Hod Carrier

That's a fabulous build. Congratulations!! I know you say it's a scene from the 70s, but it could be from any period from the 60s onwards. There are locations just like this all over the UK and elsewhere too, I'm sure. Just a thought. You might consider adding a large door to the side of the workshop so that there's some way for your firm to get the raw materials/finished products to and from the siding.

Whoa!!! Don't give it to the Daleks!!!

Delightful!! A real visual treat. Congratulations for creating such a beautiful scene.

I think the answer to that is "yes", but I'm not sure precisely the purpose of the competition. Don't get me wrong I think it would be a fun thing to do, but if we're hoping to reinvigorate trains on LEGO Ideas then I fear we're going to be disappointed. Lets take the pressure off and make this just a bit of fun. There's nothing to stop anyone submitting their idea to LEGO if they wish, no matter what sort of reception it gets here.

Thank you. Much appreciated. :-)

Forgive me. This is not a personal attack, but... I'm not unpicking a 4x4 Rock Crawler (for example) in an attempt to find an LDD template for the L Motor when I have no idea where in the model I'm meant to be looking for it, what it looks like and which of the almost 1300 parts have been used to create it. Isn't life already adequately short...? Wouldn't it be simpler to have a thread where people can share templates for components not currently supported in LDD? It wouldn't need to be a long thread and would be a lot easier and friendlier to use.

Thanks for the reply. I thought it was the case but I wondered if it was hiding on some other menu I'd not discovered yet. Is there somewhere to report and request missing parts be added? Alternatively, does anyone have a brick-built dummy motor to use in LDD that they would be prepared to share? Many thanks.

That's useful. Thanks. :-)

Hello, Silly question, perhaps. I can't find the PF L Motor on LDD. The M and XL Motors are there together with one or two others, but no L Motor. What have I missed?

It's a three-vehicle set-up. One coach with the battery box and IR receiver sandwiched with two vehicles each containing an L Motor driving both axles. Clever stuff that makes my packaging of the TRAXX look amateurish. Total genius!! Er, OK. So inner curves on both the inside and outside of the curves. I'd love to know how he's built the points too. I understand that his layout is more of a minifig scale narrow gauge creation, but it's not so far from what I was hoping to manufacture too. Thanks man. :-)

That's an amazing set-up, but it's a little hard to see from the photos exactly what he's done with the track to compensate for the track geometry problems.

Hi Tony. I saw that from your photo, but unfortunately I would have to disassemble rather a lot to apply a wet lube, and that means there's a good chance of getting it where I don't want it. But thanks for the tip anyway. :-)

Hi Thorsten, Thanks for the tip. That sounds like a better idea for applying the coating than having to mask up all the areas I don't want to get contaminated. That's the real problem when you want to reduce the friction on a model that is held together entirely by, um, friction. Ha ha!!

Thanks for the tips so far. I wasn't thinking of using an oil based wet lube due to the risk of fouling other parts. The plan had been to treat the insides of the bearings with PTFE spray, which dries to leave a low-friction coating, and then reassemble the drivetrain. Have I got the wrong idea?

Chaps, Just wondering if anyone here has tried any of the various dry lubrication methods available to help reduce friction losses on their models. I'm sure I've seen graphite mentioned before, but I wondered whether anyone else has had success with other products such as silicone, Teflon or PTFE. I'm just considering using a PTFE spray lubricant on the drivetrain of my 4-wide TRAXX loco and on the stub axles of the coaches to help reduce losses due to friction. Obviously I'll need to carefully mask each part first to make sure that the spray only goes where I want it to go, but apart from that are there any other hazards I should be aware of? Ideally a wax based lubricant would be easier to apply but I'm not sure that such a thing exists. Any thoughts, ideas or experiences are welcomed.

Well, BBC presenter James May built a whole house out of LEGO and a Meccano motorbike that he was able to use to ride the Isle of Man TT circuit, so is it so fanciful to build a 2 foot gauge train entirely out of LEGO components...??

I'd hardly call it Government waste when construction of the site began in 1915 together with it's narrow gauge railway system which originally totalled 125 miles. It's had a century of use, first as a production facility for the manufacture of cordite and later as an ammunition storage facility. Besides, I can't see any photos showing rail stamped with a date more recent than 1995. Transportation of large quantities of volatile chemicals together with large weights of ammunition is best done by rail rather than road. For an internal rail system narrow gauge is perfectly acceptable as it can be run inside bunkers and other structures on-site.

Not sure that won't mess with the curve geometry.

Hello Klaus-Dieter, Naturally you're entitled to your opinion and I know that 4-wide won't be to everybody's tastes, but your summary is a bit bleak. There are some of us who have had some success at powered 4-wide modelling. As one of those, I'm quietly hopeful that there might be some innovation in the narrow gauge track system to look forward to, but we shall have to wait and see. My own feelings are that any Christmas train is likely to tend towards the "play" end of the spectrum, be small in size, even if it is 6-wide, and will actually be of limited interest to train fans. All the discussion about even medium-sized steam engines of any type strike me as being optimistic bordering on fanciful. Only time will tell.

Amen to that.

Did you manage to overcome the slipping issues? I'm interested to know more about your track system. Are you not using the narrow gauge "Indiana Jones" curves?

I still have some work to do on the traction issues, but I have completed the build with all the details added. There are more photos on my Flickr page as before, but here's a little taster. If I can overcome the traction problems I'm hoping that I can use this chassis as a basis of other locos, but at the present moment it's clothed as a TRAXX loco. Enjoy!!

More 4-wide excellence!! Congratulations. That's a lovely little loco.

Hi Guys!! Wow!! Thanks for the quick replies. :o) I'm keen to try the simple things first and am hoping to avoid the need to redesign the layout of the internal equipment if possible. Thanks for the links to Codefox's receiver, though. I shall be keeping that in mind. The loco wheels are on Technic axles, as per Space2310's design, and spin through 90 degree Technic cross blocks. Although they are not as good as the newer train wheel holder, I need the non-powered bogie on the loco to be of the same design so that the model is balanced. I'm sure it is a source of unwanted friction, but unfortunately there isn't really any way around that. I've already slackened off the various bushes on both bogies to make sure that the axles spin as freely as possible, and the loco has no trouble driving itself around the test track even without the added weight brick. The concern I have is not so much with these but the wheels and axles on the test train I was using, which are the small train wheel (PN: 50254) on the snap axles of a bearing plate (PN: 4600). Again, there really isn't any way to avoid using these because of the scale of the model and the gauge of the track. I have one or two ideas that I'm going to try which I hope will reduce friction on the axles of both loco and train in the hope of improving performance and see what results that yields. As this is my first powered model I wasn't aware that the LEGO traction tyres were such poor performers. What are people using in their place? Are we talking about the humble rubber band in an appropriate size or are there other O-rings that folk can recommend? Thanks again for your help. :o)

Hi B&B, Thanks for the ideas. :o) I'm not aware of the Codefox bluetooth receiver and can't seem to find anything quickly using the site search function. Can you help me? This might be the best option for creating space if it can fit inside one of the cabs rather than in the body of the loco. At the very least it might give me somewhere to put more ballast weight. I had a look at the 9V motor range. While the 4x4 motors have a small footprint they are rather tall at 3 1/3 bricks. The 5x4 motor has a lower profile at 2 1/3 bricks, but it's total dimensions are barely less than the PF M motor I'm currently using. There would be no problems using one motor, but squeezing a second one in there is surely impossible. The loco is already geared down by a fairly modest ratio of 1.5:1. If anything I was hoping that I could gear it UP a bit to give it some more speed (the first video I made shows it at full power). Although gearing the drive down further would give more traction it would make the model woefully slow. I did initially think about using a LiPo similar to those used in RC electric flight but, having done some research, I decided that it wasn't right for me. Besides, although they can be flat and long rather than short and boxy, they're not necessarily any smaller than a household battery. Plus the PP3 battery has an appreciable mass that I was hoping would aid traction. I'm stuck in a bit of a quandary. There is enough power there to haul a modest train if only I can eliminate the wheelspin. I think the problem can be overcome by adding more weight, but there will come a point where so much weight is added that it will sap the meagre power reserves simply trying to move it's own bulk. I did check the wheels on the SLT to make sure that they are free-running and not rubbing against anything before selecting it as a test train, but it does use small train wheels on snap axles which may not be ideal. They spin freely enough when there is no weight resting on them but maybe they bind once they are bearing the weight of a vehicle. Also the limited stock of track I possess has a serrated surface on top which presumably is meant to help give grip to the driven wheels of a loco but might actually be adding to the drag on the unpowered wheels of the train. Thoughts...??