm very happy that you plan to be with us for years to come.

Last project...??

That's fair enough. I also order the bulk of my brick needs from inside my own country. But sometimes ordering parts from overseas is the most cost-effective option, especially if they are rare or in rare colours, and so I do sometimes place small orders from Europe or the US and Canada. So far I've only had one order from overseas go missing (from a vendor in the Netherlands, strangely), and it's still likely that orders placed in your own country could fail to arrive. Frankly if it's just those two parts that you need, and you don't want to pay too much for them, I'd be inclined to place the order with an overseas vendor.

Seconded. The joy of Lego is that you can build whatever you can imagine in whatever size or style. There are only two real restrictions. The first is the gauge of genuine Lego track. If you want to have a train to go round and round you will need to build to that gauge. The second is lesser and self-imposed if you want to be limited by it. If you want to build cooperatively with other individuals or a group you will need to agree on things like size, gauge and style. However, you don't HAVE to be bound by these or any other conventions. You can do whatever YOU like. Another thing to consider is your own motivation. Are you more interested in designing and building trains, operating trains or a mixture of the two? If it's design and build that floats your boat, a better starting point might be to download Lego Digital Designer (LDD) and have a play with that rather than buying a set and following a set of instructions. This is the joy of Lego. There is more to the hobby than just one thing. Speaking personally I'm a design and build kind of guy and don't buy sets because that doesn't interest me. But I can see the joy of sets for those with different motivations.

Well the Class 04s were originally black, not green. So you could always build a back-story to explain the different colour. Something about broken doors and taking them off another loco in the old livery, perhaps. That's a lovely little engine. I've always had a soft spot for the 04s and their brothers the 03s.

Now that is lovely. Very nice indeed. Lots to see in a tiny space. Well done!!

Clever lad.

I'm loving all the positivity and support for this idea, and I'd like to add my own support too. However, I'd just like to inject a note of realism if I may. I hope that what I say is not going to be misinterpreted. I'm not qualified in such things, but this is effectively a business proposal and, as such, it needs to make business sense. Floating the idea here among a keen community is always going to get a positive reaction, but the market research needs to be more wide-reaching to gauge whether or not this support is enough to make such a project sustainable. As much as WE want it, I doubt this community alone could sustain it, both in terms of content and revenue. I wasn't part of the community at the time it happened but presumably Railbricks folded for a reason. Lack of exposure and quality of content doesn't appear to be the reason. But whatever it was simply rebooting Railbricks looks like it might have only limited appeal. However, content is an issue. As a community we're keen to share our work, techniques and show reviews for free on the Internet. As such, a successful magazine needs to compete with this and offer something truly different. I hope the idea works, though. But if it doesn't, what about a curated LEGO trains Flickr or YouTube channel where people can submit articles, photos and videos?

Interesting. And that's just with the tolerances between bricks? Or have I missed something?

That's a lovely little thing. Thanks for sharing. Sorry to be a pedant, but as a UK train driver I see these things most days at work. What you've modelled is an upper quadrant signal with a lower quadrant arm. With the way you've hinged the arm the red lens should be in-line with the signal arm with the green lens above it so that they move in turn in front of a lamp. You might like to add the white sighting bar near the end too. The reverse of the signal arm should be white with a black bar.

Nice to see some more 4-wide models. And they are charming too, even if the slightly oversized wheels do tend to distort the scale and appearance of the models. On that note, I'm not sure the smallest wheels are suitable for the locos. They are simply too small and I fear they will look worse. Have you thought of packaging them in sets with a circle of Indiana Jones/Alien Mothership track (no other play-ready track exists at this gauge) and maybe some structures or road vehicles? You also need some troublesome trucks to complete your fleet.

Great looking build!! It will be interesting to see how much grunt she's got once the tender is complete. Do you reckon she'd out-drag a PF loco? Just a quick observation about the wheel arrangement. The overhang for the firebox and cab looks big enough to go to 4-8-4 or even 4-10-2 (assuming there's space for another driver) if you wanted. I hadn't realised there was so much space back there until just now.

Thanks for the heads-up. I had the chance to download the updates but not to explore yet as I'm away for a few days. Just wondering if this will now work with Windows 10 on my laptop. I had to go back to Windows 7 because LDD seemed to be incompatible and wouldn't display correctly. Something to try over the weekend, I think.

Lovely little engine you've got there.