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Was the purchase made for "goods and merchandise" or "friends/family"? If it was for goods and merch then I beleive Paypal has some guarantees for seller protection. If it was friends/family then you may be SOL. Also - was the buyer in another country? Low feedback? Any warning signs? Not saying you at fault at all, but this may indeed be a legit scammer and you need to file a NPB on Bricklink and alert them to this asap.

I feel there has been a noticeable quality shift in LEGO over the past 2-3 years. The yellow on some minifigs (and now bricks too) is not as "yellow" and therefore does not match. A perfect example of this is the hands on the CMF minifigs made in China vs that of more classic minifigs. Additionally, bricks are cracking (e.g. cheese slopes) and clutch power is not what it was with some pieces. Not sure if it matters where the stuff is made, as lego QC needs to step up and ensure that things made in Denmark, Mexico, other EU locations, and China are all equal. It is not at this time. Its not an easy thing to do but if they want to expand their supply chain in this manner they need to do it right or stop manufacturing in locations they cannot control. I know I am not alone in that I have virtually stopped buying new LEGO sets due to the quality issues. Not worth the premium pricing they charge for less than premium products.

My wife would put them all on craigslist for $50 like she has been threatening to do for over a decade... Actually she knows their worth and would sell them on my BL store or ebay for correct values.

Sorry, but the prices of these minifigs are extremely high in my opinion. http://www.minifigures.com/dr-anatomini.html Yes, very nice but 15 quid is about 3-4x more than I would spend.

The middle carriage houses the motor vertically. It is connected to a 9V battery box in one of the carriages using a traditional 9V LEGO wire connector . In regards to using a PF batter box - I believe there is a 9V PF battery box but the connections appear to be different so you may need to modify something to get the power to the motor. I would also look at the space monorail sets if you plan to modify the scheme - they are generally cheaper than the airport monorail and the color scheme may be more adaptable too.

You should be able to buy Novus polish - cleans up plastics very nicely. Likely only need the "1" bottle unless the scratches are deep. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Novus-acrylic-plastic-scratched-plastics/dp/B005FVNBFU

The design of the pins to have friction or not have friction is done on purpose by TLG (the LEGO group). Sometimes you need a pin without friction, and sometimes you don't. These variations have different LEGO part numbers and some are even hard to find and $$$.

Most types of manufacturing are happy to save even just 1%.. as it will be spread across millions of bricks which adds up!! These types of changes in any type of production are commonplace and are typically made when there is a net decrease in cost and no impact to the product function / performance.

My vote is to just 3-D print the brick you need. No filing and no risk of losing digits.

Another fabulous layout and with more automation. It seems to be a nice cross of LEGO trains and the older PC game Railroad Tycoon with hauling coal and passengers. As for the construction workers not working - I see that is a global problem and not just across the pond. Thanks for sharing!

There are a few different types... perhaps this will open up some options. http://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?pg=1&catType=P&catID=238&v=2 or http://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?q=zombie

I don't see why it cannot be done in any 3-d design software. Solidworks, Inventor, Catia, etc. Each step is simply an assembly with various bricks and parts added with specific constraints and offsets. I'd also speculate before this they were all hand drawn, and why older sets from the 80's / 90's had so few steps with lots of parts added in each.

Trains, classic space, star wars.

Check the following page - has a lot of detail on minifigure parts across the decades. There are specific features in certain era's of the torso, hands, etc. that should match up properly to validate your minifigs are legitimate. http://www.leggodt.nl/items/lego/themes-minifigs.php

Very cool stuff Ole! I can only imagine all the other items that the general public has not seen from TLG! Parts, colors, sets, and themes. I'll leave it up to my imagination to think there have been revised monorail sets prototyped...