Daedalus304

This is good news! I'll definitely try them out next time. :D By the way, does anyone know what size of o-rings to get for use as traction bands for the XXL drivers?

I guess he learned his "Don't steal things from other people" lesson just long enough to lose people's attention. Good to know that he's not just gone back to shamelessly stealing and profiting off other people's work, now he's throwing threats into the mix... Anyone still think this is just a naive misguided kid who doesn't understand that stealing is wrong?

It's an amazing model with superb details. I love the functional brakes, did the real locomotive's brake wheel stick up in the cab that way? Every time I see a build in this sort of scale I tip ever closer to trying to build a 1/35 Baldwin Mallet. I've a feeling it'll happen in 2020...

Oh, yep, that would very definitely do it. It's understandable to want to try the black pins though!

That is good, but it's not actually what quartering means. What you want to check is that the drive rod pins are at different positions on each side. If the driver's side Rod Pins are at 12 or 6 o' clock, the fireman's rod pins should be at either 3 or 9 o' clock. That is, they need to be One-Quarter rotation out of phase with each other. The problem you've described sounds quite a lot like the rods are not Quartered, and they're what's causing your lockup.

Oh, very cool! That could well have been an inspiration for Stephen Pakbaz's model, I don't know! But the "Pakbaz Shay" is a very important and unique evolution of LEGO Shays because he has a pivot point connecting the trucks directly to the locomotive frame, whereas in the one you shared the universal joints appear to be the only connection. While on they surface there are a lot of similarities, I'd argue that these similarities are a necessary by-product of dealing with LEGO, and the fact that the "Pakbaz Shay"'s locomotive frame is fundamentally different (Motorized, a proper frame-to-frame pivot instead of relying on the drive train, lower profile), I'd say that the "Pakbaz Shay" is a very unique model that absolutely re-defines and sets the standard for LEGO Shay locomotives going forward. There's, of course, no problem with anybody copying or modifying or building a version of their own - I just feel that, with a design this revolutionary, it's very important to make sure the credit is given to the proper builder for their contribution.

I would like to apologize real quick - I realize now that I completely neglected to comment on your work beyond trying to help correct the attribution. I tend to feel very strongly about situations where an artists work is mis-attributed to someone else, especially in situations where the modifier's re-distributions out-number and drown out the original work. I was not trying to blame you for this having happened! I apologize that it came across as though I was blaming you for that, and for the fact that in my tangent I did not actually comment on the focus of this thread (Your work!!) and now I realize I've been rude. So please forgive me for that. That out of the way, I'm actually really fascinated by your string of log cars and your crane. I've never before heard of having rails along the car for the crane to traverse to load them up - those logging railroads are were ingenious! But the way you've presented the detail for these rails in the cars is really cool, and the crane very well fits the part and looks like it could indeed roll across. Plus, the crane is a really good place to hide the battery box. Without the wires rendered, I would have hardly noticed it unless you'd said something.

The design was not Murdoch's, it was by Stephen Pakbaz as seen here Murdoch is indeed a very prolific modder of other people's work but very often people miss that the majority of the base model is often someone else's. It's an understandable mistake since usually the original author posts their work only once in a few places while the mods are reposted every few months in every LEGO group known to man. No offense to Murdoch, of course, since he does usually attribute the work to the original designer and is modding things to his liking, but I honestly recommend always going and seeing the original work since it tends to be more detailed and giving the original builder some of the attention seems only fair.

Very nice! It's really fun to see the evolution of your Zoo train and how it's come along, and I'm looking forward to seeing it in bricks! The Train Motor should definitely be strong enough but I do worry that your locomotive isn't heavy enough to provide good traction. You might want to see if you can fit one of these inside your boiler to help add some weight over the motor!

Well, using the PF system (And even PF Train motors) we can build to G-gauge track already. Tenderlok does so beautifully and I've been starting to look into it a little, too, and it feels like a surprisingly natural fit. Instead of looking for a motor, I think all we really would need is a power pickup system, if you're not wanting to do battery powered. And I've seen people use Kadee Couplers with LEGO already, too, so while it's not officially "LEGO" sanctioned, I think that we probably already can use most of those things. Using existing G-Gauge electronics with the LEGO system might be more complicated, but with things like BuWizz, S-Brick, and especially now the PFx Brick that supports light and sound effects, I'm not really sure we need too much of the traditional Model Rail electronic equipment. If you're going smaller down to O-Gauge, it gets more complicated to build with existing Lego parts (And the LEGO Train motor block, but not the rest of the PF motor suite, is out of the question), but we do have examples of that being possible such as that O-Gauge locomotive Zephyr just recently posted. For me personally, I looked into going outside the box a few months ago and looked into what G-Gauge model railroaders were using for their controls and sound systems and batteries and generally what I found is that those options are incredibly expensive and also incredibly feature-rich... with features that I honestly don't much care about. I'm going to give the PFx brick and it's associated add-ons a try and see how that goes for features.

It seems to me the drivers are about the size of the XXLs.

Very cool model, and fitting onto O-gauge track is even cooler. I'm definitely going to have to study what you've done! My grandfather-in-law has some old O-gauge track and I've long wanted to build him a LEGO Phoebe Snow Locomotive that can fit on the track he has. You've certainly proved to me the concept is very possible!

Camel back Locomotives were generally made that way because they needed an exceptionally large firebox that made fitting a cab in the usual spot unworkable. I believe in the Erie's case it was to work with a Anthracite Coal, which burned very differently. Why they sat the cab on top of the boiler instead of doing it more like a cab-foreward design I'm unsure of, but I imagine it was for safety concerns relating to accidents not smashing the driver.

If your connecting rods are sturdy (And quartered correctly!!), it shouldn't give you any trouble at all. I've got a 2-8-0 that runs with a single powered axle and it performs just fine. I can't say it seems to have diminished the pulling power in the slightest.

8-wide custom LEGO trains are pretty close in scale to O-gauge Lionel, and I think they look fine. Put a LEGO Minifig crew aboard and you should be fine. :D

While LEGO has done re-releases in the past, such as the Metroliner, they don't really do them as a business model. I don't think it's likely at all that the Emerald Night set will be re-released. There always is the chance that they'll do a new Creator Expert steam engine in the same vein as the Emerald Night, but LEGO's pretty reluctant with trains so I wouldn't hold my breath. AFAIK the Emerald Night sold very well - it's the only LEGO set I've ever bought 4 of. It's a very nice steam engine, for a LEGO set, and it is a pretty good introduction to a higher level of LEGO Train than the standard City fare. At $300 I personally would look into a custom build, but it's all down to what you want really.

Each and every thing on that list is super awesome to hear. I'm especially looking forward to the added O-rings options - I've definitely struggled with traction on my locos wearing BBB drivers. Injection molded XXLs are going to be great too. It's just great news all around. Thanks for the update, Ben!

Sorry for the double post, but this seemed like a good reason - This last weekend, I got some video of #2926 running at the Rails Along the Rio Grande 2018 train show, pulling my 5 new Streamlined Pullman passenger cars. And here's another video with the Smoke Unit running: Hopefully soon I will get around to getting some good pictures of my passenger cars.

The red plates on the bottom might not be necessary under light loads, but I've always liked to fortify my gear trains as much as possible personally. One thing to note is that with plates under the technic bricks like that, you're not going to be able to make it past switches or crossovers without swapping out the stock traction bands for some thicker O-Rings to give you an extra mm or two of height. Of course, you get better traction that way too, so it could be seen as a win all around. :D And yeah, 2711 is a really awesome piece that hasn't been made in quite a while. Very useful in some situations though!

I made this a few years back, and it's very strong. Basically you build around the motor so that the whole motor works as a pivot. The outermost 5-L Technic half lift arm should actually be this part: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=2711 With a little tinkering you can use other motors instead of an XL-Motor if you really want. This was actually a derivative of a motor bogie used by BMW_Indy in either his Wild West or Circus Train using an M-motor, which was itself a derivative of Space2310's version which was narrow gauge! So it's pretty well-traveled design.

Thank you! The powered stand came about because I don't have much ability to set up my track outside of shows any more, and my most of the displays my LUG does don't have room for a big loop of track. I really like the way the motion turned out and wanted to be able to see it in action more often than once or twice a year, so, I built the powered stand! The other thing I like about it is that for shows out here in ABQ, my #2926 model has always sort of the attention-getter among the LEGO locos since they're restoring it. Having a self-powered display stand is great for that since I can have #2926 "running" on the stand even if it needs to be recharged or if we want to run some other locos on the main lines. I do not have a sound unit yet - that's something that is planned for a later update when I get enough spare money. The hope is to upgrade the loco later with a PFx Bluetooth unit so I can try out the PFx speaker. The other big thing keeping me back from that is that I'm not sure where to get the right sound files for #2926. I do also want to look into getting a fan-driven smoke unit at some point to get the smoke chuffs synced up to the wheels - I don't know how expensive or complicated any of that will be, but I've got a few other projects I'd like to take care of first before I delve into the "V3.5" upgrade. It would seem that, like real locomotives, there's always changes to be rolled out from the factory. :D Yeah, I'm not sure if all the Boxpoks will be like that though. A friend bought a set of them very early this year/late last year and they were so loose they don't want to stay on the axle, but every set we've bought the since I got these the axles have been too tight. Either way there's solutions, of course, but I'm not sure the variances in printing will always be the same. And finally, no, the builder's plates are not blank, they actually have text perfectly matching the real builder's plate. The problem is that for some reason the background of the builders plate stickers were printed gray and not black, so it's hard to see the detail and even moreso in the sunlight. I will probably look into getting these re-printed soon, but I've got a show next weekend and want to wait until after that. Speaking of the show... I'll be getting some good video of it hauling my new passenger car consist. 11 feet of LEGO train. :D I'll definitely post those videos here, so keep an eye out. Best of luck! :D I hope it helps.

Thank you! It's always my hope that the non-LEGO bits don't detract from the LEGO build. I've seen instances where the non-lego parts, or sheer amount of stickers wrapping a build, really distracted me from what was actually a pretty good build underneath. I'm glad that these extra features don't ruin it for you, it feels like a tricky balance some times! It's true, if LEGO made these parts, I would of course use the real LEGO version. I understand of course why they don't - the impression I've got is that LEGO Trains as a theme nowadays really is just profitable enough to do what they're doing and not much more. So, I understand that they're going to limit the amount of train-specific parts that they produce. From that perspective, I try to do as much of the build as purist as I can. The shaping, the functionality, I want the soul to be LEGO. For things like rods and drivers, I'm very lucky to see that the people who are custom producing these understand the feel and the soul of LEGO part design, or at least their understanding aligns with mine. These parts feel like they could be LEGO parts, and I don't feel like they're overspecialized. I think that if LEGO were to produce drive rods, they'd look very much like Benn's. If LEGO were to produce XXL drivers, they'd look very much like Shupp's. If LEGO were to produce a train set like this and have printed parts with a Safety Tread design, I think it wouldn't be far from what OKBrickworks has made for me. To me, even though I know I'm breaking real LEGO "purism", I feel like this is still within the spirit of the endeavor - though I'm perfectly aware and fine that many might disagree. Things like the Brickstuff lights and the smoke generator are perhaps outside of this ethos a bit. But those... well, heck, they're just so cool I don't care.

Haha, well, perhaps some day we will have to find a way to trade designs Wow, that's really interesting! It seems odd to me that the railroad would overlook maintaining these cabins but keep the rest of the tender water tight - I assume, anyways, that if any other spots of the tender were to develop leaks of that sort they would repair them rather readily. I wonder if the maintenance was overlooked by crews intentionally as an excuse to get out of them? Either way, it's a very neat idea and it's really cool to see it here on this model. Thanks for the information!

You know, I've really never liked Brickheads. Just the concept of them, really. But, I really like the idea of modifying them to be able to fit a minifig inside of it. If I ever do end up with any Brickheads, I'll definitely do this. It's sort of like a nesting doll sort of feel to it, which is way more fun.

Another very well-built Locomotive! Your German Locomotive builds always make me think that I'd like to have one too someday. I'm really interested in the secondary cab on the tender. I don't suppose you could tell us more about that? I've never seen or heard of such a thing!