Phil B

Single PF train motor in the tender. It was slipping at first, but then I added bicycle inner tire rings onto the wheels and now it runs great. Pulls all 5 coaches easily.

Only issue is that the funnel is a bit too chunky when compared with the real Olton Hall. I'm still trying to find a better solution - your suggestions got me thinking ... if only lego made a black cylindrical brick that is 1.5 studs wide (and not bulbous like a minifig head). Any suggestions, anyone? PS: @coaster: Received my OcTRAINber prize from your company yesterday. Awesome product! You'll see it featured in some WIP pictures here shortly on the next thing I'm building (which will be massive and also HP themed). Stay tuned!

That is a great idea! How about this? Here's a real-life picture (I only had one 15535 Tile Round 2x2 with Hole in Black, so I had to use a DBG one). Took the clear O-ring off of the wheel.

First of all, thanks for the compliments and the suggestions. A couple of quick reactions: I left the boiler 4 wide on purpose. If you look closely at the front drawing I included in my post, you see that the width of the boiler is equal to the space between the buffers, which in 7 wide is 4 wide. I like your suggestion for the smokestack but currently I have no spot available for an axle to fit in. As I am toying with the idea to make the firebox one stud longer, I might experiment with different smokestack designs as well. The roof of the cab indeed needs a more severe angle to be like the original. As I started this as a Mod of 75955, I just kept the overall look of the cab, while making it 1 stud wider. I also wanted to keep the height of the engine the same, which further restricted my ability to change the roof (I actually made the roof 1 plate less tall compared to the original to compensate for the increased wheelsize. For now I am happy with how she looks like and she runs smoothly (ok, handling S-curves through switches is problematic but I think that is a common problem with the lead truck design - if anyone has any tips on that I’d be happy to hear their experience on how to fix it).

As already shown in a preview in my Hogwarts Express Carriages thread, I have completed my rendition of the "Olton Hall" steam locomotive, famous for pulling the Hogwarts Express in the fictional wizarding world of Harry Potter. Here she is in close-up: [ Hogwarts Express by Phil B, on Flickr This is a model that started as a Mod of 75955, but has progressed far enough from the original set that you can call it a MOC I think. Here is a list of all modifications I made: Lengthened the entire boiler by 6 studs and placed the middle section under a one-plate angle to better capture the shape of the real Hall Class. Widened the engine to 7 studs (almost 10 across the pistons and driverods). This allowed me to accurately model the forward facing windows in the cab, and allowed me to create openings for the wheel flanges to accommodate a larger wheel size, Upgraded the wheels to Big Ben XL Drivers and Big Ben Medium pilot truck wheels - I like how they have true spokes vs the printed spokes on LEGO's regular train wheels. The model works with standard LEGO Large and regular train wheels as well. Extended the pipes from the side to around the nose of the boiler. Redesigned the front buffer beam. Gone is the "lock" from the original model, but it features the same details as the real-life Olton Hall. With the change to 7 wide I widened the cab, but kept the original firebox and gauges from 75955, which was quite an "offset" challenge to do. Completely redesigned the tender to house a LiIon LEGO battery box and a Power Functions IR Receiver, though the model can work with PFxBricks as well. The tender is 6 wide, with one pivoting axle and a fixed PF train motor. On the pictures she is pulling my consist of 5 BR Mk I coaches - 2 First Class, 2 Second Class and a combined First Class/Baggage/Brake coach. Each carriage has a fully detailed interior and is 7 wide. Progress on these carriages has been documented in my Hogwarts Express Carriages thread. Here are the picture and drawing I used for inspiration: More pictures of the engine: The full consist: And the coach interiors:

Wow that looks good indeed! Thanks for the quick turnaround!

Love it! Wondering if you could put a vertical black 1x4 tile down the middle of the side, where the diagonal supports meet. Have you tried?

Just switch over to Stud.io ....

How about rotating the dome pieces on the nose by 90 degrees (so that the split line runs vertically instead of horizontally) and just sliding a colored piece of paper in the split? Edit: no need to rotate as they are quarter circle domes. Even easier.

@raised, thanks to you and the team at BrickModelRailroader.com for organizing. I had a blast working on the challenge this year, and am super stoked having landed the Movement Prize! In terms of feedback - I participated in the last Railbricks contest before they shut down but skipped the first 2 BMR OcTRAINbers, so I don't know if I can add much to what was already contributed on Flickr and other sites in terms of feedback. Maybe for the next challenge have both an "in the brick" as well as a "digital build" category with different prizes so that both types of participants feel included? Keep up the good work though - already looking forward to next October!

Very nice model. Love how you did the handrail on the side without using flexhose.

Ah that explains it! I would mount it on a round stud, and I would change the color to black, just to provide some contrast. White could work too.

How is that security camera attached to the wall? Seems to be a hinge brick bottom, but what is the top? There is no 1-wide hinge top, and I cannot see how else it would be integrated into the wall without leaving a huge gap (unless you have a cheese slope on there and that somehow works). Can you show some more details of that? Otherwise this looks very very nice. I love all the little details you added to make the build more interesting.

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3649&name=Technic, Gear 40 Tooth&category=[Technic, Gear]#T=S&O={"iconly":0}

Preview low-res pics and video, including my modified 79755: Hogwarts Express Completed by Phil B, on Flickr And here is a (very grainy) video of the complete train running - click on the picture to get to Flickr for the video:

Its actually 18 wide. Is there a standard multiple for widths? I was thinking of making it a little wider already. Are multiples of 8 better than 6? There is no forced standard (as with anything LEGO), but baseplates are sized in multiples of 8 (or 16), so most people follow that when they want to build something modular. LEGO's official modulars are also in multiples of 16 - PetShop and the new Bookstore come in 2x 16x32 buildings, Assembly Square is 48x32, and the rest is 32x32. The MILS standard also uses 32x32 modules (though it can accommodate other sizes, most often multiples of 8) and Brick Model Railroader's landscape modules are based off of 96x96. Net, going in multiples of 8 should make your life easiest. Note that LEGO train track (straight) is 16 studs long, also a multiple of 8.

When you call CS and tell them stickers are of poor quality, it will do 2 things: 1) It will trigger them sending you a new sticker sheet and most importantly, 2) it will register a Quality Control complaint internally, which, if they get enough of them, will cause them to review and potentially fix the issue with the stickers. Even if you decide to go ahead by ordering from @legoman666, I would still recommend calling LEGO CS just for item 2.

You can have as many motors as your design allows. Just make sure that they work with eachother, not against eachother. This means: - If you use PF/PU train motor bogies, their forward direction needs to be the same. With PF you do this by using a pole reverter switch or by mounting both motors with the electrical cord on the same side (which means one motor will have the cord in the center of your base and the other has the cord sticking out towards the end of your engine base. With PU you do this in software AFAIK. - If you use individual motors (M / L / XL), make sure they are of the same type, and that your gearing is set up in de same direction for all motors. Some people add differentials to the gearing to use multiple motors to drive one axle (this eliminates tiny differences in torque and speed). For a base: if you are building 6w, the preformed LEGO train bases are your best starting point. They have holes for cables and mounting holes for bogie plates (both standalone as well as the pins on top of train motor bogies). They do restrict you to a 2 plate thick base, and only come in a few sizes (6x24 and 6x28 being the most common). Building your own starts paying off when you go beyond 6w, or when you design complex drive-train mechanisms. They work best for “modern” train designs; steam engines are better built using custom bases. Hope this helps.

Nagyon jo! Your work is exquisite. I like the Budapesti trams - having lived in this beautiful city for a few years in the late 90-ies, I recognize and remember the Tatra model very well.

My advice to anyone starting with this hobby: 1. Look at LEGO Train sets from the last decade and decide if there is any one you particularly like. Ideally look at those that come with track and electrical components (so excluding Maersk, Horizon Express and Emerald Night). 2. If the set is still produced, buy it. If the set is no longer produced, see if you can get it Used for (relatively) cheap. Just note that current sets will give you PowerUp electronics, but older sets will give you Power Functions, and the systems do not (yet) mix. 3. Build it and see how everything works 4. Use this as the base to MOC up something else. Stick to the trainbase and 6w until you get the hang of building your own models 5. Start looking at additional electrical components (motors etc) for your MOC trains. You can buy these from LEGO (lego.com > Customer Service > Replacement Parts or lego.com > Pick-a-Brick (Smaller selection)) or from BrickLink/BrickOwl. I would avoid EBay as dedicated electrical component listings there tend to charge more than you would pay from LEGO or BL/BO. 6. Install Stud.io and learn how to make digital designs/prototypes 7. Experiment with 8 wide, or if you are masochistic, 7 wide digital builds 8. If you think you have something you'd like to build IRL, start BrickLink/BrickOwl shopping using the parts list from Stud.io and the battery boxes/motors etc. you bought in step 5. 9. Spend $1000+ dollars. Done.

Beautiful engine in a beautiful setting. Boldog Karacsony!

Don’t get all worked up about this. If I understood it correctly, the actual plastic is the same, it is just made from plant-sourced ingredients vs. oil-based ingredients.

I used to work exclusively in MLCAD (and briefly tried LeoCAD) but have fully switched to Stud.io after buying a beefier computer with a GeForce GPU. As I design to build, I love the fact that Stud.io tells you which element/color combinations exist and even better, how expensive they are. Greatly helps avoiding surprises. First thing I did was remap some keys (using WASD to rotate, arrow keys to move) and after that the learning curve was virtually non-existent, even for someone with almost no prior LDD experience.

One watchout when going to 1:48 scale is that even though that might sound like a very accurate scale, it is makes your models look awkward on standard LEGO curves (R40), or you need to make a lot of concessions to your model to make it able to navigate these curves and points. So you are quickly restricting yourself to buying third-party large radius curves (which are not cheap) like R104 and R120. I have tried to model 1:48 a few times before, but have found that it is much more manageable to do some selective compression to keep the length of my models to anywhere between 30 and 40 studs, and 7 wide (with extra width for things like driving rods, door handles, ladders etc.). This way official LEGO models don't look out of place, but you can still get quite some realism into your model. That said, the beauty of modeling with LEGO is that there is a ton of choice in terms of scale - and there is no one "right" scale. Each scale, be it 6w or 10w, has its own challenges and advantages.

LEGO Stores and LEGO Shop at Home have 71044 Disney Station and Train for 30% off ($231 instead of $330), plus Christmas Tree promo.