Murdoch17

"Not great, not terrible." (Sorry, I just HAD to say that before somebody else did!) In actuality, it is a very nice model, and I saw that you posted the (original?) sarcophagus of Reactor Number 4 to your Flickr in 2015. Really good work here on both models!

@Bricks-on-Rails, those color schemes look awesome! I'm personally thinking about making a blue and red 1980's-style design (such as seen in this topic)... but I'm not sure how I'm gonna do the front / rear windows.

Anybody thinking about other potential color schemes for this engine once the instructions get released?

This electric engine (number 9028) was originally designed as a un-streamlined freight workhorse for use in the mountains of the Western half of the North American continent on a electrified section of the Lego-Land Rail-Road mainline back in 1918. The engine uses a unusual 2+C-2-C+2 arrangement, which is code for two un-powered wheels then these are connected to six powered wheels connected to each other by steam-style driving rods. In the middle is a set of completely separate two un-powered wheels, and then six more powered drivers, lastly followed by two sets of non-powered wheels connected to the drivers by a pin. After serving dutifully for around seven years as a freight loco, the engine was upgraded to a fully streamline-shrouded passenger unit after another of it's eight-strong class was destroyed in a accident with a stuck Shell tanker truck blocking a road crossing. The 9028 was also given a higher gear ratio in it's trucks, to allow for the higher speeds that the passenger schedule called for. It was around 1932, that the engine type was first given it's title as the "American Crocodile", or the "Alligator", by a senior Swedish railway official on vacation. The name was picked up by local, then national railroad press, and the name stuck from then on, even officially used by the railroad that owned it from time to time in publications. (In reality, the loco was screaming for new pantograph's due to the old one's completely breaking, so I gave it some based on set 10277's leaked pictures. Also, this uses eight Big Ben Bricks medium drivers + four blind drivers for the driving wheels where the gears are. I swapped in the new steamer wheels because the regular wheels are getting scarce, and I need to conserve them as much as I can. I ordered the few parts I don't already have to complete this version of the engine today, so they should be here soon... maybe a week or two for the wheels.) Oh, and sorry for the bump!

Captained by a Scottish fellow named Albert McCartney, this ship, the "Kintyre", originally operated out of what became one of the Southern-most English Colonies. There mission was as a privateer to harass any Spanish ships coming from the Caribbean to the old world with gold and silver, (plus harass and steal from the French), for around five years, starting in 1705. But eventually, McCartney grew tired of paying his due of treasure to the English crown, and set off to make his own way in the world "free" of any government. He moved his base of operations to a small island in the Caribbean with his crew, where there resided a abandoned French attempt at a fort from years prior. He got his crew to complete the fort, and used it as his base of operations. He plundered many a French, Spanish, and other nations' ships, along with his former comrades in the English navy. In early summer 1717 the Kintyre was last seen by some trappers on land (near what later became the port of Savannah, Georgia) sailing low in the water, going north, unknowingly into the path of a massive hurricane. The resulting wreck has never been found, and it was rumored to have been loaded to the gun-ports with gold and silver taken from a Spanish treasure ship by Florida's southern coast. (which had been found empty of most of it's treasure in the 1960's.) This could explain the heavily laden shape of the Kintyre that day in June 1717. As to what happened to the ship after it left the later-day Savannah area is anyone's guess, as it seems to have vanished without a trace off the face of the Earth. This ship is named the Kintyre, and is a recolor and MOD of set 31109 (3-in-1 Pirate Ship) in the Creator theme. She is captained by a Scottish fellow named Albert McCartney (nicknamed McCartney the Green for the color of his ship and clothes), a former (fictional!) privateer turned pirate. Some parts are missing, as the plastic pirate flag from Ninjago, 12 lattice window pieces, etc. And yes, the name of the ship and it's Captain are both Paul McCartney references. (The Mull of Kintyre and Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey songs along with their creator's last name inspired the names of the ship and it's captain.) This MOD was also inspired by this very similar model by Eurobricks user @Wurger49. The name of the ship is supposed to go on the back of the captain's cabin spelled out in 1 x 1 printed tiles, located just below the flag pole. The Captain's cabin has a desk and chair. Eight cannons are ready for firing on the Kintyre. It was said by the trappers that last saw the Kintyre afloat that one or two cannons were pushed overboard to make the ship more buoyant. (Most likely against the weight of the treasure they had just stolen from the Spanish ship in Florida.) Excavations for enlarging the port of Savannah in the 1970's found two such cannons buried under two hundred year of ocean silt. These were confirmed by the proper authorities to be of the same age and type used by the English Navy around the time of Kintyre's construction in 1699. The only question remains is this: where is the rest of the ship and it's treasure? Questions comments, and complaints are always welcome!

Good job Kilroy! err.. @Pdaitabird!

I used some free instructions for the loco and coaches, which looked WAY different when i started on them. The tender is 100% my design, as are the three flatcars themselves... but the Gatling gun, car and statue are inspired by parts of official sets, just redone... not sure how you want to word that?

Thank you @Pdaitabird, I couldn't have done it without your neat coach instructions. I absolutely love putting references to old themes in my posts, so thank you @Brandon Pea! If I can squeeze in something from an old theme, I usually do. As for the engine, sadly, Thomas and Friends is 100% owned by Hasbro now. So there is now way to have him be made into a set anymore, sadly. And with the books being no longer written it would be a long shot to have it come from that direction... Why thank you @Laura Beinbrech! It makes me feel good to know so many people actually read my long winded and interconnected stories. To tell you the truth, I've never written them down besides what's on Eurobricks and Flickr. It's just too difficult to get it out of my head in actual "short story-like" format. Thanks @Axle! This color for the engine and passenger cars (reddish brown with pearl gold) was chosen because I had a lot of the necessary brown parts and was unused on my UK railway. That's all. Oh, and by the way: the entire train has been added to the first post in real bricks!

Can't wait to see what happens next!

Thanks for the advice @Digger of Bricks! I'll be sure to track down one of the red skull uniform for my classic gold-visor OGEL (don't worry, I'll just give him a red hand on the new torso, no delicate transparent-hook transfer needed.) sometime after the tower set comes out in the USA. It will look very nice with my classic underwater base (set 4795 from 2002) and additional skeleton drones. It even has a octopus motif on his belt to represent the mutant underwater creatures he controls!

I was inspired to build this model by set 76038. (Attack on Avengers Tower) from 2015. I turned it into a Classic Space skyscraper, specifically one for Benny's HQ. The reason I did this was my current building is not working out like I planned. (Not to mention it isn't nearly modern enough.) Thus, this one was designed with it's ultra-sleek feel and wraparound window on the top floor for Benny's office, overlooking the whole space base which he commands, which also conveniently hooks into the walls of the building at the base. I also had to add in another straight wall section to fill in the space voided by the previous bigger building that was removed. The street-side of the building features the canopy-covered front door with the year that Classic Space was started emblazoned on the top row of studs. (1978, labeled in printed 1 x 1 tiles) Slightly above that is the CS logo piece as seen here. The two upper most floors are Benny's office and then the memorabilia room, featuring Benny's original broken helmet and a golden Space Paranoids high score trophy. (Benny won several competitions in the late 1980's after being coached by game master / inventor Kevin Flynn.) There is also supposed to be the trans-dark blue Space infinity stone in there for safekeeping, but the Avengers needed it recently, so he gave it back and is patiently waiting for it's eventual return to him. The next three floors down are where the computers that control the rooftop radio antenna dish are situated. They all look the same so only one is shown. Here is my Classic Space space base with the new skyscraper HQ attached. Any thoughts? Does this look better than before? (I just wish I could use the big 8 x 16 screen piece, but alas, there is no way to fit it in.)

Actually set my castle up on my layout yesterday as I switched from my Wild West town to my UK-themed setup. As stated in the other post, I didn't build the Yule Ball dancing section, as it didn't fit into my Year 2-ish theme. I instead used the parts to make updated version of the exploding stone bridge from set 4867. (Hogwarts from 2011's Deathly Hallows part II line) My version is non-exploding, and features the Chamber of Secrets in one of the lower sections. (which is coincidentally seen in both films, by the way.) Anyway, I arranged the castle as I saw fit and not according to any map or studio model. I even rearranged some of the used set's different components to make it easier to fit in the desired space. The next time you see this castle, it will most likely have the new Astronomy Tower (set 75969) section in it, placed right at the end of the Whomping Willow section of the Castle, nearest to Aragog. Plus some more lesser-known uniformed students will be welcomed with two of 40414 Hogwarts student accessory pack at some point later this year.

Something Sinister is building... NOTE: The whole UK steam engine and one of the freight car orders are still on there way to my house, which means they should be all here by Saturday the 13th (At least I'm hoping so, then I can show the complete train off in my local LUGs virtual meeting.)

Just letting the Eurobricks staff know, MOCpages is gone for good. Sean scrubbed it from the internet's search engine's, and it's Facebook page has been deleted. Be prepared for a lot of broken pictures.

Looks awesome @Jim, with help with @Duq! Keep up the good work!

This train was originally supposed to go with the new Crocodile electric locomotive (set 10277) that was revealed a couple months ago. But it doesn't fit my UK "theme" very well, so I bought this train instead. This engine is numbered 514 (as a tribute to the HC514 part seen in the Adventurers sets), and the the tender should say LNER, (London North-Eastern Railway) as that's who originally designed and built the Z1 class locomotive. This 4-6-2 type engine is named Hazel Crusader, and is not actually owned by the railroad company, but it is maintained and crewed by the railroad's employees when called upon by Lord Sinister to be moved from his private siding. (That's why it has the non-LNER-standard gold, black, and brown paint scheme that matches his coaches: it's Sam's personal color scheme for his railway stock - it's owned by Lord Sam Sinister himself. He even had this locomotive designed just for him.) In reality, this Z1 type never existed on the LNER, as it is a creation of my own imagination. My fictional Z1 take on the wheel 4-6-2 arrangement is inspired by the 2-10-0 Austerity class of WWII (boiler wise) with a tender donated by the A3 which originally pulled Sam Sinister's train. This is Sam Sinister's automobile, situated quite precariously on a two-wheel flat car that is much too small. Being that Sam is cheap, he bought the one that would cover his needs... sight unseen. The railway yard master's eyes nearly fell out of his head when he finally saw what Sam was going to load onto this flat car! The flat car is easily detachable from the load, as you can see here. (NOTE: This car was inspired by the 2015 SDCC exclusive Action Comics number 1 Superman, recolored and heavily modified.) The car seats two figures side-by-side, and even comes with a spare tire in the back. This Gatling gun car protects the train from any goody-goody interlopers trying to make off with Sam Sinister's ill-gotten goods... namely Johnny Thunder and his friends. NOTE: The Gatling gun on this car was taken wholesale from set 79111. (Constitution Train Chase) These looted ancient Egyptian items include: a temple guardian from the Well of Souls (taken from set 7621, Secret of the Lost Tomb), a obelisk warning others to not defile it's owner's tomb, and the Queen's sarcophagus itself, with a very angry mummy inside. (Guess Sam doesn't listen very well, huh?) I wasn't kidding about that curse you know! Look's like Sam's somehow stolen a Sphinx as well! (not THE Sphinx, of course, that would never fit on his train car and would be a bit missed by the locals... not to mention any snooping Archaeologists!) Thankfully, however, Sphinx were not inscribed with any magic hieroglyphics, so they are safe to observe.... or in Sam Sinister's case, "borrow without permission". Unlike the Re-Gou Ruby's twin (yet not worth anything) gem which can curse you to an eternity of bad puns, as the now-mad Baron Von Barron found out. In reality, the statue's head was inspired the one in set 5978. (Sphinx secret surprise) In this train car we find all the weapons one could dream of in the 1920's, as it is called the armory car after all. (Thanks again to @Pdaitabird for making these cars in his awesome instructions, which you can find on Flickr here.) This is Sinister's war wagon. Why is it called that? It has old charts, brand-new maps, magazines and trade journals, plus all kinds of notes with clues to hidden locations with items of vast power or great fortune just waiting to be grabbed. If Johnny Thunder or Sam Sinister hasn't seen it or at least heard of it, the item probably doesn't exist. This car also houses Lord Sinister's bedroom for overnight journeys. Here we see the whole train at an "on-it's-side" view for maximum viewing. Thoughts, compliments, complaints, and suggestions are all welcome! NOTE9/22/2020: Added updated real world pictures of everything, including the Sphinx car and updated steam loco, now called Hazel Crusader 514. (as in HC-514, the print on the tile on the side of the cab. Took me quite a while to figure out a good name for the engine!)

Thanks, I'll research it a bit more from there... still not sure how too approach the passenger cars.

I'm trying to MOC out some two wheel passenger / freight cars for this engine... and I have no idea where to start as I'm not to familiar with continental European trains. (UK is a different story) What is even the designation (class name besides crocodile) of this loco's real world counterpart?

Here are my castle MODs / MOCs and figures. This model was originally inspired by 2011's Battle for Hogwarts set, to which I added a basement layer to bring it up to 2018 set design height. I also redid the roof peaks from sand green to dark bluish gray, and added more inside details. The stone bridge also no longer explodes as it did in the original set. On the left is the Slytherin common room, and above that is the astronomy tower. The dungeon is empty, as it is no longer used, much to Argus Flich's dismay. On the right side on the bottom level is the micro-scale Chamber of Secrets with it's large face in the rear and stone snakes statues. Up a level is the entrance to the chamber, the sink in the girl's lavatory that Moaning Myrtle haunts. Up one more level is a generic classroom. Bridging the two towers (literally) is the stone viaduct is one of the three or so entrance's into the school.... unless you count the seven secret passages! The castle as it sits right now. The whole castle up to fall 2019, including set numbers: 75954 (Great Hall) 75953 (Hogwarts Whomping Willow) 75948 (Hogwarts Clock Tower) and a majorly customized version of set 4867 (Battle for Hogwarts) From left to right in the upper row: Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, Prof. McGonagall, Prof. Lockhart, Prof. Snape, Prof Flitwick, Rubeus Hagrid, Argus Filch, and a custom random Professor. The students are (mostly) all as they are in the sets, with the addition of one custom Dean Thomas. With the new student battle pack (I plan on buying two) + the Astronomy tower set, I plan on having enough figures to fill the castle with students of various ages / school years. These are the Hogwarts Express train crew from left to right on the top row: Engineer, Fireman, Conductor. (I don't have the refreshment trolley lady yet, sadly) You can see my custom Hogwarts Express here. The lower row of people are just random denizens of Hogsmeade village.

I use the top two for the engine crew (engineer and fireman in work coveralls), and the figure next to them in dark red for the conductor for my own custom Hogwarts Express. (The rest on the bottom row are random station people.)

Wait no longer @Roadmonkeytj, @Pdaitabird @Carefree_Dude and @Man with a hat! All the final real-world pictures have been uploaded to the first post!

Those all sound crazy - yet plausible - enough to be actual episode or season plot points.

Well, at least it's Baron Von Barron's "house" and not Lord Sam Sinister. I've already got a real mansion for Sam, and this would be bad if they came out with a competing one. Then I would have serious problems! But anyway, I might have to snag some designs from this newer model, (Including that awesomely huge organ!) to have on my 70912-inspired Sinister Hall.

This looks like an awesome start. I especially love the seaplane!

Junkbot (from one of the old LEGO com games is in one of the real world-building pictures, and is thus in the set! You can see him in this picture in the spoiler tab.