McWaffel

Hey fellow AFOLs! As some of you know, I've decided to get back into Lego trains 10 years after I since last played with them. I ordered new parts and now I'm in the process of designing a new permanent layout for my 9V and new PF track. I found that most track designers were way too overloaded with functionality for my purposes. I therefore tested the Track Designer on a Windows Machine that I had. It seemed to work perfectly for my application but since I'm a Mac user I don't intend to keep a Windows Machine running to be able to use TD. So I got Wineskin and got it up and running! So now here's a tutorial on how you can use track designer on your Mac! I hope this is useful to some people! Always happy to hear feedback! 1. Download Track Designer Find and download the Track Designer application. (I don't know if it's okay to post a link here so I'll just let you use Google to find it) 2. Download and install Wineskin Again, use Google to find, download and install Wineskin. The installation is pretty simple, just unzip the .zip file to a location of your choice. Inside you should find the "Wineskin Winery.app". Open the App for the next step (For this tutorial I used the Winery Version 1.7). 3. Installing an engine To install an engine, press the "+" on the left and pick an engine from the drop down menu (I used WS9Wine1.9.20 for this tutorial). Click on Download and Install. Winery will now do a couple of downloads and installations and should present you with an engine in the list of "Installed Engines" on the main screen. After this step I clicked the "Update" button, to make sure everything is up to date. 4. Create a wrapper Using Software on a Mac requires you to use an .app-wrapper. To create a new wrapper for Track Designer you click on "Create New Blank Wrapper". Enter a name for the wrapper (TrackDesigner for example). Then click OK. Winery will ask you if it should install the .net Framework. I don't know if Track Designer really needs this, but I installed it anyway. Afterwards Winery will ask you if it should install Gecko. This is an imitation of the Windows Web Framework - you definitely don't need that for Track Designer. So deny that installation. Once the wrapper is ready, a Window will let you know. Click the "Show in Finder" button. This will make it easier to find the wrapper for our next step. You should now see an Application named "TrackDesigner.app" in your Finder. It's located under "/Users/<YourUsername>/Applications/Wineskin/". 5. Launch Track Designer with your wrapper To launch Track Designer, first unzip the td.zip you downloaded in the first step into a folder. Make sure you unzip it into a folder - otherwise it will leave a huge mess of files in your directory! Open the folder with your unzipped Track Designer files in it. You should open two Finder windows for this. One Finder windows should contain your Wineskin wrapper, the other the Track Designer files. Locate the "td.exe" file in your unzipped folder and drag and drop it onto your "TrackDesigner.app" wrapper. If you followed all steps correctly, in a few seconds you should be able to see a window open up with the Track Designer up and running

Your tip was absolute GOLD man! Thank you so much! I just got the Super Pack for 180€ on Intertoys! What a steal! I'm super excited for my first PF train! Now I really have to get cracking on cleaning out the basement

Wow! That's incredible value for money! Did you buy it online or did you go to a store? I would immediately buy this super pack for that price!

Thanks for all the info! For now I'm trying my luck on eBay for a 9V set. If I don't get lucky before Christmas I'll probably go for the blue cargo train set. Pick a Brick sounds like a great place to get a hand full of spare parts and parts for my own rolling stock! Thanks for the tip. I don't think the battery is really worth it. It's quite expensive and you need to buy an extra charger. Next step will be to clear out my basement and build some tables and I will post some pictures of the office cargo train on monday when I'm back at work

Sounds like a good idea to be honest. I could just build the engine and create my own rolling stock and keep the parts I don't use as spares. I've never bought individual parts before. Can you order them online or do I need to visit a Lego store? Specifically train axles, baseplates and the couplings (and those rotating plate things that connect the axles to the base plate). Also: How is the battery-life of PF trains? I always hated batteries. Which is why I loved the 9V system so much. You could just plug them in and go. How much distance do trains cover before they run out of juice? Or how long can you run them (time)?

First of all, thanks for your replies! I'm not interested in the holiday train. I'm looking for something larger to get me a good sized starting point for PF trains, if I choose to go into that direction. The 60052 cargo train looks nice but I'm not 100% convinced since the rolling stock doesn't appeal to me too much. I might want to buy additional rolling stock for it. Is there any interval that Lego releases Create Expert train sets in? I'm really bummed that I missed out on the Horizon Express! I would have bought two of those if I had known about it earlier I don't know what either LTC and LUG means And yes, I will post a short video too :D Yes, I was thinking of the 60052 cargo train set as well as it seems to come with a generous amount of track. But I'm not 100% convinced yet. I would never dream of selling my 9v tracks or trains I've had it for 16 or 17 years and I intend to keep it. I was just wondering wether the two work together nicely. I'm thinking of buying additional 9v switching track to allow 9v trains to pass over and PF trains to switch to a non-electric track. I'm imagining it as a kind of overhead-power-track and diesel-only track - if you know what I mean

Dear Lego Fans, While at work, my colleges and I were talking about how awesome it would be to connect our work desks with a cargo train to haul post-it notes, candy and office utilities around our office. I offered to bring my old Lego train set and we set it up during our lunch break. It has really relighted my love for Lego trains! I got my first Lego set around 1999/2000 with the blue and white Lego Railway Express (Set 4561). Being a kid at that time, I could not afford much Lego. I got a few track-packs and switches and intersections. I also bought a Santa Fe engine and one of the cars with it. I've stopped playing with lego all together roundabout 2006/2007 when the first RC train sets were released and 9V systems were retired. It's been 10 years since I last got my train set out and now being an adult with money on my hands, I really feel like getting back into the Lego trains that I so dearly loved as a child. I'm now faced with a few problems since the 9V system is no longer available. For one I know very little to nothing about the new train sets. I'm wondering wether it's worth buying a new train set or not, which train set to get, or just lurk around eBay to see if someone might want to sell their old 9V system. I'm thinking of building a new, larger layout in my basement once I bring home my train set from the office. As far as I know, all the rolling stock will work fine on the new rails and the new trains run fine on the 9V track. so to conclude, here's a list of questions I have: - Are there any train sets out right now that I should get? - Are there any train sets coming out in the near future that are worth waiting for? - Should I not care about the new train systems at all and check eBay frequently for old 9V sets? If anyone is interested, I will post some pictures of our little office-cargo-train thank you in advance!