Daedalus304

So I recently ordered a set of 8 small wheels from BBB (Wonderful wheels, nice guy!) and when I got them I discovered he threw in a couple clear small wheels for free. I was delighted and very intrigued to see them, to be sure, but now I've found myself wondering what to use them for. My best ideas so far include perhaps use as windows couple with a couple 1x4 arch bricks, and in fashion more distinctly related to trains I thought perhaps they could be used as just and extra, discreet pair of wheels on a model that needs them functionally, but not so much aesthetically. It seems reasonable to think they're being offered and sold due to at least some level of demand, and I really would love to put them to good use; So here I pose my question out to the creative and knowledgeable people who pass by the Train Tech Forum: What do you use the Clear wheels for? What interesting uses have you perhaps seen other people find for them?

This was the solution picture I messaged to Zephyr - with some creative guidance from LT12V's amazing model helping with the stand-in gear. It's kind of funny seeing the answer, because that 3x3 liftarm was actually my first approach that I scrapped because I was unsure if it would clear the rails; I supposed I should have tested it. This gear idea came next, with the gear on the wheel axle slide into the frame a little and the eccentric gear slide into the recess on the driver a little. That helps keep them connected more sturdily and also keeps the axles from sliding. The design BMW and Duq crossed my mind after during a disappointed tangent about my liftarm idea not working out (should. have. checked. :P ), and then I hopped on here and saw it posted. It's really kind of amazing to see how many different viable methods there are for building a valve gear eccentric - I think this competition is likely going to be the push we finally needed to standardize it (Although I think the real catching point is when we find a way to do it without any modified parts - us purists can be stubborn!). In the meantime I'm going to be hunting down my old technic pin/clips that have broken or worn out clip ends, I don't care for modifying parts but if it's broken anyways I may as well find a better use for them...

I've been considering an outdoor railway for quite some time, but as keiran suggested the durability of the rails has given me some worry. Here in Arizona the summer temperatures can hit 118F and stay there all day - easily. I'd love to hear how the experiments turn out - do be sure to share. One other option that's presented itself is ME Models Rails and the new BBB Rails - as I believe the metal rails will hold up much much better, and replacing only the sleepers once in a while isn't as big of an investment loss as a full rail system. Although I am finding myself concerned about the effects of 125 degree metal rails will have on the plastic drivers - perhaps "Arizona" and "Outdoor railway" just aren't compatible ideas. (Some may rightfully argue that "Arizona" and "outdoor anything" aren't either, but I digress).

Thanks! I quite like tank engines myself, and building these two GWR tank engines was quite a lot of fun. I did a quick Google search and you were right - London Transport seems to have had several red GWR locomotives. I have always like my 1400 in red but now knowing that there really were some red ones is kind of nice for an accuracy stickler like myself!

I think it'd be great if LEGO had another engine set like the Emerald Night; have one engine and a car for it to pull. It'd be especially cool (IMO) if the car was styled and coloured the same as the coach that came with the EN - they could keep releasing engine/coach sets and we'd end up with pretty well diversified rolling stock. If they do a series of matching engines/coaches like that they could still keep their SKU low while still delivering a good train variety with a high quality design.

There is a program called "LDD Manager" made by Superkalle that can get you a complete parts list and even export it to Bricklink as a wanted list. It's a great program I've considered pretty much essential as it really streamlines the process between designing and ordering. Here's a handy link! Nice engine, by the way!

Hello! I have to say I feel a bit excited that someone was inspired by my 4-4-0, I'm glad you liked it! I like the colours and cab windows on your engine, and the tender is nice too! I'm curious what you're going to use to connect your coupling rods to the pistons, as it looks like you'll need at least 9 studs of length to reach. I don't know if you're ever going to build the engine with actual bricks, but after a lot of testing and especially after running it at the Phoenix Comicon for 3 days I learned quite a bit about how engines of this design like to run; and if you're interested I'd be willing to provide pointers! Thank you for citing my name as an inspiration, though I realize that you've changed a lot of the techniques my first reaction is always to see the things that my brain thinks of as "mine" (Admittedly I'm a bit biased! ), and seeing a throwback was nice. I'd love to see what sort of cars you put together for it to pull!

I actually used this method to power my 5700 MOC for quite a while. It does work and depending on the engine it's really not too hard to disguise it, your biggest problem would be that the axles are a fixed distance apart and that you have that bogie pin on top. The only problem I ran into was that eventually my motor started acting funny after a while and would slow down until it just stopped as if it was overheating, when it wasn't close. I haven't gotten more motors to do any testing on it so it could have just been a faulty motor or a casualty of me being very much in a learning stage of train design at the time; or it really could have just been that the larger wheels made it a bit too much work and burnt my motor out. Up until then though it worked quite well, and it is something that I'm going to try to revisit someday concept wise. Edited with new info! Ok, I did a slight re-build of my 4-4-0 American engine to run off the 88002 so I could play around with this a bit more, and I've got some much better information now. Basically what you run into is a torque problem. The 88002 with Steam Drivers runs pretty dang fast, enough (as alluded to by Cwetqo) to run it right off the rails. Running just my 4-4-0, a empty maersk flatbed with the IR receiver and battery box, and a simple caboose has the engine run well enough. It doesn't really make it through corners until about setting 3, and hits a great stride around 4-5, 6 is really fast and 7 faster (Though it seemed to make it through corners fine). So just a quick tally for the load: Engine+Tender (Both very light as far as steamers go, less than 300 parts overall) 1 "PF Necessity car" (Simple flatbed with nothing more than what was needed) 1 Caboose However, I tried then adding one single Emerald Night coach to the mix and got a much different result. The engine flat out wouldn't want to make it through a full U-turn until around power level 5-7. Power level 7 with the added car gave me the same speed as Level 4 had without it. It was a strong and flat-as-day difference, and I'm truly not sure if it would have gone well at all if I had added just a single more car to the mix. After this, I'm probably not actually going to keep my engine powered in this fashion as I want my 4-4-0 to pull longer trains. Short line engines or anything else you'd want to run fast but with a low load, I'd say definitely go for the 88002 motor since it's relatively easy and nice and fast. I think my last motor's damage was most likely a result of trying to run the steam driver/88002 combination with too many cars; which definitely says that you'd need to be careful to avoid overtaxing the motor. I hope this was helpful!

And here I thought I was the only one! I had heard about Star Wars growing up but didn't see it for a while, but then in my 1999 LEGO magazine started featuring that first wave of Star Wars sets - and they were awesome. I read the LEGO Star Wars comics (With the LEGO Maniac) in those magazines countless times, and eventually got myself the X-Wing,Snowspeeder, and Speeder Bikes. I became obsessed with what little Star Wars I had access to; countless MOCs all over. It wasn't until Phantom Menace came out that I actually got to go see a Star Wars movie, and for 9-years old me it was the coolest ever. Shortly after I watched the original trilogy that just sort of started the whole thing. I'm sure I would have seen the movies eventually without LEGO, but I'm also sure that it was LEGO that inspired my passion for it with their great sets. The original 7140 X-Wing will always be one of my favorite sets; and it held up surprisingly well as the best official minifig X-wing until the new 9493.

Thank you everyone! :D It makes me happy to see people like my engines. A GWR "Toad" brakevan has been in my train-car building que for far too long now! I quite agree, perhaps after my latest engine is completed I'll actually build one. The fact that "Red" is the same type of engine as Oliver pretty much seals the deal, though - it simply has to happen!

I'm glad you all seem to like it! Of all my trains so far, this Columbian was probably the one whose build went the fastest - although the gearing did have a bit of tweak time to get it right. I am very fond of short little saddle tank engines so this lil' guy was right up that alley! Truth be told, after posting it I've been considering doing some more work on it so perhaps I'll have to update this topic at some future date with new pictures. It does make a good companion to the EN, it's not as strong and doesn't have as much tractive effort but it did end up being nice as a paired shunter. Other than the pistons, it would be quite easy to convert/build it as a 6 wide locomotive, but I went for 8 for two reasons. The first one being that a 6wide cab would be just thinner than the saddle tank, and the other being that the rest of my locos are 8 wide. That said, if you would like, I can build a 6-wide variation of it for you digitally in Lego Digital Designer (I have to admit, being that close to being your favourite train feels like a bit of an honor!), that way you could try to build it if you so wished. To answer your question, this engine is so tiny that it was a bit difficult just to get the motor and gearing hidden in there! It was designed to work with a pull-along car holding the battery and IR receiver (The hole in the rear of the tender is actually for the cords to travel through!). It may be possible to tweak the design to cram the IR receiver in there as well, although as I had two other engines that used the same battery/receiver car it just made sense to save resources.

I've been saving the pins/sprues since I first got some track since I noticed they could still fit into clips and such; but I never actually knew what to use them for until I needed a 5L bar for my pistons. Certainly glad I held onto those! And no, it's not powered at all. The body of the loco is so small that there really was no room or way to fit any sort of motor in there without stuffing it into the cab, so it's just a push engine. That was one of the big reasons I tried to bring down the running friction as much as I could.

Thanks everybody for your comments, I very much appreciate it! I'm very glad to see that you all like the piston design! Plenty of the building techniques were the result of "Eureka!" moments when I was pondering build problems at work. I'd been on the fence regarding the windows myself, however the cabin floor is actually a little lower than the red walls would make it seem so as to help line it up better with the tender, and my particular 4-4-0 reference picture did have rather large windows. I'll probably tinker with some smaller windows though and see how it goes, it should be easy enough! Thanks for the suggestion!

Hello again! This engine is one of my personal favorites that I've built, although the part count is lower and the build looks deceptively simple. Built with a lot of the same parts as two combined Toy Story engines, I'm aware that there are visually quite a lot of stylistic similarities. However, a closer look reveals that that's about where it ends as it's been entirely redesigned. (A big part of the reason I consider it a MOC and not a MOD or "kit bash". The wheels on the front truck are a bit larger than I would have preferred, although the lack of tiny red wheels plus my choice of articulation ended up making me decide to stick with the red wheels. The piston design is one that I've quickly grown attached to, after finding myself wondering one day if the 4L bars would fit into the bottoms of these cylinders. Turns out they fit perfectly, and taking that combined with track sprues and Tony Sava's awesome awesome idea to use the Minifig wrenches (As he did on his American engine). The result is a nice looking piston with almost no friction, and it's certainly one of the aspects I'm most proud of. The problem of how to attach the dome and bell was another one of my big challenges, as I was set on a properly rounded boiler and didn't want holes or gaps in the boiler itself. Looking at my reference picture presented a solution however, and the handrails came to save the day. There is a minimal gap which is virtually invisible from any angle other than this one, but it keeps the boiler visually intact and gap-less. The smokestack went through several revisions, as did the headlamp, but in the end I found a satisfying solution to the smokestack and I decided that a slightly modified versionof the TST's headlamp felt suitable enough. I removed a piston here to help highlight the method of articulation, which also went through a lot of revisions. It has more than enough swing to clear the pistons through any corners, and it's actually built so that the front truck is a plate lower than the rear wheels; which was deliberate for several reasons but mostly due to the engine's very low weight. In the end though, the engine runs very smoothly across any track combination and rolls so easily that any degree of incline sends it running off. The tender is very simple, but I tried to make it similar to the reference picture as much as I could. To be honest I'm not sure what the slope-y bit in front of the tender's water tank is for, but it was in my reference picture and added some visual interest so I added and kept it around. The part count for the engine overall is under 300 pieces, and it was first real foray into learning articulation. In the end though, I couldn't be more happy with how smoothly it rolls and I'm very pleased with a number of the building techniques. This year I'll be displaying my engines at the Phoenix Comicon with the CactusBrick LUG, this engine is the one I'm going to be running most of the display; though most of my engines will be there. From that I should be able to get some running videos. That's all for today! My latest engine is holding on a very slow bricklink seller, but it should be posted soon.

Thank you! Someday I may try to put together an LXF file in case anyone wants to try to mod theirs like this. Modifying the carriages is definitely on my future to-do list, although after seeing those pictures I'm fairly certain I want them 7-wide now (I'd been at odds trying to figure out what scale for the cars). I'm not sure how I missed that other engine, it looks nice with the dark red on it; although it's visually more different than I was shooting for. I too have been eyeing Sava's Garret engine, perhaps someday soon I'll have that alongside the EN.

Hello again everyone! This engine brings me about halfway up to speed on posting my train MOCs, only two more to go! (And one of them needs finishing...) Today I bring yet another relatively simple engine, a 2-4-2 saddletank locomotive. After my 8-wide Emerald Night I had plenty of leftover parts and wheels, and from what I had I knew I'd wanted to try and build a saddle tank. I did a lot of google searching to try and find inspiration and eventually stumbled on a site highlighting 3 logging engines similar to what i was looking to build. (I have since lost the site, I'll try to find it if anyone's interested) This engine isn't specifically based off of any of them, but much like the EN is more based on the spirit of several engines this one is also more "inspired by" than "a replica of". Less ado with words, more pictures! I used the same basic piston design as the EN, as I had it in mind to build the engines as a complimentary pair. This engine is powered by one Power Functions M-Motor, which is geared down to the front (blind) drivers which power the flanged wheel via the connecting rods. I had a lot of worries about it's power capabilities since it essentially running off two drivers and doesn't carry the battery box on board, but was pleasantly surprised to discover that this little engine was powerful enough to pull a decent 5 cars (one of which carried a battery box and IR receiver, a heavy car for sure) The engines this was based off of were wood-burning logging engines, and it was easy enough to build that. I have since decided that this engine will probably be working primarily in a forest area, if and when I get around to making an actual layout. An unfortunately sparse cab, due both to not knowing how to work around the M-motor and being all around bad at cab details. This is the section I'm planning on revisiting sometime after my current project. Size comparison with the 8-wide EN (Minus the tender, that wouldn't fit on my photo table). I hope you've enjoyed looking at my "Columbian", as I hope you enjoy all my engines. This week I'm posting about a year's worth of work and it really has been a learning process the whole way; and I hope the progress shows! I've only got two more engines to post, in a day or two I shall post a 4-4-0 American engine and after an incoming Bricklink order (and some running gear tinkering I'm sure), my latest project which really pushed my limits! Comments, questions, criticisms and suggestions are more than welcome! Good day to you all!

Hello all! The next train I'm posting this week is my 8-wide Emerald Night! The Emerald Night is one of my favorite LEGO sets, and in my opinion one of the most beautiful engines TLG's released. However, even though it's a larger engine it was starting to look a bit small in comparison to my 8-wide MOCs; and that had to change. Looking around the internet, I was unable to find any 8-wide Emerald Nights, so although it's a MOD I figured I would share it anyways. My goal with this model was to keep the spirit and design as in-tact as I could, same amount of wheels, same piston design, I wanted it to be easily identifiable as an Emerald Night. So the things on the my modification/construction agenda were as follows: The boiler needed to be as close to fully "round" as I could manage (The original was a bit off-shape), I wanted to add a more prominent running board over the wheels AND I wanted it to sit a plate lower, plus I wanted there to be an accurate light gap between the boiler and the floor below. And last, but not least, that teeny tender needed to be expanded. Gallery, once moderated. For the most part I was able to build it by combining two engines, although I did need a couple extras. It took me probably 5 or 6 iterations before i settled on a design I really liked. Just looking at the 8-wide may not show many appreciable differences, although my 8-wide EN dwarfs an unmodified one with the extra bulk. There were plenty of extra parts leftover, enough for me to construct another engine which I shall also post shortly. I hope you all like the engine! Any comments or criticisms are welcome!

Thank you all for your kind words! I'm glad to hear that you like the red, I guess I failed to mention that though it's not the "proper" GWR livery I do still quite like it in red.

Hello PeteM! I have not personally tried running PF on 12v track but from everything I've seen and heard, your Maersk engine should run problem-free.

Hello everyone! It has been a long time since I posted a MOC (Mostly due to not having time to photograph them, I've been going a bit crazy with actually building them!), but hopefully this week I can get all caught up! My engines are a bit dusty, AZ is a dusty place and again, these have been made for a while now. Today I bring sort of a "sequel" model to my previous GWR 5700, in that they're both built in the same general style and to scale with the drivers. This does mean that they are not perfectly to scale with each other, however it was a scale I felt I could best capture the nuances of their shapes. One last thing I want to address before I post a picture is the colour: The engine is red. Ideally it would have been green, or black. However green wasn't possible for me due to both costs and part rarity; and I ended up not wanting black due to the fact that, well, you can only have so many black engines before you get colour-bored! So my "LRTS" 1400 is red. That said, onto the pictures! This engine is basically 90% SNOT above the running board. The most difficult part of the model for me was the integration of the boiler into the water tanks on the sides. I had a lot of very strict rules for myself, proportions had to be as close as I could get, and I did not want any unsightly gaps. Eventually I ended up being able to get these slopes to line up just right, and the fact that I had previously been insistent on a step on the front of the water tank helped hide the gap there. The original build actually was motorized by a pair of adjacent M-Motors hidden under the boiler and between the water tanks. While the strength of the system worked marvelously, it led to some structural and drive issues thanks to the trailing wheels articulation. The structural issues were overcome, however the center of gravity is between the 2nd and 3rd axle meaning that curves with even slight gradients sent the front wheels off the track. I ran a lot of experimentation with different builds and rubber bands, but it seemed to be an inescapable problem thanks to wheels and body shape. The current version is therefor unpowered, however it does roll very smoothly and a powered coach solves the motorization problem. I hope you all enjoyed my engine! I should hopefully be posting a few more within the near future!

Oddly enough it's not actually a 'problem', that is actually how the model was designed to work. I believe it's because R2 can go in a circle when he's driving backwards whereas when he drives forwards he can only go straight; if you change the 12 tooth gear in the front leg to the other side of the axle you can make him run straight by default, it's a simple enough mod. I always found that to be a pretty strange design eccentricity, honestly. Glad to hear you got such a good deal on it, I have a lot of happy memories with my old DDK.

It really depends on who you ask, I've noticed. In my experience, I find it better to introduce my "L-gauge train hobby" with pictures rather than words. Very few people I've met can appreciate LEGO trains as a legitimate model train gauge/medium without some persuasion. My soon-to-be grandfather-in-law (Gracious, that's a lot of hyphens) heard about my LEGO trains and seemed somewhat indignant about it at first; he'd grown up with one of those old Lionel sets as a boy. I suppose a lot of people still don't think much of LEGO past the basic blocks and techniques; and can't imagine anything built with LEGO can come close to the intricacies they ascribe to models. To finish the story, though, I did manage to change his opinion after a picture of two of my GWR 5700. Even with my love for LEGO aside, though, what always brings me back to LEGO trains is the challenge of the build. Getting to not only build but the design the engines themselves and then run them around the track feels like an accomplishment. There's a large amount of work that goes into each model and scene, every detail you have to craft yourself however you see fit from a limited parts choice. It's a constrained medium, sure, but it doesn't make them any less "real" models. People like SavaTheAggie I think really show what you can do in the medium, and whenever I feel like showing someone an amazing LEGO train to make a point I know exactly where to look.

For me it all started with Lego Digital Designer. I have always used LDD extensively in my MOC planning (As sorting by sets is really as far as my sorting has gone, pieces are a bit hard to just pick up and build with), but I started to get frustrated with the extremely limited part selection. So, being the investigator I am, I went to google to try and search for ways to increase my options. And that's when I found the LEGO Universe Mode topic on Eurobricks. At first, I didn't think about actually joining the forum, I'd found my information and that was good. But then a day or two later my curiosity started to get to me - a LEGO forum with enough inside information to know that? It implied a certain level of maturity to me I wouldn't have expected. So I came back, poked around, and I fell in love with what I found. Eurobricks has ended up being in my eyes the #1 resource for just about any and all LEGO information, it's also got one of the best online communities I've ever seen and all of the "big/core" members are great people. The amount of creativity and simply stunning things I've seen around these forums is inspiring; and the fact that there are not only other 20yr+, but also 30. 40, and even 50yr+ fans out there doing just what I'm doing is encouraging. Eurobricks is full of people, real people (Not just false, jerky internet personas); but more than that, artists, engineers, and dreamers. I can't think of any other forum I've been on that I can claim I'm proud to be a member of. To quote a certain tiger of lightning, "Keep on brickin'", Eurobricks, and don't ever change. Here's to another 20,000 members!

It could be the magnets aren't aligning quite right - it happens to me fairly often. Try rolling the last two cars (The ones without the motors) by hand and see how much effort it takes to get them apart. If they come apart fairly easy, pick them up and rotate them slowly until you hear a click/snap noise, that means the magnets have lined up. That's always solved my connection problems, so hopefully it'll work for you. I hope my explanation makes sense.

I actually built a model of that same 0-6-0 engine (Here, if interested), and one of my goals with it was to try and have it motorized. With these relatively smaller engines though, especially with the 5700's shape, it's just about impossible to find anywhere to put a XL motor. There are a few creative M-Motor solutions you could try instead (I did toy with vertically mounting an M-motor in the firebox/rear boiler area), but the M-Motor does have a weird shape you should be aware of. It's 6 studs long, 3 wide, and 3 tall. However, the attachment area at the bottom is the same as a 2 x 6 meaning you have an odd offset to work with. The solution I ended up going with was to use a PF train base, since it was just the right fit for the front two axles. However my motor did end up burning out, and I'm curious if that's because of torque issues thanks to the Emerald Night's Large Drivers I used. The PF train motor may be the easiest solution, though. The easiest solution really may be to just use a powered coach (A solution I've been eyeing more seriously lately), although the appeal of a powered engine really can't be easily argued away without good reason . If you do use an XL or M motor to power the engine though, you also need to consider the weight and balance of where you place it. It's not really a lot of things to keep track of, but in my limited train building experience it has proved fairly tricky. Best of luck to you in your building, can't wait to see whatever engine your efforts turn out!