jimim

Hi guys! I noticed the modular book store was backordered vs sold out today. I'm still trying to grab the haunted mansion and pirate bay. Is there a thread tracking when they come in and out. I swear i found one a few weeks ago. Also does anyone know when it went on sold out or has is been on backorder recently. I try to check everyday but sometimes I forget. Was wondering if I missed it recently. THanks, jim

I’m going to Home Depot today. I have the wheels with me. All wheels have the clear bands cause all the wheels I have bought were. Ought through LEGO in the past few months and the other wheels r with the 2 current trains. I didnt get get a chance to play last night and test. My kids transformer for his Lionel train is leaking I found out so that too is down for the count. I’m heading to the train shop now for that also. Poor or kid has no Lionel train now. Hopefully they have a spare transformer for him to use. Train is only up for holiday. And he is frustrated with the LEGO ones now. Lol. As am I.

hi guys. i'm sorry some points to clear up. i'm running on only lego track. i didn't put out the off brand track yet. so the track and trains are all lego brand. 60052 is the one engine i'm talkign about. the other is 60098. they are both slipping too. and they are built according to lego. when i just have the engine on the track i'm ok. as soon as i try and pull more than 2 cars i get slippage. the track is flat i assume without taking a level to it. so i mean visually ya flat, not up and down like i think you guys are talking about. track is clean. the biggest issue train is the old xmas train. the wheel motor is the second car of the set. i just removed the base of the stock car and replaced it with the motor base. so does it have alot of weight. no. same as if it was a push train. again. it is pushing the engine which is stock. the battery box and sensor is in next car which is the passanger car. so that is heavier. i can snap some pics tonight. i'm at wok now. does this info help? jim

OK train pro's. you have helped my son and myself out alot over the past few weeks with his train setup. I have a new issue. on his blue heavy hauler train, his red train (current one), and the old xmas train I'm getting wheel slippage. The xmas train has the RC motor in the wood tender car. it pushes the engine the battery pack and sensor for IR is in the passenger car. it also is pulling the other 2 cars for the set. slippage. lots. to gt it doing and once it hits a turn i get more slippage. Same goes for the other engines. My batteries are new. The wheels are the current RC motor bodies with wheels. the clear rubber around the wheels. I'm sitting on carpet. I didn't have slippage with the new trains till recent. can the rubber be wearing out? is there better rubber i can get for the wheels? i saw that in another thread. didn't know if it was lego brand or other? Do i need to be weighing down the motor more? will the carpet if fluffy hinder? didn't before. it's like a higher softer nap carpet. I don't know any other info you all need to help. thanks again! jim PS on a lighter note. got our track from amazon. spirit world. matches perfect. look exactly the same as the lego branded one. for 1 dollar a piece can't beat it. i'm picky with things all matching also. very pleased.

I know this totally doesn’t fit in with the others but in typical town at least here in the USA not all the buildings match. I live in the north east pa area so we have lots of old school jersey diners here still. The classic steel front look. I actually just had lunch in one today. I like this piece cause it speaks of where I live a bit. I’m getting it. I’m late the the game. I only have the last 6. I also like the classic faces vs new ones though.

I ended up buying a bunch of spirit world brand. I’ll let you all know how they r when they come. I also vote for my son a bunch of stuff from TrixBrix. The ultimate crossover pack. The elevation package. And a few other things. We should have a pretty good supply now to get 3 trains mover at once without too much difficulty for him. Hopefully. Lol

thanks everyone. i'm not seeing straights in a lot of the above companies mentioned. just switches and diff curve sizes. so if i go the brick link route what is a good price in USA dollars for a single R40 curve or straight piece? thanks! jim

I know this is a very basic question and a google search gives many results, but I wanted advice on quality. It gets expensive if I want to buy packs of track from Lego. Is their a company that makes or sells track that is good quality and very close to Lego's quality? I have found some on Amazon and google but don't know what is good or isn't as good. I am ordering a bunch of stuff from TrixBrix. The elevation pack. a triple switch so my son can park trains not being used and some crossovers. They all look really great. He doesn't sell packs of straight track or the R40 curves. Spirit World is the one on Amazon I noticed. I went to BrinkLink but I don't know what is considered a good price or what is expensive. Spirit world for straight is like 1 dollar per piece in USA money. Thanks so much for the help as always. jim

thanks peter! that deff gets me going! jim

i saw this video. they do look impressive. how smooth is the transition of the last incline track to level surface again on the raised section? any ideas of where i can get some instructions for some new cars for him? thanks a lot, jim

thanks for that video. i just found TrixBrix today while searching for raised track ideas. They appear to be made pretty good and the price is fair for the set. Great video. I like how you showed the curved raised section also. Thanks!

Hi guys, I don't have a lot of train experience so I'm looking to you all for some help and direction. My son has been watching you tube videos of trains and he wants to do some lifted/ up and down train track. I noticed some are built out of technic, but right now all of his technic stuff is together cause he plays with them. Can anyone point me to dome design with traditional bricks to make some lifted sections with ramp for track up and down also so we can get a 2 tiered layout going. Also, I have my train from the early 80's which is back together and he has the 2 current construction trains. I bought parts for more wheels nd bases from the 2 main designs of the current cars, but is there anywhere I can get instructions (big thing. i really don't have the knowledge yet for looking at a pic and recreating it) for some new cars. maybe ones with sliding side doors. Simple stuff that I don't have to go crazy for pieces. things i can get off lego's cite easy to buy. EDIT: I just saw TrixBrix set you can buy. They seem pretty nice cause you can pivot the middle section to sit the track properly during the incline but didn't know how stable the transition from incline to flat raised section would be. The price appears fair. Didn't know what others think. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it. jim

This Is really awesome. Would also love to see some light detail!

hey dan. totally fits! yes i have to put the IR and the battery pack in the rear. I'm going to make a tender for them. I just have to find something easy online. :) my mother, out of nowhere, found 6 of the 8 magnets for my couplers! how wacky is that. they were in a sewing box of hers. no idea. so i found a set of old one s on eBay. oh and my old motor actually works, but i think i would rather have it remote controlled for him so i'm going that route. so now all i need, and maybe you can help me out, is what the namer part number for the old base with the couplers or even the version without couplers so i can build him 2 other engines from old parts. i'm going to build the other black one that was in the instruction manual for the set. here is a pic of the part. oh and of the train together. i wish i could put together 1 or 2 more of the passenger cars, but finding the doors would prob be really hard. Untitled by Jim, on Flickr Untitled by Jim, on Flickr was fun bringing the set back to life. its in great shape. grey bricks are kinda worn, but not bad at all! thanks for all the help! jim

Thanks guys. So I can take the couplers from the new trains and just use them on the old train. We didn't start the train yet. He is "earning it" but doing work each day with my mom after pre school. If so that would make the most sense for me then cause I can get those easily and I can use my old cars on a new engine. Regarding the motor. SO lets say I don't want to use the c battery train tender. Can I build the engine out and ad in a new motor that is from today. The IR one. Is there anywhere on the net I can look to pretty much make a new base with wheels and build the engine onto that? That way I can just loose the old motor and wheels and start fresh with updated pieces. Ya it would be nice to have the whole set intact but if I can remote control it that would be even better Thanks again, jim I just look at the pieces and manual for the blue train we bought. It has the rear 4 wheel motor. can i build that along with the ir emitter into the red diesel train I have. seems to be similar size. Then maybe build the battery pack into the tender or make a new tender for it? would this newer motor size up well with the old motor? jim

I pulled out my old train the other day so my son and I can add it to his small setup. I have a few issues. 1. The rubber around the wheels which are attached to the motor are all dry rotted. So I have no grab. Is it possible to add a new motor or base setup so I can build the engine that it came with still? I will buy whatever I need. 2. The other problem is I have zero magnets that Acted as the couplers for each piece I still have the actual black pieces they attach to though. So can I replace this whole piece with new ones if so can I buy these easily. sorry if these r pretty rookie questions I'm just trying to wrap my head around all of this. thanks a lot, jim

hi guys. sorry to dig this up again. i'm building the 42009 for my son cause he loved the volvo so i figured this was the next step in a larger build for him. last night i stumbled on this mod. i have never done a mod before. I'm coming out of the dark ages from back in the 80's technics. i downloaded the extra pieces i need. i have a bunch of questions. 1. the instructions i downloaded are awesome, but do i have to do anything different then what the instructions say. i read a few guys had some issues here and there, but didn't know if those changes are reflected in the manual. 2. the yellow pieces i'm having trouble finding. namely the longer technic pieces the 15 length ones. can i sub for a different color? also no luck on the yellow side triangular pieces. sorry don't know what they are called. can i sub those out for a different color that might work? 3. motors. i have to buy everything. i don't want to strip the volvo down cause i still need more so figured i would start to build a supply. what length extension wire do i buy? it doesn't say and lego sells 2 different lengths. also version 2 is only available from lego so i assume it's ok since i'm buying everything fresh and not mixing and matching new and old? thanks so much. sorry if these are noob questions, but i don't want to sink well over 200 dollars most likely and then be stuck. jim

Sorry Rick my bad I didn't read your post correct. I didn't realize it was above. My bad! I'm gonna go back now and read

I think my 2 threads got combined. I should have posted in this one but I didn't think about it. But I think your post got deleted? thanks, jim

Ok I know you guys that build these amazing huge city displays really don't want to be talking about friends city setups but I have a 6 year old girl and that's where we are at right now in our lego journey. I am doing a city square setup. No roads. I'm facing the buildings towards each other. They are separated by large flower planters that have a tree built in the center of each planter. There are 5. I'm thinking of doing the planters in the sand color 2x2's wit the brick profile and then cap them in a different color. They are each separated by a 14 block wide opening which will have 2 benches and a lamp post . I have really nice balance going right now. My daughter decided she wants the sidewalks 6 wide. We are using 1x4 flat tiles for the edges and the center of the sidewalk will be 2 2x2 flats. so 6 wide total. light grey edge and dark grey middle. I was going to do the edge in a friend's color but I'm trying to push her towards the regular city colors cause as she gets older i'm assuming she will look more towards the creator buildings. She is already begging for the new one. Ok here are my 2 problems. . . 1. How do I bump the friends buildings to the sidewalk. They are not square. Friends loves to use curved windows and a lot of in and out wit the foundation. Luckily all the buildings we have are the same depth. 16 brick. If I bump them I will have curves with sections I can't fill in nicely with flat tiles. So my thought was a lot of outdoor seating and a lot of flowers to hide the areas I can't cover with tiles cause of the curves. I would love some ideas on how to make the transition seamless as possible. should i use the low profile fences to touch up against my sidewalks and the fill to the building with flowers? 2. Also I can't really bump the buildings against each other cause they are open on the side to play and have windows and such. I have 6 brick spaces between them now. I have zero ideas for what to be to tie the buildings together. some I was just going to tile as sidewalks to the back of the stores. i thought about dumpster/ trash areas for some. flowers for others. didn't know how wide i should make them or if you all had some different ideas. i fell like when i don't know what to do with something i just say "fill it with flowers. :) I'm so new to this and just want to try and make our first setup cool but also easy for her to play with. having separation between buildings will make it nice for her to play. i also don't want waste a bunch of money. i know i'm going to have a lot sunk into our first purchase just to do the trees/ planters/sidewalks and such. thanks so much! jim

thanks so much! I appreciate it.

you know what. now that I'm looking at the pic . . . Modular buildings building guide by 1982redhead, on Flickr ( i found this while looking at pics on flickr ) it's a solid circle? not 4 pieces to form a circle. but flat pieces stacked on top of each other? **sorry if i shouldn't have posted a link like that. i didn't know how else to do it. if i did this wrong for the forum please let me know. i don't want to do anything wrong.**

this is just so awesome. really great. there is so much going on but it all ties in wonderful. my daughter loves looking at all these pics. do you have any more pictures of the news stand? i would love to build something similar with her. she really liked this one along with the flower stand. the palm trees are nuts too! so cool! jim

Sorry. I meant still curved but 1/3 the height. The height of tile piece. So curved and same size and shape but the heights of a tile.

I'm trying to find the flat version of a curved piece. the brick version is the 2x2 brick with inside and outside bow (85080). I wanted the flat verso of the exact same sized 2x2 piece. I have googled for it over and over but nothing. thanks, jim