Deeks

I just got my order of straight tracks from pick a brick. Ordered 16, go 16 individual pieces.

Yeah it didn't look too bad with the two lined up but shifting it just made it more visually interesting. I agree the stairs could benefit from a redesign as I feel they are little too close to the curb. With the exception of benches, mailboxes, lamp posts, etc. I believe the stairs of this building are the building element closest to the curb of the 11 modular buildings I have. Yeah, the Police Station is tall! Its height is why its on the top shelf and at the side. My plan is to build a set of cabinets and a multi-level layout in the 10x10' room behind the shelf unit so I can run trains and my winter village, which is 6x3' already.

Haven't posted in many years. Life has been busy but the collection has continued to grow as I've been able. A few weeks ago my wife found the Bookstore and Diner Modular Buildings on Marketplace, used but nearly complete. I already had the Bookstore but figured my town could always use more housing. I looked for examples of those who have combined two of this set and didn't find anything satisfying for the townhouse portion so I decided I'd try to build it in a mirror image because I've always figured you can flip a modular building with little to no modifications or parts substation. In this case I was correct, the only piece that didn't flip was the little door to the basement in the back but this is minor. It was little mind bending to be building the mirror image of the instructions, and all of the pieces of both buildings were mixed together which prolonged the building process and difficulty but I managed to get every piece in its place. Once it was done I put my two copies side by side and found putting the bay windows together looked odd and putting the doors together was almost right. I then decided to offset them slightly by moving one two studs back on the baseplate. This was simple enough and broke up the roof lines, much like some townhouses in my area are built. The only other modification I had to make was to rework the bottom row of the foundation on the one I shifted back to keep one of the technic bricks in the proper position to be able to still put one of the two connector pins between this one and its neighbours. I will likely build a double bookstore in the future but for now they are on the shelf in my office where they get comments nearly every zoom call :D I am planning a layout in the next room once I have built some cabinets as I have a much larger collection than just the buildings.

I had this one as a kid. I still have the printed Canada Post bricks https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?id=3709#T=S&O={"iconly":0}

Awesome! Would you be able to post a few pics of the mountains? I like the look of the white one, looks like long rounded pieces set vertically. Also, where was this layout?

If you use LEGO in enough sermon illustrations people start giving you LEGO gifts :D

Thanks! It’s the random things that get that customs assessment. I’m just setting up in a new house and have much more room :D

Can anyone from Canada who has bought these tell me what shipping and duty was?

I would guess the box art and/or the little booklet inside will be updated with the current sets. As I recall there is little instruction sheet with possible layouts when combined with the passenger and blue cargo train.

Well after taking much inspiration from others here and having moved into a large home this fall I present our family's Winter Village this year! There are far more pictures here http://www.michaeldaykin.ca/2017/12/this-year-as-we-are-in-larger-home-we.html if you are looking for more detail. I had a lot of fun setting up pictures of the crew putting the village together after the move, right from laying the track to the finishing touches. They layout is on a Costco folding plastic table, which by the way are almost exactly 3x7 32 stud baseplates in size. At first I was just laying it out on a white table cloth but after finding white 4x6 plates on the PAB and deciding to try some 3rd party white base plates, I was able to almost completely cover the table with studs. The Village is made up of all of the official Winter sets (less the cottage) as well as a some of the smaller seasonal sets and a couple advent calendars. There are 12 32x32 3rd party baseplates occupying the front 2/3s of the table with the back 1/3 brick and plates. I raised each of the buildings in the back by one brick and used, the 4x6 white plates to texture up to them. The PAB wall also had the round one stud red-trans tiles which I used to mark some paths, and then I went back and they had the red and green 4x4 plates which made the main paths around. My wife also filled in the back of the station a little bit to make the back look more finished. What I really wanted to do this year though was the mountain with Santa's workshop on top. After a BL order I was able to build it to what you see. There is a dish shelf from Ikea providing the structural support. I also used the Creator Mountain Hut to serve as the base of one side of the mountain. The plan for next year is to make it completely brick built and more of an L shape, possibly with a ski hill but definately a second tunnel portal. How it gets fleshed out next year will partially depend on next year's winter set and how it would fit in. I'm going to get one more 4 pack of the base plates I bought so they go all the way to left side of the table and then a couple to go under the back side of the mountain. I hope you enjoy our little village, our family is having a lot of fun with it and setting up little scenes as we go.

I had a line up of the vikings, wizard, king, queen and elves in front of my PC as a bunch of fans dressed up in cosplay for the latest movie. I also had where's my pants guy answering the door of the house side of the the PS to a hazmat guy. I've had the video game guy living in the apartment above the PS. I had the fisherman and butcher selling stuff to the chef at the back door of the PR. I've got the lady spy hiding on the roof of the bank. The gangster guy with the violin case walking the guy on crutches out of the Pool Hall. I just moved so all my modulars are boxed awaiting their new display shelf. It was a lot a of fun placing all the CMF, they really bring a lot of stories to my street. Oh! I also have group of street musicians that included a couple guitar players and the bagpipe player.

I just got my missing pieces in the mail today. I have a hunch that the issue was a mix up of polybags as I had about as many pieces left over as came in the replacement pack only what I have left is almost all technic pins and connectors. Anyway, its together and I'm a happy camper

Looking ever better! After seeing the layout diagram you posted a little while back I was wondering if you might add and small spur line to connect your village loop to the rest of the track network. Obviously not a section of track you would use much but I'm sure the holiday train needs to get to the engine shed every once and a while or perhaps do a "cross-country" tour. Just a thought. It looks great & I'm quite envious!

PaB is run by Lego, Bricklink is not. I was unaware of Bricklink until I joined this community. I imagine someone like my sister who has two young Lego-maniacs wanting to get some more pieces she's just going to go the lego site, see she can buy them and do so. She knows shes getting it from the official Lego site and doesn't have to search any further. Does it cost more, yes but, try to picture how the majority of lego purchasers (children and their parents, aka TLGs target market) would view Bricklink. To be clear I love Bricklink but its function over looks. It has no affiliation with TLG and so is someone who just wants to buy a few bricks going to look beyond PaB on the Lego website? I doubt it. If they do, are they going to go through the process of finding a store that has what they want and they go through the payment & shipping process, which is a multi-step process between the buyer and seller? Those of us who use Bricklink and regularly buy bricks don't think twice about it. As a one-off the convenience factor of PaB is going to win out. Its easy and its from the website of a company that has brand recognition and trust.

I got one of the 39R1's for Christmas. I was missing over 20 pieces, nearly all of them small, in the 1x2 plate and smaller range) I called Lego and they quickly acknowledged the missing bad and it should be here any day. With regards to instructions, I did find that my Emerald Night came with instructions that differed on the step where the drive train is put together from earlier versions online. We also had the service pack for the Shuttle Adventure. *IF* there is an issue, my experience has been that Lego will correct it quickly. I for one will be ordering this set as soon as it is available. My dad is a mayor and my nephews are quite excited to see a Lego "Papa" in his office.

i just got one for my birthday and am missing over 20 pieces. called cust. service and determined I was missing a whole bag. It's in the mail, until then I have just the top floor put together. Can't wait to finish it!

Such a great set my wife & I each got one for the other for Christmas

It looks like its in the product listing on a Romanian toy site. Here's the product page http://caramidute.ro/p/1003/town-hall

This one made my Christmas in 1988. I wanted it SOOOO bad. It was in the Club Z catalogue (one of the early rewards points programs from the Canadian retailer Zellers) and my mom managed to save up enough points. I don't think I've ever ripped wrapping paper faster than when I realized what it was I was opening. It pained me though because we had to go to my grandparents for Christmas lunch and I had to leave it at home unassembled!!! I spent countless hours with this set. When the extra track became available I ordered a pack. After the Airport Shuttle came out they released a track back that had switches, I saved up my money and eventually got 2. I would build all sorts of elaborate layouts. One thing I really appreciated about the switches was that the train itself could switch them if they approached and the switch was set for the opposite track. This allowed for loops to be created that turned the train around and back in the opposite direction. Great review. I would love to pick up another one if I ever had the chance. Futron, Blacktron I, M-Tron & Space Police I were my golden age of Lego. This review brought back so many happy memories. I've set mine back up a few times for my nephews and it has provided many more hours of fun.

Well I've been working away on my Emerald night playing with different ideas to MOD it. Now this is my first lego train (save my beloved Futron Monorail) and I always loved MOCing as a kid so I went for broke and bought two ENs on the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale. I've looked through many of the other great MODs & MOCs here in the train forum and I'm awed by the skill many of you have. Anyway I love the EN but I really didn't like the way the motor and battery box are installed. I really liked the furnace & engineer went in the back and was sad to have to pull them out for the motor. After taking apart and re-assembling my engine 3 or 4 times I came up with the most workable solution. This was to extend the boiler 4 studs and push the cab back making room for the furnace & engineer again. As you can see I've made it a 4-6-4 locomotive, which I found out is the configuration of the "Hudon" locomotives, the largest user of which was Canadian Pacific. When I was a kids there was one of these restored locomotives that ran a tourist run out of Vancouver which was called the Royal Hudson. I was fortunate enough to ride it a couple times while it was still running. It is now a museum piece. There are pictures of it Here Pulling the passenger cars As you can see the XL motor fits nicely with the extra 4 studs of space Room for the engineer and furnace again. The only issue I have is that the extra 4 studs of length are all behind the drive wheels so the engine does stick out a fair bit on the corners. Moving the wheel base would require much greater modification and from looking at the pictures of the Royal Hudson I realized the drive wheels actually were positioned closer to the front. I think I need to rework the rear boggie to better match the look of the Royal Hudson. My next step is to deal with my other annoyance, the battery box. For that my plan is to rebuild the front end and build the battery box into it. I think I've mostly figured out what I need to do the only trouble is I only have the AAA battery box and I'll have to take the whole front end apart to change the batteries. I might pick up a rechargeable battery box before I embark on that endeavour.

Sorry to bump an old topic but I saw this thread and wanted to point out something. I bought 2 ENs just before Christmas. My intent is to MOD them into one with battery & motor built into the engine but that is another topic. I came across this thread while reading past threads on the EN. I couldn't see how there would be a problem with the bevel gear popping off given the way mine is build. Then, I noticed that both my ENs have 2 extra bricks in drivetrain compared to Freddie's pics. I checked the copy of the instructions on www.brickfactory.info and found that step 5 on page 6 is different in my copy of the instructions. I'm assuming Lego recognized the problem and corrected in later runs. I thought I'd share this solution for any who have not come across it. Here's page 6 from Brickfactory Here's step 5 from the copy of the instructions I have -- NOTE the 1x1 brick threaded on the axle. When I was building my EN I thought this was an odd place for a brick but it does serve to keep the bevel gear in place. I've ran it for some time with not issues. If you're having trouble with popping a gear you may want to try this. It butts up nicely against the drive gear. I'm guessing that the brick will get some circular wear over time but I took my engine apart and didn't see any yet.

So I received 2 3179s (City repair truck) for my birthday from different people last year. I had them both in different parts of my city but I thought one could be made into a MOW vehicle. I had already MOD'd one of them, reworking the storage boxes and cherry picker so I decided to MOD it some more. This week I picked up 2 7936s, mainly for the track and the parts I figured I needed for my new vehicle. The first challenge was to add the train wheels to my truck. To do this I raised the entire truck one plate to allow room for the train wheels to fit under the bumpers when in the up position. I also had to modify both bumpers to make room. I swapped out the cherry picker for the crane arm. With the exception of a couple of plates this is built entirely from the original two sets. Here it is with the crane arm deployed You can see I replaced the cheeseslopes with plates on the front bumper. This gives just the smidge of space needed when the wheels are up. I put those cheese slopes on the roof to serve as a holding place for the crane are when it is not deployed. The rear view. I made the rear bumper only one stud high. I also pushed it out a brick to make it flush with the back of the truck box. The other side with tool rack. Crane arm put away. There is an area for misc cargo. Another shot from the side with the train wheels in the up position. There you have it. Thanks for looking!

Thanks for the review. My 7 year old nephew got this set for Christmas. He loves this forest fire theme. I was impressed with how sturdy it was. One feature that I particularly liked was the way the equipment rack was mounted in the back so it comes out either side but sits inside securely.

Hello all, I thought it time I introduce myself. I've been lurking though occasionally posting, for well over a year. I played with Lego for many, many hours as a child. The Futron Monorail was one of my most prized possessions for which I bought several of the track expansion tracks which gave me many options. I spent over 15 years in my Dark Ages but began to emerge when I had two nephews for whom I bought every Thomas Duplo set. They are a little older now but the love of Lego has been firmly entrenched in them. A few years ago my wife saved up and bought me the Town Plan for Christmas. Spending much of the next two days putting it together firmly removed me from my Dark Ages. I held back from getting into Lego trains, mainly due to space and cost but I bit the bullet and bought 2 Emerald Nights. I got two b/c they were on sale & I wanted the extra passenger wagon and the extra parts to modify the locomotive. I bought some track off Bricklink and set it up when the kitchen table is clear. I'm working on some train MOCs which I hope to share in the future.

That's quite a MOD'd EN and it looks like an M, not an XL motor. What I don't like about motorizing the EN the official way is the battery box being so obvious. I've been playing around with different ways to motorize mine. I have 2 so I do have extra parts which is helpful. If you really want to motorize the tender & you have some extra pieces you could make the tender a little longer so you could balance out the wheels. You could also make it a bit taller so you can cover the battery. It shouldn't to too hard to create a gap for the power cord to come up from the motor to the battery box. I'm in the process of trying to build my battery box into the very front of my locomotive and moving the XL motor forward and extending the cab a few studs. We'll see how it works out, I'm just waiting on some bricks to arrive in the mail.